Sen Thune fighting the 1,500hr rule
- Thread starter labbadabba
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MauleSkinner
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Obviously having a 1500-hour minimum requirement would have made a 2200-hour copilot safer. 
Art VanDelay
Pattern Altitude
Well, that depends, what was her hour level when she got hired ? How much exposure had she received ?Obviously having a 1500-hour minimum requirement would have made a 2200-hour copilot safer.
MauleSkinner
Touchdown! Greaser!
Depends on a lot, but one of the most unrelated factors to safety is hours in the logbook.
James331
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James331
Looks like some airlines are padding a few pockets.
Wish it was just honest and they had a online ordering menu you could just see how much it cost to make " elected" officials do what you want them to do.
Private ATC vote: $25,000
Civil asset forfeiture vote: $12,000 plus 10% of stuff stolen lol
Wish it was just honest and they had a online ordering menu you could just see how much it cost to make " elected" officials do what you want them to do.
Private ATC vote: $25,000
Civil asset forfeiture vote: $12,000 plus 10% of stuff stolen lol
Can only offer my own experiences on this topic. I get tired of hearing the BEST way to build time to 1500 hrs is by being an instructor. I was one - single, multi & instrument. But I learned far more flying myself or an owner's family, friends, or co-workers in all kinds of weather, single pilot operation, than I ever learned flying students hardly ever being more than 100 miles from home and rarely touching the controls. Sure I logged PIC with the students but what was I learning?
Became a much more proficient pilot when I was single pilot. And when I was fortunate enough to fly something BIG, I learned from the PIC. Hard to believe it doesn't work the same way in 121 flying.
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Became a much more proficient pilot when I was single pilot. And when I was fortunate enough to fly something BIG, I learned from the PIC. Hard to believe it doesn't work the same way in 121 flying.
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MauleSkinner
Touchdown! Greaser!
Agreed...People get way too wrapped around the axle about when they can LOG PIC...they need to be more concerned about BEING PIC. Unfortunately it requires far too little time by yourself in an airplane to get a Commercial or ATP...Especially since the FAA defined "solo" as "OK to have an instructor along" for some of it.
Amazing how many captains are offended by copilots trying to learn from them.
I think 1,500 is an arbitrary number. I don't think 1,500 is a minimum number for safety. However, I do not think 250 hour pilots have the decision making, experience and skill set yet to safely pilot an airliner with 50-100 people behind them. I personally would like to see an hour requirement (750? 1,000?) in conjunction with an experience requirement (3 years as a pilot?) including higher requirements for instrument time and night time. Many of the CURRENT new-hires at regionals have never flown through a cloud in their 1,500 hours. That is scary. You can relax the hour requirements while enhancing safety by using other experience requirements.
You all are correct though, in that you learn a lot by just flying. Unfortunately that is what a lot of airline-bound people are missing. They get their CPL at 190 hours, their CFI at 200 and then they instructor in the same 172s and Seminoles for the remaining 1,300 hours. I have learned a TON by instructing.. but I've also learned a ton by traveling and making my own mistakes.
You all are correct though, in that you learn a lot by just flying. Unfortunately that is what a lot of airline-bound people are missing. They get their CPL at 190 hours, their CFI at 200 and then they instructor in the same 172s and Seminoles for the remaining 1,300 hours. I have learned a TON by instructing.. but I've also learned a ton by traveling and making my own mistakes.
paflyer
Final Approach
The comments are unbelievably ignorant. Politicians must love stupid people.
dmspilot
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I have learned a lot from instructing but the rate of learning drops off precipitously after several hundred hours. Also don't see how going to ERAU and its ilk is worth a 500 hour reduction. The requirements should be the same for everyone. My vote is an even 1,000 hours.
P.s. My phone thinks ilk isn't a word.
P.s. My phone thinks ilk isn't a word.
jordane93
Touchdown! Greaser!
