Regional Jet Pilot Training

[ScottM]

Anyone catch this nugget in the news?

Federal regulators on Tuesday ordered industrywide inspections of pilot training programs at regional air carriers in the wake of a crash in Buffalo in which poor training is suspected to have played a role.



The U.S. Department of Transportation and Federal Aviation Administration officials announced the inspections one day before Randy Babbitt, the new FAA chief, testifies before a Senate subcommittee about the agency's oversight of regional carriers. A House hearing will explore the same subject Thursday.
....


Laura Brown, an FAA spokeswoman, said the review will explore "anecdotal evidence" that carriers are hiring fewer experienced captains, mostly former military pilots, and instead going with younger graduates of flight schools.
"One of the things that will probably be part of the discussion is whether the training standards we have in place from a number of years ago are the right training standards for the current group of incoming pilots," Brown said.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon...egional_10bus.ART.State.Edition1.42593e4.html


Sounds like the FAA is starting to think that the 0 to left seat in a jet programs may not be producing pilot that are sufficiently competent to hold such a position.



I also heard they are looking at fatigue issues as well and that could also be part of the problem.



This action will lead to some interesting discussion in the industry. If it ever translates into FAR changes for training is a good question that I don't think has an answer right now.

 

[ggroves]

ATP - both seats. Puts a stop to the zero to cheap hero crap.

 

[tonycondon]

ATP - both seats. Puts a stop to the zero to cheap hero crap.

didn't we all start at zero?

 

[ggroves]

didn't we all start at zero?

Sure did. Zero should mean you have 1500 more hours to go to the right seat.

 

[jmaynard]

Sure did. Zero should mean you have 1500 more hours to go to the right seat.

Just where do you propose people get 1500 hours? There's not enough demand for commercial pilot services in other areas of aviation.

 

[tonycondon]

Just where do you propose people get 1500 hours? There's not enough demand for commercial pilot services in other areas of aviation.

they'll just have to pay for it. so instead of 3 months to the right seat it will be a 2 year to the right seat program. at the low low price of 300,000 dollars! I can just see the kids lining up now getting ready for their uniforms and hats.

 

[ClimbnSink]

Just where do you propose people get 1500 hours? There's not enough demand for commercial pilot services in other areas of aviation.

If you can't afford to buy the time, you can't afford to work the job.

 

[ggroves]

Just where do you propose people get 1500 hours? There's not enough demand for commercial pilot services in other areas of aviation.

The ranks need to be thinned. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING else is going to fix the pilot pay issue. Airlines will continue to hire the minimum at the cheapest rates given the current conditions. There are simply too many new pilots year after year. Market forces need to come into play.

You buy your 1500 hours, your freight dog, whatever it takes...but the incoming ranks need to be thinned.

Oh..BTW. Today's news article:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/British-Airways-asks-apf-15539391.html?.v=1

British Airways CEO is asking employees to "work for free" to help the company survive. My bet is that there are pilots who will take him up on it.

Supply and demand....

 

[Everskyward]

The ranks need to be thinned. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING else is going to fix the pilot pay issue. Airlines will continue to hire the minimum at the cheapest rates given the current conditions. There are simply too many new pilots year after year. Market forces need to come into play.

That's not going to solve the pay issue. You'll just have 1500 hour pilots working for cheap instead of 500 hour pilots working for cheap. That's how it was back in the early-mid 1990s when it took 2000-3000 hours to be looked at by a "commuter".

 

[gismo]

That's not going to solve the pay issue. You'll just have 1500 hour pilots working for cheap instead of 500 hour pilots working for cheap. That's how it was back in the early-mid 1990s when it took 2000-3000 hours to be looked at by a "commuter".

Besides, who decides which pilots need to be "thinned"?

 

[ggroves]

That's not going to solve the pay issue.

It will. You raise the barriers to entry. When demand exceeds supply, pay increases. In times of declining demand, you are correct. This will not work.

 

[ClimbnSink]

Raise the barriers first and you will get lower quality human talent putting up with a pro pilot career track.

 

[RotorAndWing]

Anyone catch this nugget in the news?

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon...egional_10bus.ART.State.Edition1.42593e4.html


Sounds like the FAA is starting to think that the 0 to left seat in a jet programs may not be producing pilot that are sufficiently competent to hold such a position.



