1500 rule in possible jeopardy

[Seggy]

Enough. Far more than I expected when I entered the training world at a 121 carrier.

My experience has been different than yours.

You aren't getting the point. I'm talking about people who are barely at the standard on the things we do today. Now, with today's procedures. But even for the rock star guys who never trip up, the bar for "rock star" isn't that high either. We just don't push the limits in 121 training. And that's okay. It's just a different mindset.

I am getting the point. Training in the 121 world today should be focused on if poo hits the fan, can the crew deal with it. I would say that most training programs are there. Now, compare that with other aviation areas, 121 operations have been safer in recent years. You can't discount that to solely the system without mentioning the advancement of AQP programs.

 

[Seggy]

Have you ever seen a PTS before?

Many a time.

There are dozens of answers to your question in there.

That is bull crap and you know it.

If poo is hitting the fan, the last thing on my mind is the PTS. I am declaring an emergency and exercising my authority to get the airplane on the ground in any manner I see fit. If I am on fire pretty sure I will be going above 250 knots below 10K. Altitude be damned if I have a gear issue and am so busy I miss an altitude on the tower assigned missed after I declare (that actually happened to me).

There are lots of performance tasks that have multiple methods of accomplishment and still have objective standards to be measured against.

Say on Monday I am Captain of a flight out of SEA and we loose an engine. The First Officer was the PF and I run the checklists, do the talking, and let him land as he has a handle on the situation. Did I do anything wrong? How would you grade that?

Say on Tuesday you are the Captain of a flight out of SEA and you loose an engine. The First Officer was the PF but you decide you want to fly, he runs the checks lists, does the talking and you land. Did you do anything wrong? How would you grade that?

Point is, both outcomes were successful not because of the individual, but because the crew concept worked.

None the less, that is digressing into irrelelvancies and not at all what I've been talking about in my posts. @PhilosopherPilot is hitting exactly the point I'm discussing, that "the bar", when taken in the bigger perspective, just isn't relatively that high and the required tasks just aren't that complicated or difficult.

Again, not a slight -- a statement of perspective.

The bar is higher than you and he thinks it is IMHO.

 

[Seggy]

Right because the guy I met who has demonstrated repeatedly stick and rudder skill beyond reproach was any kind of blow hard full of himself and not the most humble of professional aviators.

I have heard different stories than what you just said in terms of humility. I am not doubting his stick and rudder skills. But that doesn't mean I would want him in a crew environment when poo hits the fan.

Hoover lived in the era of the four ship fighter. Hell he helped build that tactic which still exists to this day. Anyone who has operated in military aviation will tell you that despite your attitude that because he sat alone in his airplane he was ever the center of the universe or that an attitude as such would be allowed to continue its simply not reality.

Ahhh...OK!

Despite your assumptions against Hacker and repeated attempts to paint military pilots as some sort of Jockesque quarterback Ice Man on SNL stereotype they simply aren't true. The ones like that who do make the cut of flight school into the communities around the military don't survive. We don't have a place for them, so like a bad case of the flue the bodies white blood cells (senior mentors) either correct the problem or eat them.

Just because you cut pilots like that in the military does it mean it works outside. Nor does it make it the safest way to look at a pilot or breed a good safety culture.

1500 hours proves what exactly? It's a quantitative finish line we just throw out there like somehow at hour 100 or 200 or 1499 you aren't worth the time to even review. So what if you got 5000 should we just forgo a lot of the testing done at 1500 hours? 10000 hour pilot just not ask questions he must be good to go or he wouldn't have gotten that. It isn't any kind of qualitative review of your airmanship ability or your ability to operate as part of a crew. It's simply a way to turn what would otherwise be filing cabinets full of applications into a small stack for a chief pilot to sift through and find candidates the insurance will cover.

How would you measure experience? Before you answer that, do you know what you can do to get the 1500 hours reduced?

 

[MikeD]

You ignored my point that some pilots can do a perfect V1 cut but be a nightmare CRM wise getting the plane back on the ground..

One thing to keep in mind is that's a two-way street. While your point is indeed very valid, the opposite is also true: if a guy is great at CRM, but brings little or no skill to the table, that's just as bad.

The LAST person I would want to be piloting an airliners I am in when poo hit the fan would be a Bob Hoover. I am sure he would do fine in the twin he has, but wouldn't want to see how he treats his other crew members.