Yet we have pilots flying fighters and tankers with very little flying before that and we trust them. 250 doesn't mean anything. How do you know many current new hires haven't been through a cloud?
hindsight2020
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The problem with that comparison is that the discrimination that goes on in the military in order to place that young man and woman into that position is in no way comparable to regional airline hiring. Not trying to cast aspersions on regional airline pilots, but military ab initio is NOT the metric to use to judge the merits of regional airline hiring. IF you had ab initio in the regionals, and IF they were allowed to exercise the kind of vetting we exercise in the military, you'd have so many attrited pro-pilot-dreamers/cubicle workers sitting at home all triggered and butt hurt it would make your head spin.
The bar is just not that high to get a regional job, from a vetting perspective. To be completely fair, it demonstrates that you don't need to be a fighter pilot to do the former successfully, which is my point. But do not make the logical fallacy of suggesting that because fighter pilots are put in that position with less than 1000 hours, that the aggregate population of regional airline pilots are outright capable of handling a fighter pilot's job given the same allowance of hours.
Now as to this thread's original point, I don't care about the safety angle frankly, when it comes to these barriers to entry. If the oligarchs can rent-seek, so can we as proles. It's America, land of Nimbys, middle men, Sooners, hyphenated-americans and F-U I got mine. So then, get what you can when you can. I hate the fact it's like that but I can wish in one hand and s--t on the other, see which one fills up first. This "capitalism for the proles and socialism for the owners" is BS. Fight fire with fire. Higher barriers to entry yields higher salaries for those in the seat. Hate da game, not da player. Doctors do it, so can pilots.
Comparing a new military pilot to a civilian 250 hour wonder is like comparing a Ferrari to a moped. A 250 hour wonder shouldn't be mentioned in the same paragraph with a new military pilot.
Would not hesitate to jump in an airplane with a newly winged military pilot, yet our department will not fly on regional carriers for safety reasons. No need being in a transport where the Captain is single pilot.
jordane93
Touchdown! Greaser!
I wasn't really comparing them. The point I was making was that we trust a military pilot with a fighter or tanker with little experience and send them through the training without any issues. We don't trust the person with the same little experience to fly an airliner to go through the tough airline training. The training is completely different for both but both are thorough and tough. Kind of weird that your company avoids regionals due to safety reasons. A majority of the accidents and incidents involve GA and corporate aircraft.
That is comparing apples to oranges. Yeah, they're still fruits but not from the same tree. Sorry, going to ATP for 9 months(!) is not the same as going through military flight training and serving for years.
jordane93
Touchdown! Greaser!
See the comparison I made between airline training and military training. They're not the same but both are tough and thorough and should weed out the bad eggs. No one has any issues sticking a 200 hour wonder kid in an F16 but everyone doesn't like the 200 hour wonder in a CRJ.
denverpilot
Tied Down
I got a warning from the MC and my post removed for answering your question.
Posted that there's literally menus with prices listed on them that have been confirmed as factual after being leaked by Wikileaks for both of the money/power political cults.
They don't want a discussion of how the airlines will buy the rule change. I guess they think because I gave enough information to know which of the two identical cults it was, and find the document, I was supporting either one of them.
A rule created by false information and public panic, and now being rescinded by money. Business as usual in D.C. The color of the tie of the cultists doesn't matter.
All I've ever asserted is that it's about money.
Someone posted a better summary elsewhere where the mods aren't so politically sensitive.
Paraphrased, they pointed out that regional pilots had better negotiate higher base salaries because the bonuses they're currently making, were *designed to be temporary* until the airlines could find a way to buy the right politician.
Buying a law change is much cheaper than cancelling flights or paying the pilots more. It's just accounting.
It's an interesting point. One can't ignore the money involved when discussing the merits of the rule.
One recent article says Horizon has canceled over 300 flights for lack of crews this year, just to point out again, without judgement of Horizon or anyone else for that matter, that it's about cash. Cold hard cash.
