FAA Releases NPRM for 121 Pilot Mins.

This is stupid. If you think this will raise your paychecks or help the industry it won't so get over it. There will still be plenty of 1500 hour pilots that will pay for those hours or do a SIC program to get to your job and do it for less.

Because one ass hat forgot what he learned on Private Lesson #3 the rest have to suffer. It's BS honestly, whats going to happen the next time a 5,000 hour Captain drives one into the ground? We gonna raise ATP standards?
 
jtrain609 said:
I'll be honest, without the training I received at a part 135 company, I would have never made the transition straight from flight instructing to flying an RJ. And if I had, I'm convinced that I would have been nothing more than a hinderance to my captains.

Instead, during our first departure my IOE check airman looked over me and said, "You've done this before, haven't you." No sir, just spent a little time in a Chieftain, but thanks anyway. Part 135 is golden as far as I'm concerned.
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Skymates IFR instructing and flying in close proximity to the class B airspace did wonders for me. Not to mention I have been pretending to be an airline pilot on Flightsim since I was around 10
 
Champcar said:
This is stupid. If you think this will raise your paychecks or help the industry it won't so get over it. There will still be plenty of 1500 hour pilots that will pay for those hours or do a SIC program to get to your job and do it for less.

Because one ass hat forgot what he learned on Private Lesson #3 the rest have to suffer. It's BS honestly, whats going to happen the next time a 5,000 hour Captain drives one into the ground? We gonna raise ATP standards?
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I dunno - so much of the marketing around the academies has been "right seat in X-days!!!!!" even with the crummy market. I just have to think that there's a certain chunk of students who, if you told them they're looking at 1-2 years of instructing, might walk away. We can't be certain it's going to draw people away from the career, but it certainly won't do anything to add new people to the pot.
 
With respect to the hour requirement most likely increasing to get a part 121 gig, I most definitely think it should. When I completed all of my ratings I had around 230 hours of TT. In no way shape or form was I ready for a part 121 spot. I really don't think you have good aeronautical decision making yet through flight experience to be useful. Yes, you can flip switches, but that does no good when the PIC needs a quick decision and he can only afford the right one.

From another perspective, by going back to the way things were, we would still have flight instructors. Or maybe I should say we would still have work for flight instructors. By allowing a pilot to go through flight training and then right to an airline, it degrades the quality of the instruction being given. The instructor knows it's a quick fix him them and a quick fix for the student. By knowing that you are going to put your time in as an instructor, it forces you to retain the information that you learned so you can present it CORRECTLY to a student.

As for earning time part 135. Notice there hasn't been any changes to those mins? And there shouldn't be. Can you imagine a guy with 200 hours hopping into a twin otter flying cargo at night, single pilot, IMC in the northeast? We would need a separate certificate just on how to dodge aircraft. So answer me this question? Why should part 121 mins be any lower than part 135 mins?
 
Champcar said:
This is stupid. If you think this will raise your paychecks or help the industry it won't so get over it. There will still be plenty of 1500 hour pilots that will pay for those hours or do a SIC program to get to your job and do it for less.

Because one ass hat forgot what he learned on Private Lesson #3 the rest have to suffer. It's BS honestly, whats going to happen the next time a 5,000 hour Captain drives one into the ground? We gonna raise ATP standards?
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Any barrier to entry ultimate will increase the pay. Now when the regionals need warm bodies, they won't be able to take 400 hour 0 to hero types that finished in 90 days. They will have to do something else to attract qualified candidates.
 
Goldmember said:
I absolutley have much better knoweledge and experience from when I had 250 hours, but as of now, I just can't see myself gaining that much more from the next 500 hours. I know the weather patterns here backwards and forwards, the X-Cs I've done each one 20 times, and the aircraft are always the same. The way I'll really learn is by pushing myself, flying more advanced aircraft or into worse weather situations but how do you suggest I go about doing that? I'm sure as hell not about to shell out cash to go flying on my own...The simple fact is I will keep my head down and keep making my customers happy safe pilots, and hopefully I will meet someone with a flying opportunity.
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Well good luck. I think you are wrong that another 500 hours won't learn you anything.
 
mojo6911 said:
Any barrier to entry ultimate will increase the pay. Now when the regionals need warm bodies, they won't be able to take 400 hour 0 to hero types that finished in 90 days. They will have to do something else to attract qualified candidates.
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With the amount of pilots out on the street not any time in the near future. Once they dry up then OK a short stint of increased pay which will raise fares, less folks fly, airlines make less money which equals furloughs. The economic cycle, this is just a prediction though.
 
