Frontier guys

Cherokee_Cruiser said:
Why would anyone want to work at Frontier? , fly a widebody, or true international, and there is no industry status in being a Frontier pilot.



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I know this was posted as sarcasm but for sh*ts and giggles...
You'll never make 400k- avg CA pay was 310k, (161 CA's cleared 500K) high being 620k and we all know who he was!
fly a widebody- sad panda
true international- what's this? isn't that a positive thing?
no industry status in being a Frontier pilot- very true, AA crews still ask if I have my app in...
 
jtrain609 said:
Y'all know third world pilots with almost no training successfully fly A320's and A330's every day, right?

I honestly think the biggest problem with the Airbus in the US is that it's TOO simple to operate, and instead of just letting Fifi do what she wants, we're constantly trying to intervene so we can do things our way.
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I can't speak for how the rest of the world runs their ATC, but stuff in the US isn't really set up for that. Or it is, but for whatever reason they insist on not actually letting crews just fly arrivals/RNAVs without screwing with them.
I'd also have more qualms about putting my family on a "third world" Airbus given how quickly some airlines seem to crash them into the ocean when they end up in alternate law. But I guess with AF 447 we can almost call that a draw.
Also not sure if you guys have a different set up or something, but the managed descent function is awful compared to true VNAV and either I'm doing something wrong or find myself having to intervene a lot to get it to make constraints.
 
JordanD said:
I can't speak for how the rest of the world runs their ATC, but stuff in the US isn't really set up for that. Or it is, but for whatever reason they insist on not actually letting crews just fly arrivals/RNAVs without screwing with them.
I'd also have more qualms about putting my family on a "third world" Airbus given how quickly some airlines seem to crash them into the ocean when they end up in alternate law. But I guess with AF 447 we can almost call that a draw.
Also not sure if you guys have a different set up or something, but the managed descent function is awful compared to true VNAV and either I'm doing something wrong or find myself having to intervene a lot to get it to make constraints.
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It's very possible we have different boxes.

But, while I don't LIKE how the Airbus does VNAV, if I leave the thing in managed airspeed and managed descent, it frankly just works as long as you keep the plane inside the speed window.

Once you're outside of that window, or do selected speed, all bets are off.
 
I'd have to find it, but the accident rate per mile or hour flown of non-us airlines is a bit freaky. Never mind China, especially when I worked for them as a contractor who would just call up at 3pm and say "Oh hey, no flight today or tomorrow from cargo king". You'd find out another plane went down for one of the national airlines (different names and missions/jobs, all working for the CCP) so the entire nation stopped flying, or the whole fleet was parked pending an investigation.

Bizarre we pretend the codesharing makes sense.
 
jtrain609 said:
It's very possible we have different boxes.

But, while I don't LIKE how the Airbus does VNAV, if I leave the thing in managed airspeed and managed descent, it frankly just works as long as you keep the plane inside the speed window.

Once you're outside of that window, or do selected speed, all bets are off.
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I've noticed on the actual built RNAV arrivals with the constraints in there it seems to do ok. When you get a "cross this at this" or put in an "expect" I'll frequently notice the VDEV indicator has zero idea what's happening, freaks out and tells me I'm way high when in fact I'm fine. Supposedly we're getting true VNAV more akin to the A330 soon, but I don't know what that box is like. Maybe @BobDDuck can chime in.
 
ChasenSFO said:
So...you'd rather work at Mesa as a new ATP? Da faq?
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Nobody would, but I feel like there's a valid point here to the skipping the regionals thing. You have a guaranteed interview, say you even get the job, IMO the last hurdle left which is passing training is the largest one. I absolutely would not want to be sitting in Airbus school coming right out of a Cessna or Seminole. Second airline indoc is largely a joke compared to the first one unless you're doing oceanic or something vastly different, because most ops specs are largely the same or similar enough. My first airline trying to wrap my head around ops specs felt like trying to memorize nuclear physics. Compound that on top of the A320, which to my knowledge nobody still completely understands how the stupid thing works 100%. I understand the appeal of going and making 6 figures second year right from ATP, and that people have done it successfully, but IMO it's like climbing Everest as your first mountain.
 
