1500 hr rule going away??

Could this then mean the 1500 hour rule over time is going to weed out the bad attitudes, create higher quality instructors more focused on their job of instructing, giving higher quality training instead of focusing on jumping to a regional, which in turn puts out higher quality pilots who will even be higher quality instructors than their instructors?
Hopefully. It can also mean the people who aren't able to adapt to the constant, often extreme, changes in aviation that can happen in short periods of time will be deterred from professional flying. People still whining about the 1500 hour rule are delusional, "you USED to be able to get a wet commercial and fly a shiny jet, so instead of networking and finding the best way to get myself to my goal of a 121 cockpit, I'm going to whine about people pulling up the ladder and hate every second of life until I'm sitting on reserve with a 2-leg commute at a bottom-tier regional because I spent all my time building pissed off rather than networking". Who cares about what the hiring mins used to be? People need to just get with the program and focus on what is rather than what was. Now you actually have to fly long enough to (hopefully) master your stick and rudder skills and (ideally) be exposed to many more situations compared than a 250 hour pilot. At the end of the day, asking for 1500 hours means that every person coming in that door to interview isn't just a warm body eager to hop in a jet, they're an experienced pilot who has options. In 1500 hours of flying, who knows how many opportunities and connections a candidate has under their belt. Some regionals are already having trouble attracting candidates, learning that you really do get what you pay for. You want to pay kids who have never even had a flying job $20/hour to fly a jet? Sure, you'll fill seats. You want to pay a 1500+ hour pilot with an ATP written $20/hour to fly that jet, when his buddy at flight department X can get him a better gig? The more experienced candidate knows what they're worth, and the airlines are figuring that out slowly but surely.

But hey, haters gonna hate, and misery loves company. Oh well, less applicants to the regionals I'd actually want to work for, I guess.
 
As aghast as I was when the 1500 hour rule came out, now I'm very glad it did for many reasons. Most of the pilots I've spoken with who rabidly protest it seem to hate flying GA and want nothing but to fly 121 the rest of their lives. I mean to each their own, but...if you don't have fun hand flying a 172 doing what you want, what makes you think you'll love the highly regulated world of 121 flying and spending long stretches of time cruising on A/P? Seems silly to me.
Let me know how much you "love" hand flying a 172 in the heat and turbulence for 11 hours a day. :P
 
I know about a half dozen CFIs with well over 1500 TT at one school. Can anyone gue$$ why they are $till CFI ing? Id imagine its similar at a lot of flight schools around the nation.
 
As aghast as I was when the 1500 hour rule came out, now I'm very glad it did for many reasons. Most of the pilots I've spoken with who rabidly protest it seem to hate flying GA and want nothing but to fly 121 the rest of their lives. I mean to each their own, but...if you don't have fun hand flying a 172 doing what you want, what makes you think you'll love the highly regulated world of 121 flying and spending long stretches of time cruising on A/P? Seems silly to me.
121 people usually look at me like I'm insane when I say "yeah I'm going to go putz around in a (whatever) on at least one of my days off".

Er, well, sorry, I love to fly. I love the Brasilia and its various warts, but sometimes it's nice to go out single pilot and look at the beach at 1,000', or whatever.
 
Phooey, and other such comments. It might be sterile and antiseptic, but the seat of your pants still has SOME place in operating it. (It might feel lousy... ;) :D )

True, but the controls have the same feel of doing surgery while wearing chain mail.

But I guarantee that when I'm hand flying, if you have your eyes closed in the back you wouldn't even know we're moving. Especially raw data. The only time I get a bit catywompus is trying to chase that stupid pink thing around.
 
I do believe in quality over quantity. However, there's too wide of a range of type of hours that can be flown. That seems too hard to regulate.

The only pilot that be allowed hour reductions (and they are) are the armed services.

I've been saying this for a while now. I don' think we're all that far from the tipping point at which the majors to put the new "regional jets" (E-Jets, and whatever else comes down the pipe which is of far greater than 50 seat capacity) onto their own certs, crew them themselves, and stop essentially paying twice for maintenance, crew scheduling, dispatch, etc as they do with the regional/ outsourced model.