I also heard they are looking at fatigue issues as well and that could also be part of the problem.



This action will lead to some interesting discussion in the industry. If it ever translates into FAR changes for training is a good question that I don't think has an answer right now.

Fatigue is a huge issue that the FAA keeps looking the other way on. The NTSB has several times requested the FAA rewrite flight and duty time rules only to have the ATA jump in and put a stop to it.

The flight training portion of Part 121 is not the culprit, but rather how it's administered in each individual airline. Management puts big restraints on instructors along with instructor and check airmen selection. The FAA does oversight of each airline, but there again because the FAA is such a fractured government entity the standards vary from office to office. The FAA always preaches "standardization" but yet they refuse to standardize their own policies and personnel.

 

[ggroves]

Raise the barriers first and you will get lower quality human talent putting up with a pro pilot career track.

Not before you make pay more competetive, put the furloughed and under employed to work, and draw experienced pilots who left flying back into the pool. You've got years of built up, qualified labor surplus laying around.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Not before you make pay more competetive, put the furloughed and under employed to work, and draw experienced pilots who left flying back into the pool. You've got years of built up, qualified labor surplus laying around.

Let's say I used to fly for the airlines. I have 3,000 hours and still a crap-ton of debt. I had to leave the airlines to get an IT job to pay off the debt and have half a standard of living for my family.

The FAA changes their standards.

Now what on earth makes me want to come back? I know I'll get paid crap, get treated like crap... Uh, no thanks!

This, unfortunately, is a problem that would require some pretty invasive regulation/legislation if it were to be solved that way. Unfortunately, it won't. Until an airline is willing to say "Hey, WE pay our pilots more than anyone else in the industry, so we get the best of the best! You'll pay only 10% more on your ticket to fly the safest airline possible!" then there will be no solving this problem.

 

[Everskyward]

It would be interesting to check the times of the pilots in some recent accidents and see if they had less than 1500 hours. I know that the the FO in the Buffalo accident had over 2000 because I looked it up after people started talking about low time FOs. There are plenty of high time pilots who have accidents too.

 

[RotorAndWing]

It would be interesting to check the times of the pilots in some recent accidents and see if they had less than 1500 hours. I know that the the FO in the Buffalo accident had over 2000 because I looked it up after people started talking about low time FOs. There are plenty of high time pilots who have accidents too.

Once again, flight time has nothing to do with it, it's the experience that counts. One pilot can have 3 thousand hours all in Arizona flying around traffic patterns and never flown in an actual IFR enviroment or high traffic area. Another pilot can have 3 thousand hours, single pilot IFR in the northeast corridor dealing with summer time CB's and winter time snow and ice. Which one has "more experience"?

 

[Everskyward]

Once again, flight time has nothing to do with it, it's the experience that counts. One pilot can have 3 thousand hours all in Arizona flying around traffic patterns and never flown in an actual IFR enviroment or high traffic area. Another pilot can have 3 thousand hours, single pilot IFR in the northeast corridor dealing with summer time CB's and winter time snow and ice. Which one has "more experience"?

That's all true which is why I don't think legislating some kind of arbitrary minimum is going to solve anything. The people who are doing the hiring should look at the applicants' relevant experience, but that is not something that can be legislated either.

 

[ClimbnSink]

Not before you make pay more competetive, put the furloughed and under employed to work, and draw experienced pilots who left flying back into the pool. You've got years of built up, qualified labor surplus laying around.

Something similar happened with the PATCO rehires. Any controller with any sense/talent moved on to better or at least equal things and the ones willing to come back were the bottom dwellers. Any pilot that hasn't moved on is not going to be star quality. Decertify your union and get paid/promoted by talent not seniority and someday wages may rise. At least you would have better quality pilots.

 

[RotorAndWing]

Decertify your union and get paid/promoted by talent not seniority and someday wages may rise. At least you would have better quality pilots.

That's a fantasy world that would never happen. The unions are not the problem in this discussion but rather management that would rather have a warm body occupy a seat at minimal cost and a FAA and ATA that will back them.

The paying public wants cheap seats, so that's what they are getting.

 

[ScottM]

Something similar happened with the PATCO rehires. Any controller with any sense/talent moved on to better or at least equal things and the ones willing to come back were the bottom dwellers. Any pilot that hasn't moved on is not going to be star quality. Decertify your union and get paid/promoted by talent not seniority and someday wages may rise. At least you would have better quality pilots.

