Which Pilot is Better?

[Jimmy cooper]

Is the question an airline pilot verses a stick and rudder pilot? Or is it simply an airbus pilot verses a stick and rudder type. I think it's total experience and background of each type. Many old time pilots transitioned into jets and made phenomenal pilots. Then after WW2 we had an abundance of military trained pilots who were put through very tough training where many were washed out for various reasons. Recently airlines have allowed pilots with very low time (and very low pay) to command complex aircraft and the results have been disastrous. In Captain Sullenbergs case, he was ex military with lots of hours and acted quickly. It might have turned out differently had it been at night, in 30 degree weather with some wind but his knowledge may have still saved the day. In the case of the crash in Clarence , N.Y. Not so good. Background of each pilot much different! What should have been an uneventful landing turned into a disaster. Hard to answer this type question as its presented. Lindbergh had to bail out twice but fortunately had no passengers at the time. Steve Hinton on the other hand is not ex military but a wondrous pilot who can fly most anything! Ernest Gann pretty well describes the old time way up the chain in " Fate is the Hunter" . A good pal passed away recently who flew P2VS out of Brunswick, Thule, etc. went on to fly 33 years for Eastern, last in a 1011. He credited his career to Navy Training. He said 80 started Cadets, 41 finished. This says alot.

 

[wabower]

One of the standards guys (senior captain) at FedEx was trying to find some Cessna 140's to base at West Memphis so his big-iron pilots could log some time and learn to land during their recurrent training. I was present during the conversation and discussion.

Oh gawd... here comes that tail wheel crap again. If all airline pilots were required to have the 10 hours of dual instruction and get their tail wheel endorsement, would you then feel better about them? This would be a joyful walk in the park compared to the training they actually have to get.

It would be interesting to know and maybe some our airline folks here could comment, but there are many airline pilots with tail wheel time. Is their performance in the simulator and in real world airline flying really any better than those without this experience?

 

[j1b3h0]

An Airbus doesn't really require a pilot onboard? Really?

Sorry, not trying to slam Airbus pilots; just our mooney friend who is clearly ignorant of the challenges faced by those who came before us.

 

[Greg Bockelman]

Seems very few of them land on the centerline with the airplane well aligned...and track straight on the roll out.

Spoken out of true ignorance of how one is supposed to land those types of planes in a strong crosswind.

 

[GCA319]

I woke up this morning on my only day off of the week and had 0 desire to even look at an airplane and elected to take my dogs for a hike and come home to a few cold ones. I love what I do, but it is my job and there are other things I like to do with my life besides what I have chosen to do for a career.

 

[Jay Honeck]

So by your assumption his skills quickly deteriorated while flying for the airlines, correct?

Jack Knight's distinguished airline career predated today's automated jet greyhounds by a generation. What he regarded as the relative safety and luxury of flying the radio ranges in his "huge" DC-3 would be considered wildly reckless by today's airline pilots.

 

[j1b3h0]

Oh gawd... here comes that tail wheel crap again. If all airline pilots were required to have the 10 hours of dual instruction and get their tail wheel endorsement, would you then feel better about them? This would be a joyful walk in the park compared to the training they actually have to get.

It would be interesting to know and maybe some our airline folks here could comment, but there are many airline pilots with tail wheel time. Is their performance in the simulator and in real world airline flying really any better than those without this experience?

Speaking as an airline pilot who is also a tailwheel person, I say yes, but only when the autopilot is off; you know, like during takeoff and landing. YMMV

 

[j1b3h0]

Spoken out of true ignorance of how one is supposed to land those types of planes in a strong crosswind.

You're wrong, Greg I fly airliners every working day...sometimes even in a crosswind. How'bout you?

 

[gismo]

Probably not -- I've never flown an RV-6.

But I agree with much of the rest of your post.

Oops, make that a RV-8A . I guess that means I actually have more RV-6 time than you.

 

[Greg Bockelman]

You're wrong, Greg I fly airliners every working day...sometimes even in a crosswind. How'bout you?

Yup..

 

[RotorAndWing]

Jack Knight's distinguished airline career predated today's automated jet greyhounds by a generation. What he regarded as the relative safety and luxury of flying the radio ranges in his "huge" DC-3 would be considered wildly reckless by today's airline pilots.

 

[ClimbnSink]

All these airline pilots dishing dirt. How dare they cross the puffy white line. I'll say it again the people that flew the mail in the 20's are not the same people that follow airline careers today. The would be mail pilots, if born 100 years ago, are at the dropzone not the pilot mill.

 

[Greg Bockelman]

You're wrong, Greg I fly airliners every working day...sometimes even in a crosswind. How'bout you?