@Derg can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe Delta already has a CRJ/ERJ types in their pay scales.


FWIW, our CEO BB came back with his weekly letter on the intranet talking about his appearance at the hearing. He admitted he didn't speak very clearly or very well at all about the topic at hand, nor did he mean to be the lightening rod, though whenever anyone in management talks about Part 117 or the 1500 hr rule that's exactly what happens. His argument is basically that's its not just the hours but the experience that makes the pilot. But of course we've beaten that argument to death. 1500tt isn't that much flight time anyways...

To be honest I'm actually one of the few here that likes him. That said, I do have some serious disagreements with what he says on certain issues but I respect that he does care about the company and he thinks about more than just furthering his career. He probably could have moved on to a lofty position at a mainline carrier awhile ago if he wanted too (although there are rumors that is currently in the works). He also seems to be very successful about picking up more flying for us, he managed to fanagle the Ceasar's flying and after the Airways flight went away at CHQ last year the 145s pretty much went straight to the paint shop to get widgets on they're tails. At least he's no Frank Lorenzo.

Rumor has it the same is in store for some of the 140s and 145s we have now. We shall see.

Drink BB coolaid much. BB and WH care about 1 thing and 1 thing only. How much money they can put in their own pockets. The could care less about the pilot group. If he could cram another concessionary contract through he would.
 
But I guarantee that when I'm hand flying, if you have your eyes closed in the back you wouldn't even know we're moving. Especially raw data. The only time I get a bit catywompus is trying to chase that stupid pink thing around.

Also the primary reason I prefer raw data for approaches. The pink bars telling me to pull the nose up to 10 degrees high because I just drifted slightly below glideslope is about as useful as a second anus. Or a perfect example on climbout: hmm, yes, I should definitely pull the nose up to 15 degrees (from about 12) to accelerate to 250 knots. WTF?
 
Let me know how much you "love" hand flying a 172 in the heat and turbulence for 11 hours a day. :p
Fool you already know I would never do your job. So far in life I've been lucky to never have a job that wasn't fun overall, and I'm going to try and keep it that way.
 
Also the primary reason I prefer raw data for approaches. The pink bars telling me to pull the nose up to 10 degrees high because I just drifted slightly below glideslope is about as useful as a second anus. Or a perfect example on climbout: hmm, yes, I should definitely pull the nose up to 15 degrees (from about 12) to accelerate to 250 knots. WTF?
Ya, I'm already not a huge fan of our flight director. I can do it more smoothly than it commands, not to mentions it often commands some stupid crap. I can also get the airplane turning like 10 seconds before it decides to command a turn on a heading change. Usually I start what I want the airplane to do and amazingly, the flight director eventually settles into what I have.
 
121 people usually look at me like I'm insane when I say "yeah I'm going to go putz around in a (whatever) on at least one of my days off".

Er, well, sorry, I love to fly. I love the Brasilia and its various warts, but sometimes it's nice to go out single pilot and look at the beach at 1,000', or whatever.
1000ft? You must get nose bleeds all the way up there. :)
 
Also the primary reason I prefer raw data for approaches. The pink bars telling me to pull the nose up to 10 degrees high because I just drifted slightly below glideslope is about as useful as a second anus. Or a perfect example on climbout: hmm, yes, I should definitely pull the nose up to 15 degrees (from about 12) to accelerate to 250 knots. WTF?

Watching the other guy watch the autopilot try to capture a loc with any kind of crosswind is like fingernails on a chalk board for me. Usually followed by "why isn't it working?"

Me: "Hey, I have an idea."
 
Watching the other guy watch the autopilot try to capture a loc with any kind of crosswind is like fingernails on a chalk board for me. Usually followed by "why isn't it working?"

Me: "Hey, I have an idea."
"You are flying along intercepting the localizer, autopilot engaged and LOC-GS modes armed, and it becomes evident that the autopilot's not going to do it. Do you (a) start pressing buttons or (b) fly the airplane?"

(I like my TCS button, or just punching it off outright.)
 