Very hard to say. Only because it's very dependent on the attitude of the individual, as well as how flexible they allow themselves to be.

Example: in my operation, we have single piloted as well as crew piloted fixed and rotary wing. There are crewmembers who fly crossover of Category if dual-rated (both single pilot as well as crew ops), as well as some who only crossover within one Category. As well as there are those who only fly crew or only fly single-pilot aircraft. What's interesting is seeing the wide range of cockpit management: There are crew-heavy guys who prefer that far over anything single pilot, and there are single pilot guys who don't know what to do with a second crewmember when required to have on onboard (per our OpsSpecs, single pilot aircraft require a crew for night tactical ops). Some guys have no problem swinging back and forth from a crew aircraft to a single pilot one and back, day after day; and those guys are usually the ones who not only have the same CRM training we all are required to have (and rehack yearly at recurrent), but they also have a far more flexible attitude when it comes to having to do single pilot one day, and crew the next.

It's hard to say how someone like Hoover would be on a flight deck, until actually flying with him. He could be just as you describe, could be completely opposite, or could be somewhere in between.

With regards to 121 safety in general, it's been on a good track for some time now, and that's reflected in not only the low accident rate, but low incident rate as well. I posted a while back the FAA investigation in the late 1980s of Delta, following a string of high-profile incidents with high accident potential, as well as fatal accidents/hull losses that occurred, all of which really got the attention of the FAA. The Feds came in and found some serious problems at Delta with their training/standards and CRM, all of which were eventually corrected, and we have the fine operation they are today. So generally speaking, the system has been working, and hopefully it keeps working.

 

[Lawman]

I have heard different stories than what you just said in terms of humility. I am not doubting his stick and rudder skills. But that doesn't mean I would want him in a crew environment when poo hits the fan.



Ahhh...OK!



Just because you cut pilots like that in the military does it mean it works outside. Nor does it make it the safest way to look at a pilot or breed a good safety culture.




How would you measure experience? Before you answer that, do you know what you can do to get the 1500 hours reduced?

So wait? Your claiming repeatedly that 121 training styles are far and above superior while at the same time admitting you don't get rid of guys who can't cut the mustard or don't have the ability to work as a team? Well which is it?

And I'm well aware of the stipulations for military flight time or College brick and mortar flight training programs... You know what that means... I had money or spent time doing ____. So I'll ask you again based strictly off your experience what specific airmanship ability or talent to you some how get when you passed through any hour gate. What specifically changed when you hit 500 or 1000 hours from the flight before that? This is why we have a movement in the military to get away from raw experience and move more into a tiered demo of skills and ratings. Nothing changed because I hit 1000 hours, other than a excel cell on a brief page went from yellow to green. Same as I didn't gain any sort of additional skill level when I first got my retract endorsement between my IP certifying me in it and the 25 hours that were required for that FBO to rent it to me solo. I didn't suddenly become more skilled or learn some secret maneuver in that ~20 additional hours. But money required we do things that way.

I find your back peddle/dismissal of talking out your butt on Hoover ironic. You keep bringing up your experiences in these threads like we should all take them at face value/gospel and then go off on "what I heard" about Hoover when I've actually met and spent time with the man. I'm telling you both your opinions of him and your opinions of the military are both lacking in any actual experience or basis in the reality.

so why do I with 750 hours of experience in military flying have some secret leg up on a guy that has 1200 hours elsewhere. I mean experience is just a count of your hours the man has almost 500 more hours than me why should he need another 300. It's not like the NTSB and FAA didn't both argue in front of congress after Buffalo that no evidence existed that 1500 hours was some magic mark of experience. We've both got the same ATP? Hell why don't we extend this thinking to civilian pilot training. Should we make instructors fly students for ~10-20 more hours after through their evaluation that pilot is ready based off of an arbitrary number thought up in congress?




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[USMCmech]

It's hard to say how someone like Hoover would be on a flight deck, until actually flying with him. He could be just as you describe, could be completely opposite, or could be somewhere in between.

In my experience, the guys who are flying on a whole nother level of skill are also some of the most humble, ego free, and safety conscious guys I've flown with. OTOH, I've flown with many pilots whose lack of confidence in their own abilities creates a serious problem in the cockpit. Sure, you can be hardwired to avoid hazards, but what happens on the day when the hazard finds you?


I know some will take exception to the following statement, but I'm going to say it anyway.