I've seen those links with the planes landing in the crosswinds. In some of those, the landing in a crab is just poor technique. Heck, maybe most of them. But . . .

I fly Boeing 777s for a living. Have been for almost 17 years. Landing in a stiff crosswind in a slip requires a whole boot full of rudder and enough aileron to be really uncomfortable.

We are trained to use a combination of slip and crab to land in anything more than 30 knots crosswind component. That reduces the chance of dragging things on the runway that shouldn't drag on the runway. The landing gear is definitely built to take it.

It has been too long since I flew the 737, but if I recall correctly, there was a hard limit of 35 knots crosswind component. Anything above that required suspending operations until the crosswind component dropped.

 

[j1b3h0]

33kts. at my airline. No experience with the 777, but yeah, I can understand that.

 

[ebetancourt]

I don't think this poll does anything except tell us about the responders. I have had a fun time in aviation, have had the opportunity to fly a lot of different aircraft in occasionally "different" situations. From a T-28A to an HH-3E, a T-38A to a C-141A, a Mooney 252 to Waco YMF-5C. It seems to me that many of these kinds of questions come from people with limited experience. Ever flown IMC in NFR airspace (no flight rules)? Flown /H equipment? Flown a full motion simulator? I haven't flown FBW so I can't comment on that, but it's all good experience. Some pilots that were great flying airmail would have been failures flying the Concord. It would be easier for someone with learning problems to fly then. Some of today's heavy pilots might have had problems flying in the 20s, it probably doesn't take the same type of dexterity and situational awareness.

So what? Was Hoover a better pilot than Sullenberger? Is Patty Wagstaff better than Lindbergh was? Meaningless comparisons.

 

[gismo]

So what? Was Hoover a better pilot than Sullenberger? Is Patty Wagstaff better than Lindbergh was? Meaningless comparisons.

Seems like we've come full circle.

 

[RotorAndWing]

I don't think this poll does anything except tell us about the responders. I have had a fun time in aviation, have had the opportunity to fly a lot of different aircraft in occasionally "different" situations. From a T-28A to an HH-3E, a T-38A to a C-141A, a Mooney 252 to Waco YMF-5C. It seems to me that many of these kinds of questions come from people with limited experience. Ever flown IMC in NFR airspace (no flight rules)? Flown /H equipment? Flown a full motion simulator? I haven't flown FBW so I can't comment on that, but it's all good experience. Some pilots that were great flying airmail would have been failures flying the Concord. It would be easier for someone with learning problems to fly then. Some of today's heavy pilots might have had problems flying in the 20s, it probably doesn't take the same type of dexterity and situational awareness.

So what? Was Hoover a better pilot than Sullenberger? Is Patty Wagstaff better than Lindbergh was? Meaningless comparisons.

Excellent!

 

[Dav8or]

Seems like we've come full circle.

Yes, of course we have, but which pilot could fly that circle better??

 

[rottydaddy]

Ok, so, you are saying the bad pilots were weeded out through a Darwinian process and therefore only the most skillful survived, therefore training wasn't necessary.

No... I'm saying the training was integrated with the job, for the most part. Less sophisticated, less efficient,and yeah, much more dangerous. But even then, operators and their underwriters were not too keen on throwing away pilots and aircraft, not to mention the cargo or pax... it's not like attrition was an accepted substitute for good training and protocols.
And I never answered the poll; I don't think any given "pioneer" would be any safer than any given modern transport pilot, or vice versa. I'm pretty sure the poll wasn't even about safety, although that's a big priority for most pilots.
But I think the better aircraft commander is safer, in part because whatever training tools or programs are available, the better aircraft commander will make the best use of them. "Better commander" does not mean "old school" or even "old". Back in the bad old days, they had to rely more on their wits and experience in most cases, but nowadays you're still better off if you can bring that mindset with you, along with the "programming".

 

[Jimmy cooper]

Google Carolyn grace spitfire. Now there's a taildragger pilot who could do quite well in an airbus.

 

[rottydaddy]

In Captain Sullenbergs case, he was ex military with lots of hours and acted quickly. It might have turned out differently had it been at night, in 30 degree weather with some wind but his knowledge may have still saved the day.

He's also a glider pilot...
I say that with tongue in cheek, but I think it may have been a significant factor. I recall him saying something about thinking about the Airbus pretty often from a glider pilot's perspective, and being keen on engine-out sim scenarios.

 

[Dav8or]

Interesting that now, over 88% of the poll respondents think that the mythical airmail pilot (whatever that is supposed to mean here) was a better pilot even though very little non biased information is actually known about them. Since it is clear that some hold the lowly "bus drivers" of today to be of such low stature, I suggest that the next time you need to get from LA to New York, or vise verse, you go to the nearest podunk airport and hire the local tail wheel guy to fly you there in whatever. I'm sure that you'll be much better off.

