Its finally over. The ATP pilot who knows absolute nothing about flying planes that are transport aircraft is no more. I'm not saying everyone who took the ATP ride in the Seminole knew nothing. I'm just saying it was possible.
I think the new rule should have only applied to those pilots seeking ATP not in conjunction with a new type rating. The training for initial ATP/type rating could add a sim or 2 and call it a good compromise. Why go through sim training to take a written before you go through sim training? I'll never understand that.
I'll get to the bolded later.
First, I think you're conflating issues here. Issue #1 is the perceived validity of the ATP license when the requirement was 1500 hours of time that by the very nature and time progression of the applicant, is historically accomplished in non-airline operations (unless you fell under the years of 250 hr CPL-holding regional newhires of mid-late 2000s) and generally underpowered piston equipment. Issue #2 otoh, was the *new* cost associated with the license in order to go beg for an airline job and how that affects the supply of pilots in an environment of increasing hiring and baby boomer attrition.
The only thing Aug 1 2016 brings is the end of non-type-rating associated initial ATP by virtue of cost. Ergo, the madness about the Seminole in the last two years only deals with issue #2. This is because people of my demographic, aka military pilots flying airplanes for which there is no civilian operator (thence no availability of civilian type rating mil-comping) are still going to have to play the semenhole BS game on top of now having to shell out CTP money to even qualify to take a written. The regionals OTOH, quickly adapted and incorporated the CTP training into their type rating initial training, being extremely adamant they are TWO separate phases of training (that's the part where they bend the new law) effectively netting the regional booger-pickin' new guys the same cost out the door as they would before the new rules. The answer to the bolded part is precisely that move on the part of the regionals. More on that in a second.
As to issue #1, I 100% agree with you. It's a joke of a license. I'm a civ/mil hybrid, in that I was a civilian with CPL-SEL IR, CFI-SEL and CFII before I set foot in the military. I got my CPL-MEL as a mil-comp due to military equipment, and it was also my experience in the military that qualified me to do the ATP-MEL practical in the "Semenhole". I never did the CPL-MEL in part 61, but I came to quickly realize that the ATP ride is nothing more than a carbon copy of the CPL-MEL initial ride sans the Vmc demo (unless you were centerline restricted as a CPL-MEL). So we know it's kabuki, it's redundant. I can't speak for the part 135 and part 91 turbine operators building their time in their respective ways, but at least from my perspective as a military guy, they should have just mil-comp'd the thing. It's stupid and it taught me nothing about airline procedures. I had more total flight experience and oceanic time than the regional aspiring 23 year old instructor collecting flight time in the right seat watching me self-instruct myself into the checkride. And he was gonna get his ATP paid for by the regional, never to attempt it, let alone pay for it, in the manner I had to as a mil applicant. The whole thing is an obvious regulatory CYA. IOW, issue #1 is NOT being solved by the emergence of the CTP requirement. The Seminoles are not going anywhere in that regard.
As to the bolded. The reason it doesn't make sense to you is because the intent of the ruling was unapologetically subverted by the regional industry. Of course it makes no sense to make cat-C supra-40K MGTOW aircraft sims a requirement to take a written test whose contents do not match nor coincide with the material tested on said written. So why do it, you ask? Because the point of it was to
respond to the accusation that the industry had a two-tier system of training and therefore safety, in the conduct of regional crew training when compared to mainline. Aka The Sully Congressional Hearing. You have to remember, when those two zealots got way over their heads and killed those innocent people in Buffalo,the regionals basically were being accused of running a pencil-whipping training operation due to the need to put butts in seats. The PBS documentary "Flying Cheap" made the case pretty clear as it pertained to Colgan's training department, which was an unapologetic sh-tshow.
As a result, Congress made it specific that the CTP training COULD NOT be part of a regional airline's initial training, therefore they tied it to the written to fence it out. Never in a million years did Congress expect that the regionals would crowd out the CTP vendors and essentially incorporate it into initial training backdoor-style, effectively re-opening the pipe to the young kids willing to fly jets for peanuts and hot bunks on reserve. Reference the young men on this board yapping about doing CTP and cramming Sheppard air material in the middle of regional training like they're in freshman year chemistry, for a test that had nothing to do with what they did during CTP, just to be sent to another facility to start "real training" on the barbie jet. All paid for by the same employer. That's not what Congress intended to happen. But yet here we are.
You will see a lot of fly by night seminole operators crawl back to the sewers where they came from. The military bulge dies with the old written, as most guys in my position will just get a 737 type rating in conjunction with the CTP sim sessions and written, since they have the GI bill. The point of the Seminole was that I could get out the door for less than 5AMU. But if you have to pay another 5AMU before the seminole, then at that point the type rating route cost is no longer as onerous and offers higher pass rates, as you're taking a checkride in an air conditioned simulator for Christ sake. Everybody would take a check in a sim versus a real airplane. It's no contest at that point.
The other alternative is to go take a regional job to get a free ATP out of it. Considering the salaries some of us pro pilots make in part 91K, 135 turbine or the military, as applicants with turbine currency, the pay cut doesn't justify the free ATP so we have to eat it. In reality what needs to happen is mainline needs to start paying for ATPs again. They did it before. But of course that would imply there's a pilot shortage, which there isn't. So they won't pay for it. Not yet anyways.
Sorry for the rant. But it needs to be said.