JordanD said:
Nobody would, but I feel like there's a valid point here to the skipping the regionals thing. You have a guaranteed interview, say you even get the job, IMO the last hurdle left which is passing training is the largest one. I absolutely would not want to be sitting in Airbus school coming right out of a Cessna or Seminole. Second airline indoc is largely a joke compared to the first one unless you're doing oceanic or something vastly different, because most ops specs are largely the same or similar enough. My first airline trying to wrap my head around ops specs felt like trying to memorize nuclear physics. Compound that on top of the A320, which to my knowledge nobody still completely understands how the stupid thing works 100%. I understand the appeal of going and making 6 figures second year right from ATP, and that people have done it successfully, but IMO it's like climbing Everest as your first mountain.
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We had some riddle grads that went to NWA and CO (now YO'NITED) as interns that returned to work after graduation as class instructors that turned into seniority list pilots after a year. Talk about jackpot!
 
jtrain609 said:
Y'all know third world pilots with almost no training successfully fly A320's and A330's every day, right?

I honestly think the biggest problem with the Airbus in the US is that it's TOO simple to operate, and instead of just letting Fifi do what she wants, we're constantly trying to intervene so we can do things our way.

Keep her managed at all times, never turn off the auto thrust, don't try to reinvent the wheel, and she does great.
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JordanD said:
Nobody would, but I feel like there's a valid point here to the skipping the regionals thing. You have a guaranteed interview, say you even get the job, IMO the last hurdle left which is passing training is the largest one. I absolutely would not want to be sitting in Airbus school coming right out of a Cessna or Seminole. Second airline indoc is largely a joke compared to the first one unless you're doing oceanic or something vastly different, because most ops specs are largely the same or similar enough. My first airline trying to wrap my head around ops specs felt like trying to memorize nuclear physics. Compound that on top of the A320, which to my knowledge nobody still completely understands how the stupid thing works 100%. I understand the appeal of going and making 6 figures second year right from ATP, and that people have done it successfully, but IMO it's like climbing Everest as your first mountain.
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Yeah I understand all that, and of course ATP grads are way more likely to fail if that's their first job. It's a risk I'd be willing to take for a shot at it. Worst case scenario would be to interview at regionals, with less money and better networked. But since that's totally possible, I'm not 100% sure I want that debt.

Some people do climb Everest, maybe on their first try. Still possible. People DO manage to do it all over, but I don't think to our standards in many cases. Things change fast, but I'd need more direct info from ATP to do it, and they don't have it.
 
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JordanD said:
Nobody would, but I feel like there's a valid point here to the skipping the regionals thing. You have a guaranteed interview, say you even get the job, IMO the last hurdle left which is passing training is the largest one. I absolutely would not want to be sitting in Airbus school coming right out of a Cessna or Seminole. Second airline indoc is largely a joke compared to the first one unless you're doing oceanic or something vastly different, because most ops specs are largely the same or similar enough. My first airline trying to wrap my head around ops specs felt like trying to memorize nuclear physics. Compound that on top of the A320, which to my knowledge nobody still completely understands how the stupid thing works 100%. I understand the appeal of going and making 6 figures second year right from ATP, and that people have done it successfully, but IMO it's like climbing Everest as your first mountain.
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Don't the majors usually have much better quality training than regionals? Seems like this might be a reason you'd do better somewhere like F9 as your first airline, rather than a regional. I know my regional has had serious issues with training, although it has gotten somewhat better; and that seems to be a common issue. Of course that's all assuming the ATP straight to Frontier program actually works.
 
Yakob said:
Don't the majors usually have much better quality training than regionals? Seems like this might be a reason you'd do better somewhere like F9 as your first airline, rather than a regional. I know my regional has had serious issues with training, although it has gotten somewhat better; and that seems to be a common issue. Of course that's all assuming the ATP straight to Frontier program actually works.
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Mesaba went 67 years without crashing unless you count the mechanics taking an empty plane and running it into the side of the Memphis terminal.

I will say, the training at SJI was very focused on bringing Military guys along with a leash and spending days trying to help them understand what "ramp frequency" was. Then we spent what the regionals would call 20 sim lessons to teach nothing and understand nothing about the airplane. Some people who hadn't flown for airlines before needed extra sim sessions.

It was nice playing with the autothrottles a bunch in a sim, but flight sim showed me some of that in college. It was just a Boeing though, I didn't have to match colors with hydraulic systems or anything complicated.

I'm not sure why I couldn't be off IOE and making more money sooner, but fortunately about half the class was done so quick because they had previous airline experience, we didn't get affected by that like some guys.
 
jynxyjoe said:
Mesaba went 67 years without crashing unless you count the mechanics taking an empty plane and running it into the side of the Memphis terminal.