Seriously, a new poll needs to be started. Which would you rather have your family on going from LA to New York (and I mean on schedule, not some vacation, leisure jaunt.) the Airmail plane with the 1920s guy flying, or the Airbus with the computer slacker? Then after that, why? Then after that, what was the point of this idiotic thread and poll? Except of course, to waste time and entertain.

 

[3393RP]

Those stick and rudder tailwheel Alaska bush pilots the OP mentioned seem to crash at a greater frequency than airline pilots.

 

[Clark1961]

Seriously, a new poll needs to be started.

Start one then! Or are you one of those folks who have to have things done for you?

 

[Alexb2000]

So if a pilot was to come on POA and talk about having 60 hours TT and purposely flying into a blizzard, or known icing, or CB's in an open cockpit taildrager because they wanted to get a package of cookies to grandma. Would s/he be received here as a stick and rudder hero far superior to all the technology dependent pro pilots on this board?

Of course not, there would 50 pages of regulations quoted, "you're stupid" posts, don't encourage others, menace in the sky, blah, blah, blah. It would make the zoom climb thread look like kindergarden.

Lot's of hypocrisy here.

 

[Clark1961]

So if a pilot was to come on POA and talk about having 60 hours TT and purposely flying into a blizzard, or known icing, or CB's in an open cockpit taildrager because they wanted to get a package of cookies to grandma. Would s/he be received here as a stick and rudder hero far superior to all the technology dependent pro pilots on this board?

Of course not, there would 50 pages of regulations quoted, "you're stupid" posts, don't encourage others, menace in the sky, blah, blah, blah. It would make the zoom climb thread look like kindergarden.

Lot's of hypocrisy here.

The guy a few hangars down from me flies for Delta. He has an IFR capable Waco that he flies for fun. I have not seen him fly into a blizzard, known icing, or CB in the Waco. Which pigeon hole do we put him in?

 

[Dav8or]

Start one then! Or are you one of those folks who have to have things done for you?

Well, I just might! I uh, just don't want to right now. Umm, you know what would be cool? If somebody was to come up with a way that I could do a poll inside a thread, that way I wouldn't have to clutter up a forum with another thread. If I could just make a poll in my posts then people could vote just in my post. Wouldn't that be awesome!? There has got to be a guy on here that could get that done. Seriously, somebody needs to suggest that to the administrator soon. If I had that feature, I'd do a poll right now! I swear I would.

 

[Dav8or]

So Jay originally said this when he started this thread-

Please explain your answer.

There have been people explaining why the airline pilot is the better pilot and there have been people explaining why the airline pilot is deficient, but there hasn't been a lot of explanation of why the airmail pilot was better, other than he faced danger and some survived.

So to the 80+ percent of poll participants, why is this airmail pilot better?

 

[dell30rb]

Watch AA's "Children of the Magenta" training video to see that the 121's are doing everything possible to dispel that notion.

That video is 16 years old. It hammers home some good points that I hope the 121 guys are still teaching.

 

[Velocity173]

All this talk about stick and rudder skills like it's only something the best have. Ridiculous. All pilots know how to manipulate controls to make an aircraft do what you want. You've got ultralight pilots flying dirt simple aircraft with no AP. Sure doesn't make them "better" than an airline pilot. People think helicopters are so hard to fly so they must be better pilots. Nonsense. I used to tell my students in H-60s I could teach a monkey to fly. It's all muscle memory and hand / eye coordination that everyone has. Anyone who thinks they're special because they fly some tail dragger or helicopter is living in a dream world. What distinguishes a pilot is knowledge and ADM.

We can bring up Asiana all day long but the fact is Part 121 ops are experiencing the best safety record ever. You can't say it's because of systems because these exact systems have been in place for years. It sure isn't because they're flying less either. Considering the number of hours flown annually I find their record nothing short of amazing. The safety record of our air mail pioneers is less than stellar.

Those who don't believe an airline pilot requires skill i suspect have never worked their way up the food chain to get their ATP and pass a 121 checkride. Still, impossible to tell who is a better pilot. Two completely different kinds of flying with their own unique set of challenges.

 

[John Baker]

...and they romantically set into the weather... and died.

When I book a ticket on a flying bus, I want a bureaucrat, not a risk taking dare devil. In America, it has been a proven way to get people from point A to point B with greater reliability and safety than any other system man has devised, except the elevator. Back when the airlines had real stick and rudder cowboy pilots calling the shots, the record was much, much worse.