That same article also mentioned that airlines need to pay more, but the article writer stopped short of suggesting he would willingly pay more for his ticket. Of course.
Senators are cheaper than salaries. That's all this is about. Doesn't matter what color tie the Senator wears. Airline lobbies schmooze them all.
I don't know how to be any less "political" that that. This rule change is a business transaction. It's about money.
And yes, there are menus with prices. Go look for them. I'm apparently not allowed to point those out.
midwestpa24
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Lets be realistic here. No airline was ever hiring 250 hour commercial pilots, that was the first falsehood the families for 3407 and the pilot unions were throwing around. Yes legally speaking you can get your CPL at 250, but no one would hire you at that point. The lowest I ever saw getting hired by the airlines was 500 TT, 100 multi, and that was just before 9/11. Companies couldn't afford to insure lower time pilots, but that is another topic for another day.
The safety claims being thrown around by the media are all hype too. Aviation has had an incredible safety record for the last decade or longer, before the new rules took effect. As pointed out already, the pilots in 3407 would not have been affected by the new rule, because they were both 2200 hr+ pilots.
The biggest proponents of the 1500 hour rule were the pilot unions. They saw an opportunity to manufacture a pilot shortage, which would drive up wages. They used the tears of the families of 3407 for leverage politically, and got the law passed. And it worked.
The safety claims being thrown around by the media are all hype too. Aviation has had an incredible safety record for the last decade or longer, before the new rules took effect. As pointed out already, the pilots in 3407 would not have been affected by the new rule, because they were both 2200 hr+ pilots.
The biggest proponents of the 1500 hour rule were the pilot unions. They saw an opportunity to manufacture a pilot shortage, which would drive up wages. They used the tears of the families of 3407 for leverage politically, and got the law passed. And it worked.
jonnyjetprop
Cleared for Takeoff
Hang on while I jump up on my soapbox.
The reason why the military is losing pilots is because they are still highly prized at major airlines and the airlines are hiring. This has no bearing on the 1500 HR. rule. No sane military pilot is going to stay in the military and miss the hiring wave.
The real reason why Horizon is having trouble recruiting is that the pay and conditions are lagging and Alaska Airlines won't allow Horizon pilots to flow to Alaska. It's well known that the worst path to Alaska is working for Horizon.
The cockpit of a 121 aircraft is the worse place to learn how to be a pilot. Passengers deserve two qualified pilots, not just one (especially if he makes a mistake). CFIs will understand my next comment. When a pilot is in training, the instructor can and should allow the student to get in over their head. What can't happen is allowing the student to get the aircraft in a position where the instructor can't recover. In a 121 environment, the captain has to keep the aircraft within a fairly narrow window. In the bad days of 250 HR. first officers, it was possible that a new FO nay have never flown during a winter or in actual IFR. While folks poo poo the 1500 hr. requirement, at least it took someone a full year to get some kind of experience. If you didn't learn something while you're an instructor, you weren't really instructing.
While most assume that one can exchange training for experience, there will always be someone who sneaks through. That would be the Colgan captain. Gulfsteam was a bad outfit and most in the industry knew it. The difference between military training is that they wash out bad pilots. There's a bunch standing in line waiting for the slot. Uncle Sam spends big bucks to train a military pilot. No program in the civilian world compares.
The airlines are not hurting for mainline pilots. Even the carriers themselves admit this. The problem is entry level pilots. Why are folks not entering the profession. Like many over things, it's the Internet.
Why the Internet? It still is not a long time ago, the regionals treated their pilots poorly. Yes, today a new hire can expect to make 50-60K with bonuses. Here's the open question, why rely on a bonus program to generate a living wage? It's because the moment they don't have to pay them, bonuses will be cut, double occupancy rooms during training will come back and so will all the other things that made regional flying suck. Mainline carriers are still a good job, but will that change as well? This history is now easily found on the Internet and the airlines can't hide it.