Where in the private sector do controllers go? I mean besides a few contract towers and such.

I know that many controllers reentered the military if that was where they originally got their training. Many of them took huge pay cuts when that happened. But I really do not see what this has to do with the pilot situation nor do I see what your comment about unions has anything to do with it. If it were up to airline management alone, pilots would be paid minimum wage.

 

[ClimbnSink]

Unions are always a problem. Unionize and you enforce the lowest common denominator.

 

[ClimbnSink]

Where in the private sector do controllers go? I mean besides a few contract towers and such.

I know that many controllers reentered the military if that was where they originally got their training. Many of them took huge pay cuts when that happened. But I really do not see what this has to do with the pilot situation nor do I see what your comment about unions has anything to do with it. If it were up to airline management alone, pilots would be paid minimum wage.

The good ones changed careers and got on with their lives.

 

[Everskyward]

The paying public wants cheap seats, so that's what they are getting.

The thing is, airline flying, even regional airline flying, is statistically very safe. As long as it stays that way you won't find too many people willing to pay more to fly on a "safer" airline since "safer" doesn't really have much meaning. Now if planes start falling out of the sky routinely and most of them are regionals that will be another question.

 

[RotorAndWing]

Unions are always a problem. Unionize and you enforce the lowest common denominator.

The greatest sin of airline management of the last 22 years is to say, "It’s all labor’s fault."

— Donald Carty, Chairman and CEO American Airlines, 12 August 2002.​

I'm not a big union guy, but I do belong to the Airline Pilots Association. The reason you see airlines unionized is because of unscrupulous management.

Unions are not the cause for this discussion at hand. In fact the unions have been trying to get safety increased by revision of the FAR's only to have it shot down by the ATA.

I mean, they get paid an awful lot of money. The only good thing about them is they can't work after they're 60.

— Judge Prudence Carter Beatty, New York Southern District Bankruptcy Court, regards Delta Air Lines pilots. Reported in The Wall Street Journal, 18 November 2005​

 

[Greg Bockelman]

I mean, they get paid an awful lot of money. The only good thing about them is they can't work after they're 60.

— Judge Prudence Carter Beatty, New York Southern District Bankruptcy Court, regards Delta Air Lines pilots. Reported in The Wall Street Journal, 18 November 2005​

Wow. That is a helluva quote.

 

[RotorAndWing]

Wow. That is a helluva quote.

It's sad Greg, but this is how most airline management wants pilots to be perceived.

Those who are outside of the profession have no idea and to make such an inane comment such as "Unions are always a problem. Unionize and you enforce the lowest common denominator."are clearly showing their ignorance and how it relates to the pilot profession and the airlines.

 

[Greg Bockelman]

It's sad Greg, but this is how most airline management wants pilots to be perceived.

Those who are outside of the profession have no idea and to make such an inane comment such as "Unions are always a problem. Unionize and you enforce the lowest common denominator."are clearly showing their ignorance and how it relates to the pilot profession and the airlines.

Tell me about it. That is why I won't get sucked into this debate because it isn't winnable.

 

[Everskyward]

Once again, flight time has nothing to do with it, it's the experience that counts.

There's also a Catch-22 with experience. You can't get experience without... experiencing it and as Tony says, everyone needs to start somewhere. Even if you have a lot of hours doing one type flying, when you move on to something else you are inexperienced at that type flying. I know all about that...

 

[flyingcheesehead]

That's all true which is why I don't think legislating some kind of arbitrary minimum is going to solve anything. The people who are doing the hiring should look at the applicants' relevant experience, but that is not something that can be legislated either.

I've tried really hard to stretch the envelope... And it hasn't helped me a bit in terms of getting a job.

I have a mere 718.8 TT. However, contained in that is 486.1 XC, 470.5 PIC, 139.6 night, 25 actual (including plenty of approaches - I go hunting for actual). I've landed in about 35 states, flown from the Midwest to the East, West, and Gulf coasts. I've got CP-ASMEL-IA, but I've also gotten instruction in seaplanes, skiplanes, tailwheels, aerobatics, gliders, mountain and backcountry flying (and put that into practice)... Lots of people tell me I'm a good pilot for whatever that's worth. I have 367.8 in type, and I can't even get a job flying a C182 around in circles taking pictures of the ground.