Your obsession with safety is not uniquely yours, our entire culture is obsessed with it, to the point of being ridicules about it. Even our supreme law of our land is being either mitigated or ignored completely in many areas of it so that our government can make our world safer through mostly laws and regulation, but also threats and intimidation.

More and more people are gravitating to doing dangerous things simply for that one reason, that it is dangerous. Such endeavors may not necessarily even be fun for some of the participants, other than the adrenaline rush that comes form facing down our fears.

Have you noticed how as our safety regulations grow more cumbersome, that there is also an almost abnormal rise in dangerous leisure time activities?

Even as those activities become more popular as people try to escape from our perfectly safe culture, if even for just a few moments, our bureaucrats are doing all they possibly can to remove the danger from them. This of course drives people to look for even more dangerous thrills, ones that have yet to come under our regulators scrutiny.

I honestly believe that our species needs a certain amount of danger in their lives from time to time. As our government forces us into submission so that we keep ourselves safe, we seem to search out even more dangerous leisure time activities. Just yesterday a ran down my sidewalk holding a pair of scissors.

Being absolutely safe in all that we do, is not the real path to what would make ours a truly great society. Even commercial aviation owes its start from being able to fill it's seats with the upper crust passengers who were on those airplanes more for the thrill of the danger, than for actually going someplace.

Safety and security might well be what we think we want, but do we really?

-John

 

[ClimbnSink]

What John said. Question is better pilot, not safer. They aren't the same thing.

 

[Dav8or]

Safety and security might well be what we think we want, but do we really?

-John

Ummm... what are you saying? You prefer to be scared ****less on an airliner going to Miami so that you don't have to go bungee jumping on the weekends? I get your point of some people needing an adrenaline rush and we as a species seem to require thrills and violence in our lives, but I have to say, the system we have going now is pretty great. Safety in your daily life and near death experience when and where you choose it. Works for me.

Still, why is the airmail pilot better than the airline pilot?

 

[Dav8or]

What John said. Question is better pilot, not safer. They aren't the same thing.

Love the cartoon! OK, safety aside then, what makes a better pilot?

 

[steingar]

Given that 95% of the old airmail pilots died on the job, I'd have to vote for the airline guys, since most of them make it back in one piece. To me the better pilot is the one who doesn't die.

 

[Threefingeredjack]

The left handed one.

 

[John Baker]

Love the cartoon! OK, safety aside then, what makes a better pilot?

I'm not so sure that sitting in a padded office chair, surrounded by banks of computers, makes anyone a "better" pilot. I think it makes them more of a computer wizard. Just a few years ago a guy driving one of those passenger filled computers, pulled back on the yoke in order to correct for a stall, killing all on board. That sh*t is flying 101, yet he had become so dependent on his computers, he had apparently forgotten how to fly an airplane.

-John

 

[Clark1961]

Still, why is the airmail pilot better than the airline pilot?

Maybe because one of the airmail pilots developed the foundation for the instrument procedures we all use today?

Note that I said "maybe." Underneath it all, people are people and pilots today probably have better education but the physical skills are likely the same as folks had in the past.

 

[Jay Honeck]

Love the cartoon! OK, safety aside then, what makes a better pilot?

That is the crux of the issue, isn't it?

Here's my ideal pilot:

1. Flies in varying conditions, often.
2. Flies different aircraft types, often.
3. Has excellent, lightning fast reflexes.
4. Has superior hand/eye coordination.
5. Must be unflappable. Isn't a drama queen.
6. Doesn't trust other people's numbers.
7. Is mechanically inclined.
8. Is thorough and meticulous in flight prep.
9. Has a good feel for the machine.

That last one is EXTREMELY hard to define. For example, I've always had a good "feel" for machines, and can tell when an engine isn't happy through a combination of sound, vibration, and some sort of instinct that (for example) my wife does not possess. Flying in an aircraft with ancient technology (AKA: Almost any piston engine), it is advantageous to have this "feel".

Another hard to define trait would be: "Doesn't fly the same hour, over and over, for 20,000 hours".

This is where the airmail pilots shone through as superior, IMHO. I have known enough airline pilots to appreciate that their enroute flying is almost entirely automated. Airmail pilots had no such luxury -- they were hand flying all the time. If they had 2000 hours, that probably gave them the equivalent stick time of 8000 hours in a modern airliner. (Or 6000. Or 4000 -- who really knows? PLEASE don't let the OCD guys get hung up on a particular number again. It's an EXAMPLE.)

There is no doubt that this experience would make a superior pilot, over time -- and that's why most of us believe the pilot of the Boeing 40 was superior.

 

[ClimbnSink]

Which pilot makes more critical decisions per second(or minute, or hours over the middle of the ocean.) City bus drivers have everyone beat.