An individual who is scared to fly outside the safety bubble of 121 flying is an airplane driver, not a pilot. Which is a safety hazard, because someday your passengers and crew will need a pilot who can fly in a scenario that was never practiced in the sim.

 

[Cptnchia]

@Lawman have you learned nothing about arguing with Seggy from any one of the multitude of gun threads? Face it, he knows more about everything, ever. and he'll let you know it.

 

[SrFnFly227]

Say on Monday I am Captain of a flight out of SEA and we loose an engine. The First Officer was the PF and I run the checklists, do the talking, and let him land as he has a handle on the situation. Did I do anything wrong? How would you grade that?

I would say the Captain handled this situation as it should be handled. Both crew members are fully trained and qualified to handle the engine failure. Egos were checked at the door and it resulted in a successful outcome.

Say on Tuesday you are the Captain of a flight out of SEA and you loose an engine. The First Officer was the PF but you decide you want to fly, he runs the checks lists, does the talking and you land. Did you do anything wrong? How would you grade that?

I would say the Captain handled this wrong. Again, both crew members and fully trained and qualified to handle the emergency. The Captain taking the controls is nothing but an ego move and screams bad CRM to me. You're a Captain because your seniority number is higher, not because you're the better pilot.

 

[killbilly]

@Lawman have you learned nothing about arguing with Seggy from any one of the multitude of gun threads? Face it, he knows more about everything, ever. and he'll let you know it.

I don't always agree with @Seggy but I feel it's unfair to characterize him this way in this thread. I'm finding the well-reasoned discussion here between he and @Hacker15e and others to be rather informative of different perspectives and interpretations on a really nuanced set of issues.

 

[Seggy]

One thing to keep in mind is that's a two-way street. While your point is indeed very valid, the opposite is also true: if a guy is great at CRM, but brings little or no skill to the table, that's just as bad.

True. However, I would rather fly with someone who is a little weak that has an excellent attitude and great at CRM though.

Very hard to say. Only because it's very dependent on the attitude of the individual, as well as how flexible they allow themselves to be.

Example: in my operation, we have single piloted as well as crew piloted fixed and rotary wing. There are crewmembers who fly crossover of Category if dual-rated (both single pilot as well as crew ops), as well as some who only crossover within one Category. As well as there are those who only fly crew or only fly single-pilot aircraft. What's interesting is seeing the wide range of cockpit management: There are crew-heavy guys who prefer that far over anything single pilot, and there are single pilot guys who don't know what to do with a second crewmember when required to have on onboard (per our OpsSpecs, single pilot aircraft require a crew for night tactical ops). Some guys have no problem swinging back and forth from a crew aircraft to a single pilot one and back, day after day; and those guys are usually the ones who not only have the same CRM training we all are required to have (and rehack yearly at recurrent), but they also have a far more flexible attitude when it comes to having to do single pilot one day, and crew the next.

It's hard to say how someone like Hoover would be on a flight deck, until actually flying with him. He could be just as you describe, could be completely opposite, or could be somewhere in between.

I heard a story about him from someone who was with him at an airshow. Second hand information yes, but well who knows for sure.

With regards to 121 safety in general, it's been on a good track for some time now, and that's reflected in not only the low accident rate, but low incident rate as well. I posted a while back the FAA investigation in the late 1980s of Delta, following a string of high-profile incidents with high accident potential, as well as fatal accidents/hull losses that occurred, all of which really got the attention of the FAA. The Feds came in and found some serious problems at Delta with their training/standards and CRM, all of which were eventually corrected, and we have the fine operation they are today. So generally speaking, the system has been working, and hopefully it keeps working.

I can't disagree with that.

 

[Seggy]

So wait? Your claiming repeatedly that 121 training styles are far and above superior while at the same time admitting you don't get rid of guys who can't cut the mustard or don't have the ability to work as a team? Well which is it?

Look at these two high profile Air Force Accidents.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Fairchild_Air_Force_Base_B-52_crash

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Alaska_C-17_crash

Both these crews had no problem passing and I am sure had great stick and rudder skills, but had significant CRM break downs. So, once again, give me someone any day who has great CRM/TEM skills. Also, yes, by 1994 most airlines had CRM/TEM programs. Doesn't seem like the Air Force did.