What's the fix? Living wages day one. I'm not talking pie in the sky ALPA. The reality is that a new pilot will have to live in a major city and service at least 100-150K of debt. Since my wife (a nurse practioner) is still paying her loans off, I know it will take 1000-1500 per month to service that debt. The next thing is a guaranteed flow to the affiliated mainline carrier. American has warmed up to this, but the others only offer half measures.
Reguatory wise, I think that if anything should drop, it would be the FAR 135 minimums, not the 121 regs. This would open up a path to gain real world flying experience. What many don't know is that one must have 1200 hrs. to fly as a 135 PIC in IFR. By lowering this, especially for those college grads, they can go fly cargo for a year or two and get the real world flight experience that the advocates of the 1500 hour rule envisioned.
The reason why the military is losing pilots is because they are still highly prized at major airlines and the airlines are hiring. This has no bearing on the 1500 HR. rule. No sane military pilot is going to stay in the military and miss the hiring wave.
The real reason why Horizon is having trouble recruiting is that the pay and conditions are lagging and Alaska Airlines won't allow Horizon pilots to flow to Alaska. It's well known that the worst path to Alaska is working for Horizon.
The cockpit of a 121 aircraft is the worse place to learn how to be a pilot. Passengers deserve two qualified pilots, not just one (especially if he makes a mistake). CFIs will understand my next comment. When a pilot is in training, the instructor can and should allow the student to get in over their head. What can't happen is allowing the student to get the aircraft in a position where the instructor can't recover. In a 121 environment, the captain has to keep the aircraft within a fairly narrow window. In the bad days of 250 HR. first officers, it was possible that a new FO nay have never flown during a winter or in actual IFR. While folks poo poo the 1500 hr. requirement, at least it took someone a full year to get some kind of experience. If you didn't learn something while you're an instructor, you weren't really instructing.
While most assume that one can exchange training for experience, there will always be someone who sneaks through. That would be the Colgan captain. Gulfsteam was a bad outfit and most in the industry knew it. The difference between military training is that they wash out bad pilots. There's a bunch standing in line waiting for the slot. Uncle Sam spends big bucks to train a military pilot. No program in the civilian world compares.
The airlines are not hurting for mainline pilots. Even the carriers themselves admit this. The problem is entry level pilots. Why are folks not entering the profession. Like many over things, it's the Internet.
Why the Internet? It still is not a long time ago, the regionals treated their pilots poorly. Yes, today a new hire can expect to make 50-60K with bonuses. Here's the open question, why rely on a bonus program to generate a living wage? It's because the moment they don't have to pay them, bonuses will be cut, double occupancy rooms during training will come back and so will all the other things that made regional flying suck. Mainline carriers are still a good job, but will that change as well? This history is now easily found on the Internet and the airlines can't hide it.
What's the fix? Living wages day one. I'm not talking pie in the sky ALPA. The reality is that a new pilot will have to live in a major city and service at least 100-150K of debt. Since my wife (a nurse practioner) is still paying her loans off, I know it will take 1000-1500 per month to service that debt. The next thing is a guaranteed flow to the affiliated mainline carrier. American has warmed up to this, but the others only offer half measures.
Reguatory wise, I think that if anything should drop, it would be the FAR 135 minimums, not the 121 regs. This would open up a path to gain real world flying experience. What many don't know is that one must have 1200 hrs. to fly as a 135 PIC in IFR. By lowering this, especially for those college grads, they can go fly cargo for a year or two and get the real world flight experience that the advocates of the 1500 hour rule envisioned.
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hindsight2020
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This^^^. (Underlined my emphasis).
Yes. 100% of this. And those people would become great pilots during that time frame and learn how to be PIC, make decisions and save your own bacon.
eman1200
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Bro do you even lift
Politics. <--- that is a word. It is 8 letters. Sometimes it starts with a capital 'P'. (I'm talking about politics here). There are very few words that rhyme with it, maybe 'brownie mix' or 'shmolitics'.
