Has it come to this?

ChasenSFO said:
1) Straight up coffee tastes gross.
2) I need a source of caffeine, but RedBull and Mtn Dew(BVO) are bad to drink daily.
3) YOLO.
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It's an acquired taste! Drink properly brewed coffee with good beans. FYI - Starbucks coffee is typically overroasted and hence why I think it tastes like crap.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
Numerous studies have shown that SAT scores correlate incredibly well with future earnings. A person with a near perfect score averages income of $200k later in life, while someone with a very low score averages $30k. Studies have also shown that people who score well on the SAT typically score very well on IQ tests as well. Is the SAT perfect? No, but it seems to be doing a pretty good job of figuring out who has the mental ability to be successful later in life, so I think tossing it out would be unwise.

Similarly, we have the safest aviation system in the world. While you may not be thrilled with how evaluation is done, you simply can't argue with the results. Planes are not falling out of the sky. And in parts of the world where testing is far more rigorous, safety records are not as strong. Clearly we're doing something (or many things) right.
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correlation ≠ causation. ;)

In fact, you can argue with the results of screening in "commercial aviation" at least. Just because planes are not falling out of the sky doesn't mean that our screening process is working. They could start falling out of the sky tomorrow. I would argue that better maintenance, superior technology, better industry culture, the risk-management training that's been added and a whole host of other things make flying safer today, not the fact that we pick pilots the way we do. I think I could argue that safety records in many other parts of the world are lower because of cultural issues, lack of training, or simply limited resources and piss poor equipment - not because they pick pilots poorly.
 
Crop Duster said:
I completely agree with you, Steve. I'm just saying our intake and evaluation process for civvy pilots is rather FUBAR. As someone said in another post, there is no gradebook that travels with one and - at least somewhat objectively - speaks to one's skill and judgement. And there is too much status quo catatonia at all levels of flying. So many good pilots aren't where they should be, and many lousy pilots are where they should not be. There is probably no perfect or even very good way of evaluating pilots except to have experienced, skilled practitioners personally evaluate the nuggets, and that takes time and money. Obviously, exposure time means something, but after some very minimal number of hours, the idea that more hours sitting in a seat has much if anything to do with skill or judgement just seems obviously preposterous to me.
Certainly, we could devise a better way to train and evaluate pilots. We don't for all kinds of reasons, many being structural, which makes them all the more difficult to change. But that doesn't mean we should just accept the lame status quo and go on about our days.
I suppose anecdotal evidence is worth very little, but I know pilots with +10K hrs with whom I would not enter a cockpit. I also know pilots with 250 hrs whose judgement probably puts mine to shame. And I've seem all variety of folks in between. I don't like the way we currently evaluate because it seems it was designed precisely to eliminate any actual evaluation. The box-checking-as-a-proxy-for-reality approach we use now is kind of like the way we use the SAT as a proxy for college readiness. Unintelligent people will never do well on the SAT, but not infrequently, people who are really smart will do poorly. Then there are many, many in the middle who buy the test prep kits and do marginally well without really knowing anything. So even at the cost of losing many intelligent folks and accepting many marginal folks, we continue to use a flawed test as our major evaluation tool for college acceptance. Why? Because it's efficient, read "cheap". Even the military process is sometimes questionable given the social pressures that exist these days. There's a guy right now who is about to take a seat at a major. This guy failed almost every military checkride yet kept getting moved up for reasons unrelated to aviation until he eventually got a less than honorable discharge. There are guys with good judgement who ground airplanes for good reasons and thereby cause flight delays/cancellations. In many operational environments, these guys won't get promoted precisely because they are exercising good judgement. So, yeah, this is a tough nut to crack. Lots of nuance. Lots of issues that take careful, skilled, human evaluation... which, again, is expensive. So is the answer to simply abrogate any involvement or responsibility by passing the "problem" on to the insurance companies and allowing decisions to be made through "magicmatics"? When we allow our evaluation processes and tools to be mediocre (at best), where will go the quality of the things being evaluated?
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I can sum it up for you from the civilian perspective.

Many employers are looking for good employees. You can be a great pilot, but a lousy employee and your flying skills are only one part of the total profile of any candidate.

Awesome pilot and mad skills might make you a perfect pilot to drop into a single-seat F/A-18 and get the mission completed. However, in a litigious, HR-focused multi-person crew environment, they may look at candidates using a broader array of metrics that we normally wouldn't associate with the ability to fly the perfect approach or consistently making the first high-speed turnoff.