And I'm well aware of the stipulations for military flight time or College brick and mortar flight training programs... You know what that means... I had money or spent time doing ____. So I'll ask you again based strictly off your experience what specific airmanship ability or talent to you some how get when you passed through any hour gate. What specifically changed when you hit 500 or 1000 hours from the flight before that? This is why we have a movement in the military to get away from raw experience and move more into a tiered demo of skills and ratings. Nothing changed because I hit 1000 hours, other than a excel cell on a brief page went from yellow to green. Same as I didn't gain any sort of additional skill level when I first got my retract endorsement between my IP certifying me in it and the 25 hours that were required for that FBO to rent it to me solo. I didn't suddenly become more skilled or learn some secret maneuver in that ~20 additional hours. But money required we do things that way.

I find your back peddle/dismissal of talking out your butt on Hoover ironic. You keep bringing up your experiences in these threads like we should all take them at face value/gospel and then go off on "what I heard" about Hoover when I've actually met and spent time with the man. I'm telling you both your opinions of him and your opinions of the military are both lacking in any actual experience or basis in the reality.

so why do I with 750 hours of experience in military flying have some secret leg up on a guy that has 1200 hours elsewhere. I mean experience is just a count of your hours the man has almost 500 more hours than me why should he need another 300. It's not like the NTSB and FAA didn't both argue in front of congress after Buffalo that no evidence existed that 1500 hours was some magic mark of experience. We've both got the same ATP? Hell why don't we extend this thinking to civilian pilot training. Should we make instructors fly students for ~10-20 more hours after through their evaluation that pilot is ready based off of an arbitrary number thought up in congress?




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Once again, how do you measure experience?

 

[Seggy]

In my experience, the guys who are flying on a whole nother level of skill are also some of the most humble, ego free, and safety conscious guys I've flown with. OTOH, I've flown with many pilots whose lack of confidence in their own abilities creates a serious problem in the cockpit. Sure, you can be hardwired to avoid hazards, but what happens on the day when the hazard finds you?

Use your CRM skills to manage the situation.

I know some will take exception to the following statement, but I'm going to say it anyway.

An individual who is scared to fly outside the safety bubble of 121 flying is an airplane driver, not a pilot. Which is a safety hazard, because someday your passengers and crew will need a pilot who can fly in a scenario that was never practiced in the sim.

Once again Al Haynes mostly managed the situation and let his FO fly. He also brought up a Check Airman deadheading in the back. After hearing him speak, he talked more about his crew, not how great of a pilot he was.

 

[Seggy]

I would say the Captain handled this situation as it should be handled. Both crew members are fully trained and qualified to handle the engine failure. Egos were checked at the door and it resulted in a successful outcome.



I would say the Captain handled this wrong. Again, both crew members and fully trained and qualified to handle the emergency. The Captain taking the controls is nothing but an ego move and screams bad CRM to me. You're a Captain because your seniority number is higher, not because you're the better pilot.

How can you say the Captain handled it wrong? The plane did land on the ground safely. According to some that was the 'grade'.

Just asking....

 

[Kingairer]

Use your CRM skills to manage the situation.




Once again Al Haynes mostly managed the situation and let his FO fly. He also brought up a Check Airman deadheading in the back. After hearing him speak, he talked more about his crew, not how great of a pilot he was.

to further your point, wasn't his control input compeltly futile as they were no longer actually changing the control surfaces, it was all down to differential thrust?


On the opposite end, Sullys landing was pretty much all piloting skill.

The cockpit needs both.

 

[Lawman]

Look at these two high profile Air Force Accidents.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Fairchild_Air_Force_Base_B-52_crash

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Alaska_C-17_crash

Both these crews had no problem passing and I am sure had great stick and rudder skills, but had significant CRM break downs. So, once again, give me someone any day who has great CRM/TEM skills. Also, yes, by 1994 most airlines had CRM/TEM programs. Doesn't seem like the Air Force did.



Once again, how do you measure experience?

Experience is a number. And according to FAA testimony means exactly nothing.

The frank point is it's the wrong question to ask. Just like any other field there are plenty of people with "experience" who make terrible decisions. It should be a question of how do we question the wisdom to make the right choices. Otherwise as I said, why are multi thousand hour pilots making mistakes that 1500 hour pilots didn't make under the same scenario.

And those high profile crashes your using, the Air Force safety school is built around those incidents as their primary examples of how not to run a CRM program. Even the Army's safety school uses that to instruct commanders on how a break down in CRM can end in catastrophe. Again you don't know anything about military flying but you want to apply 121 mantras and your personal experience to review it.