Champcar said:
With the amount of pilots out on the street not any time in the near future. Once they dry up then OK a short stint of increased pay which will raise fares, less folks fly, airlines make less money which equals furloughs. The economic cycle, this is just a prediction though.
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You're prediction assumes that right now the supply/demand curve is in perfect harmony.
 
Having no 121 experience, and no dog in this fight, I'll pose these questions.

How are pilots going to log 1500 hours?

I see it being one of two ways.

1: Part 135, but only once they meet the minimums.
2: Flight instruct/banner tow/jump pilot, etc

That being said, the 300 hour gap between 135 mins and the proposed 121 mins can be closed in a matter of 3 months flying the line at any given cargo operator. If you're flying passenger 135, you're probably also going to be flight instructing on the side, so the 300 hours will probably come in the same amount of time. How much valuable experience can you gain in an 300 hours? You'd only experience one season of weather in most regions of the country. How will this help in the 121 environment where you may see all the seasons in one day? For me, the period from 1200 to 1500 hours didn't reveal anything extraordinary; there was no "AHA!" moment that I can recall.

If you stick solely with flight instructing to get to 1500 hours, you're reinforcing your ability to yell "right rudder" and "watch your airspeed"; nothing more. How does 1000+ hours of dual given help you in any of the decision making process in 121 flying? Banner towing, dropping meat missles, etc; same idea.
 
TFaudree_ERAU said:
Having no 121 experience, and no dog in this fight, I'll pose these questions.

How are pilots going to log 1500 hours?

I see it being one of two ways.

1: Part 135, but only once they meet the minimums.
2: Flight instruct/banner tow/jump pilot, etc

That being said, the 300 hour gap between 135 mins and the proposed 121 mins can be closed in a matter of 3 months flying the line at any given cargo operator. If you're flying passenger 135, you're probably also going to be flight instructing on the side, so the 300 hours will probably come in the same amount of time. How much valuable experience can you gain in an 300 hours? You'd only experience one season of weather in most regions of the country. How will this help in the 121 environment where you may see all the seasons in one day? For me, the period from 1200 to 1500 hours didn't reveal anything extraordinary; there was no "AHA!" moment that I can recall.

If you stick solely with flight instructing to get to 1500 hours, you're reinforcing your ability to yell "right rudder" and "watch your airspeed"; nothing more. How does 1000+ hours of dual given help you in any of the decision making process in 121 flying? Banner towing, dropping meat missles, etc; same idea.
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Personally I like this method:

Instruct/Beg Borrow Steal Flight Time 250TT-500TT
VFR135/Banner Tow/Survey etc. 500TT-1200TT
IFR135 1200TT-2000TT
121 2000TT+

Personally, I think that's the way to go. I didn't do it that way, one because I didn't know any better, and two because I have no desire to go 121, but if the airlines are your desired career path way, I think 2000TT and 2-3 years of preparation prior to going 121 is the way to go. That kind of experience gives you a wide variety of experience too, experience from all over the flight envelope, which is much better than what you'd encounter if you went 121 at 250TT, IMO.
 
ppragman said:
Personally I like this method:

Instruct/Beg Borrow Steal Flight Time 250TT-500TT
VFR135/Banner Tow/Survey etc. 500TT-1200TT
IFR135 1200TT-2000TT
121 2000TT+

Personally, I think that's the way to go. I didn't do it that way, one because I didn't know any better, and two because I have no desire to go 121, but if the airlines are your desired career path way, I think 2000TT and 2-3 years of preparation prior to going 121 is the way to go. That kind of experience gives you a wide variety of experience too, experience from all over the flight envelope, which is much better than what you'd encounter if you went 121 at 250TT, IMO.
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That probably would be a great way to do it, the problem is that most people are not going to go that way. Right now I'm just over 1000hrs, so far I have built my time by flight instructing. The way everything is looking now I'm going to stay flight instructing until 1500hrs. I have flown everything from a 172 to a G1000 DA40 to a PA23. I have progressed from just a flight instructor at my school to being only one of two people that teaches the G1000 ground school and can check people out in the DA40. I'm to the point were all the next flight is is another hour.