I will say, the training at SJI was very focused on bringing Military guys along with a leash and spending days trying to help them understand what "ramp frequency" was. Then we spent what the regionals would call 20 sim lessons to teach nothing and understand nothing about the airplane. Some people who hadn't flown for airlines before needed extra sim sessions.

It was nice playing with the autothrottles a bunch in a sim, but flight sim showed me some of that in college. It was just a Boeing though, I didn't have to match colors with hydraulic systems or anything complicated.

I'm not sure why I couldn't be off IOE and making more money sooner, but fortunately about half the class was done so quick because they had previous airline experience, we didn't get affected by that like some guys.
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By contrast, at my shop, and in my class, the mil-only pilots went straight through the footprint with no extra sims. That said, we did have some "airline 101" built into the program. Overall though, I didn't find it terribly different from training at 9E (aside from the training facilities, access to info, and the equipment which made 9E look like a preschool), and I was mil-only when I trained there.
 
jtrain609 said:
Y'all know third world pilots with almost no training successfully fly A320's and A330's every day, right?

I honestly think the biggest problem with the Airbus in the US is that it's TOO simple to operate, and instead of just letting Fifi do what she wants, we're constantly trying to intervene so we can do things our way.

Keep her managed at all times, never turn off the auto thrust, don't try to reinvent the wheel, and she does great.
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Until feces starts to go wrong and that part of the world starts button pushing to fix a rapidly deteriorating aircraft flight path condition. That doesn’t end well.
 
MikeFavinger said:
By contrast, at my shop, and in my class, the mil-only pilots went straight through the footprint with no extra sims. That said, we did have some "airline 101" built into the program. Overall though, I didn't find it terribly different from training at 9E (aside from the training facilities, access to info, and the equipment which made 9E look like a preschool), and I was mil-only when I trained there.
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Maybe army helo guys are just better.

Everyone expected the f16 guy to have a lot to learn, but he wasn't the only one. Maybe I had a dud batch. Also, from the time they got the nod to the time they were in class was 6 months, maybe some of them didn't fly at all at that time? It was pretty confusing to watch from the inside.
 
MikeFavinger said:
By contrast, at my shop, and in my class, the mil-only pilots went straight through the footprint with no extra sims. That said, we did have some "airline 101" built into the program. Overall though, I didn't find it terribly different from training at 9E (aside from the training facilities, access to info, and the equipment which made 9E look like a preschool), and I was mil-only when I trained there.
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I'd also add, there's a lot of BS that was hurled at EDV guys not being able to pass an interview because they were underprepared and less than. Mil guys from AF and Navy seemed to have no trouble coming into a EDV class and being gone before the first sim session started or at the latest IOE before they punched out, and that was completely normal and accepted. They didn't make any trouble in class because they were diligently studying their United interview questions. I assumed the best of the best of the best, with honors, were the best. That's why it took years of regional work unless you were special to get to a good airline, never mind a legacy.

Instead I got to class it was, "I'm not going to sit reserve, I'm going to get leave and I'll come back when I can hold a good line in a base I want" to the guy teaching the class about reserve and line obligations. Also, a class about what reserve and lines were? In 06 and 07 you didn't ask any questions, you were on probation, you'd do whatever they told you to do. I'd have been fired if I said crap like that. If day one I was angrily questioning the company why a bunch of edv regional guys were in class when they'd interviewed 4 months after me, I'm pretty sure I'd get thrown the heck out. In regional land, in 2006 and 07, if you took more than 2 extra sims total, not a week, you'd be asked to leave voluntarily so they didn't fire you.

Say 10 Mil guys, 5 took it serious, the other 5 we're clearly doing us a favor even being in the classroom and gracing us with their aura. We had hundreds of edv guys who'd jump through hoops and wiggle their tail if told to, and they wouldn't need extra help. Its flabbergasting.
 
jynxyjoe said:
Instead I got to class it was, "I'm not going to sit reserve, I'm going to get leave and I'll come back when I can hold a good line in a base I want" to the guy teaching the class about reserve and line obligations.
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That's so odd - the mil dudes in my class were respectful, asked questions, and shut upped and colored. Must be something in the water at SJI... ;)
 
jynxyjoe said:
We had some riddle grads that went to NWA and CO (now YO'NITED) as interns that returned to work after graduation as class instructors that turned into seniority list pilots after a year. Talk about jackpot!
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Yo'nited hired CFIs direct to the 737 as recently as a couple years ago. It was a trial program for some flight program.
 
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