I think the HR folks just see the 7xx total time and I get stuck on the same stack as every other 700-hour wannabe pilot. They don't want GOOD pilots, they want cookie-cutter pilots that fit their model of various hour requirements to satisfy the insurance company or to keep their number of applications down to a manageable level.

 

[Auburn_CFI]

Tell me about it. That is why I won't get sucked into this debate because it isn't winnable.

Yep. For some reason this conversation seems to pop up on this board every few months. I guess I am done with the argument also.

HCS

ALPA MEMBER

 

[Everskyward]

I've tried really hard to stretch the envelope... And it hasn't helped me a bit in terms of getting a job.

But where have you looked? Do you even want to work for an regional airline?

 

[flyingcheesehead]

But where have you looked? Do you even want to work for an regional airline?

Web sites, trade-a-plane, word of mouth, etc. And I probably don't want to work with a regional airline but I'd at least try it for a while. But, like I said, I can't even get a job flying a 182 around in circles.

 

[RotorAndWing]

Web sites, trade-a-plane, word of mouth, etc. And I probably don't want to work with a regional airline but I'd at least try it for a while. But, like I said, I can't even get a job flying a 182 around in circles.

Getting into aviation as a professional is all about networking. An excellent site for that is ProPilotWorld.com.


Start getting to know the various corporate and charter guys and get your name in the hat for some right seat time. Once you get over 1200 hours start looking at the freight dogs. Flying night cargo runs is an excellent way to build single pilot IFR skills and build time.

 

[Everskyward]

I think the HR folks just see the 7xx total time and I get stuck on the same stack as every other 700-hour wannabe pilot. They don't want GOOD pilots, they want cookie-cutter pilots that fit their model of various hour requirements to satisfy the insurance company or to keep their number of applications down to a manageable level.

Remember HR people are generally not pilots and don't have too much of a frame of reference for judging people other than hours. Unfortunately this eliminates applicants at the first screening. The hours game isn't just an issue for low time pilots either. If it isn't total time it's multiengine time, multiengine PIC, turbine time, jet time, jet PIC, time in type, etc. Of course there's also such a thing as right time, right place.

Getting into aviation as a professional is all about networking. An excellent site for that is ProPilotWorld.com.

I'll second the recommendation for Propilotworld.com. They charge something like $12/year and you need to be at least a commercial pilot (they check you out against the FAA database) but I think it's worth it. It's not necessarily a job site, more like POA for business aviation, although there are a number of airline pilots too. However, there are many people looking for work right now.

 

[Doggtyred]

Until an airline is willing to say "Hey, WE pay our pilots more than anyone else in the industry, so we get the best of the best! You'll pay only 10% more on your ticket to fly the safest airline possible!" then there will be no solving this problem.

Until airlines and their unions do away with the seniority system that rewards longevity, rather than ability or quality, then there will be no rational way any of them could make such a claim anyways.

Increasing pay 10% wont draw someone away from their place in the seniority list of an established company.

 

[ScottM]

Decertify your union and get paid/promoted by talent not seniority and someday wages may rise. At least you would have better quality pilots.

Until airlines and their unions do away with the seniority system that rewards longevity, rather than ability or quality, then there will be no rational way any of them could make such a claim anyways.

Increasing pay 10% wont draw someone away from their place in the seniority list of an established company.

Guess you two subscribe to the same talking points memo or there is a sock puppet among us

It's sad Greg, but this is how most airline management wants pilots to be perceived.

Those who are outside of the profession have no idea and to make such an inane comment such as "Unions are always a problem. Unionize and you enforce the lowest common denominator."are clearly showing their ignorance and how it relates to the pilot profession and the airlines.

Tell me about it. That is why I won't get sucked into this debate because it isn't winnable.

Is it 2 Feb?

 

[ClimbnSink]

Guess you two subscribe to the same talking points memo or there is a sock puppet among us





Is it 2 Feb?

Apparently one other person shares my opinion, pass the decertification cards.

 

[Everskyward]

Is it 2 Feb?

I guess I'm so dense I don't get the joke. Ground hog day?

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Increasing pay 10% wont draw someone away from their place in the seniority list of an established company.

No, but remember that pilot wages are not the only cost an airline has. 10% added to the ticket price might allow adding 50% or even 100% to pilot wages, and maybe even have a bit of profit thrown in.