Please delete this post which is talking about politics. Also, I will self-ban for the next 6 minutes for talking about politics.
Please delete this post which is talking about politics. Also, I will self-ban for the next 6 minutes for talking about politics.
KSCessnaDriver
Pattern Altitude
Yes, they were. Right before the bust of the economy, I remember when I transferred down to ERAU. You could graduate on Sunday morning and Monday morning you would be in class at ASA in ATL. It wasn't a lengthy period, but yes, there was a time that people did get hired at 250 hours.
That said, I don't think the rule ends up changing. Someone politician is going to realize that relaxing safety regulations, followed by an accident, is going to end up with a lot of blood on their hands.
MauleSkinner
Touchdown! Greaser!
135 cargo has a bad enough reputation as it is...and if they change "the FAR 135 minimums", it would also allow for "getting real world flight experience" as single pilot PIC carrying passengers under IFR.
denverpilot
Tied Down
Nobody ever proved it added any safety with hard numbers, and Senators who are retiring or planning to, do not GAF about making changes in safety rules (whether based on real safety numbers or not) for lobbyists, as they're on their way out the door. There's always a Senator retiring "soon enough" to buy whatever rules a big business wants.
denverpilot
Tied Down
Terrifying isn't it? Ha. And yet the missions seem to get accomplished.
Kritchlow
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Yup... but not always as they should.
MauleSkinner
Touchdown! Greaser!
Safety is not an outcome, it's a process.
ARFlyer
En-Route
Thankfully someone else has noticed that!!
I've had many captains look at me like I'm crazy when I ask for their advice. I asked one a few days ago about which way I should vector around a line of storms and his reply was "figure it out I don't care".
I had one flying around in the lower 200s in the flight levels. I said I'm a uncomfortable flying this slow up here. He looked at me and said "you against me trying to make money over your comfort level??".
Tarheelpilot
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He said he didn't care. What he really meant to say was I don't know.
The second one my answer would be "yes. **** your paycheck. Speed the **** up."
I had one dip**** captain refuse to speed up. It was my go home leg. I calculated the difference in pay. It was less than $10 for the leg. I gave him 10 bucks and rolled the speed bug up to Mmo. Then put him on my no fly list. He was one of two people on that list. The other one was incompetent. He must have had farm animal love pictures of someone in the training department. Extortion was the only way he could get through.
But I made friendships at that company I'm sure will endure a lifetime. Glad I left though.
starglider
Pre-Flight
Whole post is good, but I think JonnyJet really nailed it with this paragraph. Regionals are betting on pilots' being quite short-sighted and forgetting about history until they can get the 1500 rule repealed and go back to the Good Old Days of $18,000/yr salaries and crash pads. Historically, there have been enough dreamers at airports, which---coupled with the pre-1500-hr experience requirements---resulted in the ability to pay pilots like bus drivers. Regional airline management looks at pilots the same way muni looks at bus drivers and will treat them accordingly as soon as they're able. If you're at least around a 90 IQ and have an iPad, you can figure this out.
But the reality is that pilots aren't nearly as dumb as management needs them to be to fall for the shell game, and the only ones who go for it nowadays are the Truely Fathiful of aviation. I respect how much those guys love flying, but there just aren't enough of them around to keep the regionals staffed.
All that said, I think the regionals have a chance at getting the law changed. Buying politicians is surprisingly cheap. As just one example, Accuweather was able to buy a law from Rick Santorum for $11,000 [source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Weather_Service_Duties_Act_of_2005]. Now, that died in committee. So to actually get that law voted on and passed, they'd have needed to push money to more than just one guy, so let's say the cost is more like $100,000 to really get something done. Now probably increase that by another order of magnitude because it involves something emotionally resonant with the population. So my bet is that a combined $1mm lobbying effort from all of the regionals could get it repealed in a vacuum. Of course, they'll be fighting ALPA and some other deep pockets, so let's jump again to $10 million. That's still a very reasonable sum for a consortium of regionals to come up with.