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[Seggy]

Experience is a number. And according to FAA testimony means exactly nothing.

The frank point is it's the wrong question to ask. Just like any other field there are plenty of people with "experience" who make terrible decisions. It should be a question of how do we question the wisdom to make the right choices. Otherwise as I said, why are multi thousand hour pilots making mistakes that 1500 hour pilots didn't make under the same scenario.

And those high profile crashes your using, the Air Force safety school is built around those incidents as their primary examples of how not to run a CRM program. Even the Army's safety school uses that to instruct commanders on how a break down in CRM can end in catastrophe. Again you don't know anything about military flying but you want to apply 121 mantras and your personal experience to review it.


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Did you read what I wrote?

 

[Hacker15e]

Look at these two high profile Air Force Accidents.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Fairchild_Air_Force_Base_B-52_crash

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Alaska_C-17_crash

Both these crews had no problem passing and I am sure had great stick and rudder skills, but had significant CRM break downs.

The actual root issue in those two accidents is flight discipline. The Fairchild crash was mostly a result of an old culture where flight discipline (e.g. knowing the rules and adhering to them) was ignored by a small group of old graybeards, and the showboating was somewhat tolerated by peer squadronmates. If you read Darker Shades Of Blue or Rogue Pilots, there are excellent analyses of the events leading up to that incident and what happened on that particular day. Since we don't have a CVR, we don't know what was happening in terms of crew coordination before the crash.

The Alaska crash is also a flight D issue, but is much more indicative of the "normalization of deviance" than a CRM issue. Only those of us within AF safety channels have heard what was on that CVR, but we do know that the only comment made leading up to the crash was "okay, lookin' good" stated by the observer just before the stall. There was not a CRM breakdown, there was no disagreement about the maneuvers being performed or the parameters being used. The accident investigation revealed that the demo team had been regularly disregarding bank/G limits. Again, not a CRM breakdown, as the crewmembers were all on board with what was taking place leading up to the crash.

 

[USMCmech]

Experience is a number. And according to FAA testimony means exactly nothing.

I would modify this to say "Flight Time is just a number" Total time does not equal experience. However, conversely a lack of total time does equal a lack of experience.

The simple fact is that 95% of most pilot's flight time is spent in level cruise with the AP on demanding absolutely nothing from their skill set. About 4.9% of the time spent in their log books was actually spent either actually flying the plane. At best, only 0.1% of their flight time was spent making critical decisions and/or flying outside of the center of the airplane's envelope. That tiny fraction of most pilot's logbooks is where experience is gained.

Experience is a vital part of safety, but it is nearly impossible to measure. There are many pilots who have logged thousands of hours, but have rarely, if ever, operated outside their comfort zone. Meanwhile, some pilots with far fewer entries in their logbook have actively sought out opportunities to increase their skill as an aviator.

Meanwhile, since there is no reliable system to measure experience, we are left with the very imperfect metric of total time. Even then, all that experience in one field of aviation may not apply at all in your new airplane and/or new job. I have said many times that the pilots I respect the most have a healthy variety of types of experience in their past.

This is an excellent article about what really matters when it comes to experience. http://www.avweb.com/news/pelican/182039-1.html


Edit to add:

Evelyn Johnson's 57,000 hours of flight time is particularly impressive not just because of the number itself, but because the vast majority of it was spent flight instructing. I imagine level cruise flight with the autopilot on probably comprised a remarkably small portion of her total time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Bryan_Johnson

 

[derg]

Impressive penis measuring contest, gentlemen!

But you know, @Derg is here and you know what they say about Californians.

What? Huh? What were you thinking?

 

[Richman]

1,500 hours with pilot A does not necessarily equal 1,500 hours with pilot B.

Pilot A ran through a zero to hero course to 250 hours, then successfully warmed the right seat watching the autopilot fly the magenta line while the captain/dispatcher made the tough calls.

Pilot B did his/her CFI at 250 hours and then had 950 hours of dual given and 300 hours of flying night freight.

What the FAA did was eliminate the "coast to the finish line" option. Now you might actually have to be a PIC at some point.

I can teach my 80 year old neighbor how to twiddle knobs until the little triangle is on the line.

All the other stuff takes time, all done in the framework allowing you to scare yourself and survive the process (no guarantee on your undies). Consider it a 1250 hour vetting process.

Richman