Do not get me wrong, I work hard every day to make sure my students are safe and good pilots. The the experience level for me has leveled off. I completely agree that the times for 121 pilots should be higher then 250hrs. I just don't think that 1500 is it. 750, 1000 or 1200 would probably be better.
 
TFaudree_ERAU said:
If you stick solely with flight instructing to get to 1500 hours, you're reinforcing your ability to yell "right rudder" and "watch your airspeed"; nothing more. How does 1000+ hours of dual given help you in any of the decision making process in 121 flying? Banner towing, dropping meat missles, etc; same idea.
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I think you are kind of shortchanging the experienced CFIs out there. Since you are always working with students, I would assume a CFI's CRM capabilities are much better than a single pilot 135 freight dog's, by virtue of the fact that we deal with different personalities every two hours.

Secondly, I think the decision making process of an experienced CFI is as good as a freight dog's. Someone referred to the fact that flight instructors "avoid anything more than light green" on the radar. You have to know the limits of your airplane, yourself and your students' ability. I have flown around big thunderstorms, low IFR, mountainous terrain, etc, while teaching a student through the whole process.

Lastly, a CFI is experienced with actually flying the airplane, as opposed to takeoff, cruising for 2 hours and landing. We have to recover from our students' unintentional spins, stall recognition and recovery, as well as aborting takeoffs and landings, emergencies, etc.

I am sitting around 1800 dual given now and definitely feel like I am a better pilot, mentally and physically than I was at 1000.
 
Anybody else think it is a little bit ridiculous that to be an FO or the captain of the ship, you require the same experience level and certification level.

I really thought that they would see it this way and say, "what a minute, this is dumb. Maybe FO does need to be raised to 1500, but captain also needs to be raised."

This could possibly require the FAA to create a new certificate, but that seems like way to much work for a patch work job.
As long as it looks good for the public. "Yeah we are doing...something."
 
Anyone have any statistics on how many 121 accidents there have been with FOs with less than 1500 hours?

My guess is that this whole "ATP required for 121" is a red herring. It makes people feel good but will not have any effect on anything that matters to most people on this forum (payscale, competition in the airline pilot job, etc.)
 
matt152 said:
Anyone have any statistics on how many 121 accidents there have been with FOs with less than 1500 hours?

My guess is that this whole "ATP required for 121" is a red herring. It makes people feel good but will not have any effect on anything that matters to most people on this forum (payscale, competition in the airline pilot job, etc.)
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For the last freakin' time, it's not just about the number of hours you crash the plane with, it's that your foundational period of time building that you're short changing by getting into an airline cockpit at 250 hours. You're hosing yourself, you're hosing your captains and you're hosing the people behind you.

Kinda like not knowing to to recover from a stall properly? Maybe if that captain had flight instructed instead of went to Gulfstream then 50 people would be alive today because he could have flown the plane out of those conditions.
 
matt152 said:
Anyone have any statistics on how many 121 accidents there have been with FOs with less than 1500 hours?

My guess is that this whole "ATP required for 121" is a red herring. It makes people feel good but will not have any effect on anything that matters to most people on this forum (payscale, competition in the airline pilot job, etc.)
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Very few.

But that is not the point.

The statistic you'd want to have is, how many captains have to act as a check airman and coach someone through things they shouldn't have to at the airline level?
 
jtrain609 said:
For the last freakin' time, it's not just about the number of hours you crash the plane with, it's that your foundational period of time building that you're short changing by getting into an airline cockpit at 250 hours. You're hosing yourself, you're hosing your captains and you're hosing the people behind you.

Kinda like not knowing to to recover from a stall properly? Maybe if that captain had flight instructed instead of went to Gulfstream then 50 people would be alive today because he could have flown the plane out of those conditions.
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Is 121 training that bad that they cannot weed out these guys? It takes 1500 hours of instructing to recover from a stall?
 
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