Chuck Yeager is a good pilot, but I can't find myself thinking, "He'd be a great pilot to work with on a 11-day trip" and HR does a fairly good job of creating a set of parameters to filter for this.
 
Regardless of the evaluation and selection process of pilots, my original post stands with regards to training itself, military or civilian: prepare yourself, succeed yourself. No one will be there to hold your hand nor should they have to be. You success or failure is entirely on YOU. Don't blame the instructors, don't make excuses, don't quibble, don't blame management, or anyone else. Most especially if you weren't doing everything possible to ensure you were prepared at all times, and motivated for success. Nothing is handed to you on a silver platter, nor should it be.
 
MikeD said:
I remember you talking before in another thread about how the training wasn't a PRIA reportable event here: But here's the problem with that: if you didn't happen to report on your resume that you worked for Xjet because you were only in training and wasn't fully employed or were in some conditional status......but they later found out that you were affiliated with a 121 carrier in some fashion as a pilot (conditional or full time, doesn't matter), and worse, didn't pass training.
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Just to clarify yes not a PRIA event to that's a good thing. That didn't mean I didn't tell the whole story. Somewhat evident that I've come here and told my story.
MikeD said:
Regardless of the evaluation and selection process of pilots, my original post stands with regards to training itself, military or civilian: prepare yourself, succeed yourself. No one will be there to hold your hand nor should they have to be. You success or failure is entirely on YOU. Don't blame the instructors, don't make excuses, don't quibble, don't blame management, or anyone else. Most especially if you weren't doing everything possible to ensure you were prepared at all times, and motivated for success. Nothing is handed to you on a silver platter, nor should it be.
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I've taken responsibility for my actions during training, but please don't say I wasn't doing everything to prepare for training. I might of done things differently then some one here might of done (or told me to do) but I also had others giving advice from inside of the company as well.
 
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ComplexHiAv8r said:
Just to clarify yes not a PRIA event to that's a good thing. That didn't mean I didn't tell the whole story. Somewhat evident that I've come here and told my story. I've taken responsibility for my actions during training, but please don't say I wasn't doing everything to prepare for training. I might of done things differently then some one here might of done (or told me to do) but I also had others giving advice from inside of the company as well.
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My comments are "general education" and for the consumption of the masses on how to handle oneself in a structured training program. With regards to your specific situation, only you know how and where your situation applies to what I wrote. No one else does. What you do with that information and how you apply it, will determine how things go for you moving forward.

I'm not saying you weren't doing everything possible to succeed in training, but I am saying that maybe you thought you were doing everything possible. Only you know if you were hitting books on your off time as much as you could, if you were staying at your training location and in the grind versus going back and forth home on weekends or the like.....time that couldve been spent studying and generally keeping your mind focused on the mission you needed to accomplish, not on crap that didn't matter. Only you know that. And only you can apply anything going forward.

ComplexHiAv8r said:
Not that I can't learn new tricks, I apparently needed more time to learn theirs....
Three months to the day my tenure at XJT has come to an end with the conditional offer of employment rescinded by the employer. I'll take full responsibility for not being at the level they wanted and need. I was progressing, and even though the instructors were requesting a change to training, upper management did not agree with it.
As the offer was rescinded, I'm not if I even should list them as employment for the three months.
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My point regarding a PRIA event or not, was that it doesn't matter. In the above post and past ones, you've been weighing what to report and what not to report, whether or not you were "actually an Xjet employee" or not; and I have to believe that the reason you're splitting hairs on those issues is because you're wondering what to report/disclose/put on a resume to minimize any negativity. At least that's the perception your posts have given. What I'm telling you, is don't think that way. Just lay the cards out there on the table, up front, and let them ask you about what they see. Don't put yourself in a position of potentially not disclosing something, then have them find out about it, come back and ask you about it, forcing you to then have to explain or justify it. Don't let them "discover" anything. Let them be the arbitor of what's important information or not concerning employment.

What I'm telling you is that PRIA or not, perception that you were an employee or not, all these things you're been mulling over in posts......doesn't matter. Just throw them out there. The chips will fall where they will fall.

Lastly, with you trying to break-in to 121, nothing should be off the table for you and no airline should be "too good" to work for, just like CaptBill said. There really isn't any good regional out there, some are better than others sure, but every one of them is a stepping stone to something bigger and better, therefore every one of them is a potential candidate for you.....just as you are for them. Don't give the perception, as in post #1 of this thread, that the 4 airlines mentioned are too good for you to work for, because it's entirely possible that you may have burned that bridge of employment with them with who knows who might have read this thread. Of course, if you have zero intent of ever putting an app in with them, and that bridge being burnt is one you'll never cross, then that's only something you know. I would just recommend not to throw anything off the table, with regards to the totality of circumstances for your specific career situation.
 