Whether it'll actually happen is tough to say, but it's definitely possible. I would NOT advise anyone to join a regional unless they're independently wealthy and just need to scratch the 121 itch. I know a guy who did this (he made his money in real estate and flies for Horizon; I lease my hangar from him), and he seems happy. He's the only "happy" regional airline employee I know. He also owns a Cessna 310, two beautiful homes, and doesn't have any debt.
denverpilot
Tied Down
ROFL. You'd have gotten bonus points for pulling out an E6B to calculate it.
WTF do you need an iPad for?
unsafervguy
En-Route
for the most part true. however, airline flying and fighter flying are two different animals. the important difference between military training an civilian training boils down to two things. the military washout rate, and the training system. as hindsight states, the military vetting process allows them to train pilots in lower hours. that being said, a lot of those that wash out could make it through with a longer training system, but the military has the ability to take only the top of the class, so why would they not. the other point is what I consider the biggest difference, military training uses every minute of training time to the highest level. military pilots for the most part never just bore holes in the sky. every sortie is planned out for an exact purpose with expected levels of performance. this is where the civilian system lacks. I think if the civilian system had a more demanding training program geared toward the end goal, ie airline flying, then they could lower the required time to the right seat.
I have seen this as a captain at a regional. the kids that came from a formal program like ohio state, north dakota and the partnership programs were a lot better prepared than the the same hour or more hour kids coming from the local flight school CFI pool.
as to them hiring very low hours, right before the 1500 hr rule the regional i was at was hiring as low as 200hrs and less than 100 multi. It showed, washout rate went through the roof. it was really fun for a while, we should have all been getting check airman pay.
Yep. And decision making can be learned outside of an airplane or even aviation. I learned to fly at 41 years old; being an airline pilot is not one of my goals. The CFI knew how to fly far better than I did as a student pilot; far, far, far better. Decision making? Sorry, I had him beat hands down. I had almost 20 years of dealing with corporate political struggles and dealing with customers. He was in his early 20's. While they weren't flying issues, I'd dealt with far more problems/issues than he had; and some of them were vehicle, mechanical, computer or electrical related.
Unfortunately gauging that is hard to do. Early in the hiring process there's got to be something to measure against. No matter whether that number is 750 or 1,500, somebody will be ready sooner, and others still won't be ready. I had a CFI that was surprised I wanted to fly so high on a cross country flight (getting 10 hrs time-in-type for club insurance). We were at 8,500' MSL.
I like the 3 years of flying idea; or some other similar value. Heck, if I were hiring I'd like to see some meaningful cross country experience. Someone that had learned and then trained and never flown more than 250 nm away from their home field hasn't experienced much.
Oh yeah. Learning IFR in the dry southwest air is completely different than flying in the humid southeast.
BrianNC
En-Route
Thune Amendment Generates Emotional, Not Factual Responses
Industry could miss opportunity for a practical solution to the pilot shortage.
http://www.flyingmag.com/thune-amen...pJobID=1081419647&spReportId=MTA4MTQxOTY0NwS2
Industry could miss opportunity for a practical solution to the pilot shortage.
http://www.flyingmag.com/thune-amen...pJobID=1081419647&spReportId=MTA4MTQxOTY0NwS2
denverpilot
Tied Down
Flying is into the hype now, eh? Future pilot shortage, maybe. No shortage of pilots who'd work in the biz if they paid something better than a guy at GeekSquad running Malwarebyte on senior citizen's PCs makes. LOL.
Jimmy cooper
En-Route
Military training would have filtered out both pilots that took over fifty lives near buffalo. Military pilots that I've known , 6, were experienced and very sharp, with lots of hours before they flew for the airlines. IE:In the clutch, both pilots near buffalo did the wrong thing causing the accident to happen. Stick shaker went off, he raised the nose , she dumped the flaps....si ....o.....Nora! The military training is designed to weed out this type and get rid of them. Some might get thru but very few.
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