trafficinsight
Well-Known Member
Perhaps not, but the point of my friend's statement is that the 1500 hour rule, coupled with "The Way Things Are(TM)," actually led to what he felt was a decrease in safety. Not at all surprising, I think.
Are the airlines really hiring more pilots?
- Thread starter Jonathan Jerome
- Start date
Perhaps not, but the point of my friend's statement is that the 1500 hour rule, coupled with "The Way Things Are(TM)," actually led to what he felt was a decrease in safety. Not at all surprising, I think.
Pilot Fighter
Well-Known Member
I think the guy with 500 hours of Kingair time, half in IMC, would be better prepared for 121 than the ATP that built almost all his time in a 172. Call me crazy.
My concern is that the value of quality time will diminish. I think the new rule is unreasonable, and will yield unintended consequences.
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Beep
Well-Known Member
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the commuters and regionals tend to hire quite a few flight instructors, and people straight out of flight school before the rule change?
What is it that makes a 1500 hour ATP less safe now than a couple of years ago?
I'm not being facetious, I'm just curious.
What is it that makes a 1500 hour ATP less safe now than a couple of years ago?
I'm not being facetious, I'm just curious.
Blackhawk
Well-Known Member
Not necessarily. I've flown with FOs with a bunch of Africa time who thought we were still flying in the bush. We weren't. I've flown with FOs who were former C-130 pilots who flew like we had a load from the 505th PIR in the back of an ATR. They weren't and they were not amused when he honked into a 60 degree bank on the down wind. Neither was I.
The 1500 hour rule will help me. It is creating a pilot shortage and will lead to an increase in FFD pilot wages- I think. But I don't think it will help safety. Personally I think we are close to another Colgen 3407. Why? It's complex, but basically we are getting a decrease in the experience level in the front as pilots chase fast upgrades.
CoffeeIcePapers
Well-Hung Member
I don't see how requiring more hours would cause a net decrease in safety.
Maybe, maybe not. I went from instructing to flying a Metro single pilot and I consider myself average in just about every way. It depends on the candidate. That 500 hour King Air pilot won't be any worse off with 1500 hours, and may actually have a better perspective when he hits the magic number.
Pilot Fighter
Well-Known Member
I'm saying that requiring more hours won't automatically result in improved safety. How you get to 1500 matters.
I fear it will become a race to 1500
hours POTENTIALLY at the cost of reduced quality time (IMC, MEL, high performance, complex, etc.).
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CoffeeIcePapers
Well-Hung Member
The traditional ways of building time are still there. Most regionals didn't hire people with less than 1000tt, except for some short lived periods in the mid 2000s. We're talking about instructing or flying pipeline for 6 more months.
Pilot Fighter
Well-Known Member
I'm not suggesting that everything has immediately gone to hell.
I'm suggesting that if the shortage becomes serious enough, over time, the shortest, easiest, and cheapest path to an ATP will be taken by some. I think that's a bad thing. I think that in some percentage of classes, we will observe a reduction in what I think of as quality time.
CoffeeIcePapers
Well-Hung Member
What do you think happens when regionals lower the mins to 250 hours? I think one did in 2007-2008. There's no easy way to build 1000+ hours.
CloudNine
Well-Known Member
No easy way means the wheat will be separated from the chaff ,so to speak. I think there are primarily two types of people that will make it: 1) Highly determined Individuals who cant imagine themselves doing anything else , and 2) highly endowed individuals who get there by pouring relatively larger sums of money into it (Fast-track training , Pay to play , buy a plane to build hours) and are suffciently persistent.
The race to 1500 has already commenced .fewer total American pilots enter in the pipe, but Most new private pilots have the intention of becoming pro, it's a demographic shift I think. All these commercial guys in a small pond of jobs trying to get to the larger pond of atp qualification requiring jobs. GA is shrinking but 121 is not.
For 135 operators the 1500 hr rule has both good and bad effects in terms of staffing. They have all the SIC feedstock they could dream of, but keep having captains sheared off the top.
CloudNine
Well-Known Member
Imagine a set of gears. The legacies and top charter jobs are a large gear which turns slowly, people stay on this gear. The smaller , accessory gears like regionals turn faster to keep up with its sheer size (say 5 times for every one revolution) . Part 91 jobs , and the less desireable 135 jobs are even smaller gears which are turning very very fast to keep up( high turnover of pilots)the more they shrink the faster they have to turn. People ( the majority of whom seek career progression ,read:$$$ , and have some degree of SJS) are racing through because it is chaotic and competitive.
Quality experience doesn't make as much economic sense any more which is a shame. The flight engineer, for example, was a perfect apprenticeship.
A lot of pilots are self made and thus have a competetive 'adapt or perish' attitude, and could care less about the Systemic issues, but in my opinion, the industry has some big problems to contend with. I hope cold economic logic does not trump safety though I fear in many cases it does.
Quality experience doesn't make as much economic sense any more which is a shame. The flight engineer, for example, was a perfect apprenticeship.
A lot of pilots are self made and thus have a competetive 'adapt or perish' attitude, and could care less about the Systemic issues, but in my opinion, the industry has some big problems to contend with. I hope cold economic logic does not trump safety though I fear in many cases it does.
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Lunchbox
Well-Known Member
Are you asking about regionals, majors or legacy airlines?
CFI A&P
Exploring the world one toilet at a time.
As predicted by many, people are racing to 1,500 the cheapest way possible - in a clapped out C150 doing VFR cross country time building, or the old school way by CFI/CFII/MEI.
A friend's regional is losing and hiring pilots at an average of 6:1 every month. Losing six employees for every one you hire isn't a very good business model. His prediction is they won't last a year at that rate.
A friend's regional is losing and hiring pilots at an average of 6:1 every month. Losing six employees for every one you hire isn't a very good business model. His prediction is they won't last a year at that rate.
CoffeeIcePapers
Well-Hung Member
That's pretty much how it's been done for the last few decades. I fail to see how anything has changed, really.
Johnny Beau Bekkestad
Well-Known Member
Like another poster said, it might not actually decrease safety but i fail to see how the safety will increase by much if any. The one benefit i see by airlines "Taking in under their wings" junior (250TT) pilots is the fact that they can actually form and build a pilot in a safe way, before he or she has had too much time to build up their own way of doing things.
CoffeeIcePapers
Well-Hung Member
US Airlines haven't done ab initio training since the 60's.
JDean3204
Well-Known Member
A few years ago I am sure those who built their time SIC in a caravan were getting looked over until they had some PIC. Now many FO's are going right to the regionals. Also, I did not recognize a single CFI at my flight school while stopping in the other day. Since November, Horizon and Skywest swooped most of them up. Hiring is happening everywhere, not sure what will happen when July 2016 arrives. Since that will be the deadline of the ATP written without a CTP course.
BarbieDreamPilot
homeless
1500 hours was a knee-jerk, piss-poor standard.