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durind said:
Isn't there some correlation between SAT scores and that people who score well on them are usually very privileged/ well off? I would think that might have something to do with how much someone earns later in life, parents were well off, you end up making a lot of money as well due to all the opportunities and privileges afforded you.
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Actually, the opposite is true. The SAT has been "the great equalizer" in access to higher education. As colleges moved towards so much emphasis on standardized test scores, people with no money and no connections but great scores were finally getting access.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
Actually, the opposite is true. The SAT has been "the great equalizer" in access to higher education. As colleges moved towards so much emphasis on standardized test scores, people with no money and no connections but great scores were finally getting access.
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Taylor-swift-laughing-gif-taylor-swift-30258989-500-245.gif


I mean, seriously.
 
MikeD said:
My comments are "general education" and for the consumption of the masses on how to handle oneself in a structured training program.
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Sorry I read that as directed at me
if you were staying at your training location and in the grind versus going back and forth home on weekends or the like.....
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Lol. That one brought a smile. I wasn't a run home to momma guy. FaceTime was my friend.
"actually an Xjet employee" or not; and I have to believe that the reason you're splitting hairs on those issues is because you're wondering what to report/disclose/put on a resume to minimize any negativity.
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It was more due to the company comments and conflicting comments within the group if an employee or not. I hate responding on an iPhone
 
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MikeD said:
Only you know if you were hitting books on your off time as much as you could, if you were staying at your training location and in the grind versus going back and forth home on weekends or the like.....
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Mike, you are saying some good things but you are being WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY to preachy on some pretty significant points.

I cringe when you are saying 'hitting the books as much as you could'. Training is studying smarter not harder. There is a lot of mandated 'fluff' in a 121 ground school (can one say PRM approaches) and it is key for the student to know what the 'fluff' is to take note of it, but really focus on the important items. I think you would be amazed on what good 121 ground schools are really looking for. That is how does one react in the crew concept, which you haven't mentioned yet.

While the individual is largely responsible for their own success (or failure) the crew concept is fundamental to see how the applicant will do on the line. I am not to familiar with what happened with @ComplexHiAv8r but I can say he probably had no problem with the book knowledge. He probably had issues adjusting to the crew environment which does happen. I think when @ComplexHiAv8r gets into that next simulator he will be better prepared to handle the crew concept after his learning experience at XJT. Mike, you've never mentioned the crew concept in any of your posts, just the individual responsibility which is understandable with your military background. I am not downplaying the individual responsibility at all, I just hope you understand that if someone is reading what you are saying and taking it literally to 'hit the books harder' they may be missing out on going over flows in a group with beer and pizza or studying in a group for their oral (you learn a ton with those group study sessions) and may be more worried about GPS Satellite Constellations, PRM Approaches, and a bunch of other crap that doesn't matter.

Also, my place (and others) give positive space tickets home on the weekend. There is a reason for that. One needs the time at home to decompress from training. Yes, one needs to maybe take an hour or two to study at home (I did), but going home and relaxing for a few days is also fundamental for having a clear mind.
 
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Not at XJT @Seggy unless more then 4-5 days between events. Even on a few if those I stayed in town with my sim partner to stay fresh.

That is why I smiled at @MikeD comment about going home.
 
Hey, I've studied for two hours on satellite constellations for my PC tomorrow. Crap, maybe I ought to take a look at the RNAV RNP stuff I know nothing about. Thanks for the tip Seggy. :-)

By the way, I stopped by Tracy's hotel several times trying to get him to have a few drinks and get away for awhile. On every occasion, we shared a single beer and he indicated he needed to get back to studying. I know for a fact that Tracy's dilemma is not due to a lack of effort on his part. As Seggy indicated, learning the art of getting through 121 Ground School goes way beyond simply knowing books full of semi- useless stuff. Tracy will figure it out and be just fine. He's not a quitter and his life's successes speak for themselves. Plus, he just got a new motorcycle....That makes him super awesome. :-)
 
ATN_Pilot said:
Actually, the opposite is true. The SAT has been "the great equalizer" in access to higher education. As colleges moved towards so much emphasis on standardized test scores, people with no money and no connections but great scores were finally getting access.
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Which is why they just changed the test because it was providing measurably different results based on income, right?
 
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