Problem also is different airline cultures.

Delta apparently emphasizes hand flying raw data to keep the skills up.

Pinnacle used to.

Mesaba procedure basically calls for always having the flight director on, and in fact my buddies shudder in horror that we hand fly sans flight director over at cowboy air.

Further, the FAA is giving in to the worldwide erosion of hand flying by forcing RNAVs upon us. We now no longer have "4 NM either side of center", rather the tolerance is less than a 1/2 dot before the violation might spit out.

I would LOVE to be super proficient at all levels of automation, specifically the hand flying raw data, but everyone is trying to remove it from the equation.

In fairness, cowboy air is one of the nicer nick names.

Mesaba guys, including me, still have a lot of the old book in them that required certain levels of automation. Our group a lot of times just followed the book because it was easier (our book was half the size of the current one), and we still think we're doing that, and ignorance is bliss. The truth is, the new book is mostly the old Pinnacle book, and it makes no damn sense, so sometimes I give up trying to follow it to the letter because it's not like anyone follows it anyhow at this company. Honestly, after carefully reviewing the Endeavor FOM a year back, I'm pretty sure it's literally impossible to follow the book to the letter because it conflicts so often. I need a Letter of Interpretation from my POI on a couple day to day issues.

Wait before you respond I need a second. See while I'm overboosting the engines (because I know better), and resetting whatever breaker I please (because I know better), skipping half the standard calls because that screws up my raw data departure and I'm trying to fly this to F240 to stay sharp (because I know better), skipping the FMA calls because they are stupid (and they are, I agree, because I know better), complaining about rampies doing their job how they were taught (but I know better), I need to call up MX, DX, SOC, and crew scheduling because they are all complete idiots and I have to micro manage everything during the trip because I know better and I'm the only one doing my job right! While I call up MX at SOC I will purposefully not communicate with DX because I know better, and those guys are idiots. Somewhere in this four day we'll find a way to gripe about the SLI too.

Yes, sometimes it feels like a cowboy operation because many (certainly not all, but a lot) of the captains I fly with have their own book they use. To them it makes perfect sense but it's tough on some of us who don't know all the secret code words that have become (non)standard callouts

/separate
*my two cents, not directed at cencal, just to the superpilots who may be reading the other posts with cheerleading skirts on*

For all the "lazy" Mesaba pilots we had, some of whom found themselves in scenarios exactly matching other carriers who crashed and killed passengers and crew, we somehow managed to hand fly it out of trouble every single time for 67 years. Maybe, just maybe, guys can unplug a little from being super pilot, let the automation do it's job, manage it from on top, and learn more about the automation. For all the bellyaching we do about the CRJ, hitting the TURB button fixes 1/3 of your problems, and PITCH mode fixes another 1/3, and the rest can be fixed using white needles to the OM like Mesaba USED to have guidance for. Before anyone says it, yes the automation kicks off when it gets bad, you better believe it, but when it's THAT bad ATC didn't call me up griping because I wasn't holding +/-50ft and +/-5knots. In fact, sometimes it gets so bad it's better to accept it's a bad day and DIVERT rather than playing hero and trying to get the approach in when the windshear alarm is going to give you the red eyebrow of death so soon as you hit 500ft to touch anyhow.
 
Watching the other guy watch the autopilot try to capture a loc with any kind of crosswind is like fingernails on a chalk board for me. Usually followed by "why isn't it working?"

Me: "Hey, I have an idea."
"You are flying along intercepting the localizer, autopilot engaged and LOC-GS modes armed, and it becomes evident that the autopilot's not going to do it. Do you (a) start pressing buttons or (b) fly the airplane?"

(I like my TCS button, or just punching it off outright.)
*This is kind of going with my post above. I'm not trying to be sarcastic at you, but sarcastic at the situation which has a fix and it's a known fix. *

My God, if only there was some guidance out there from Bombardier about using white needles in strong crosswinds to the OM. If only that were... like.. written down somewhere... and companies put it in their books so pilots could use it and enjoy what every Challenger pilot (very unofficial and very unscientific survey) has the 2x a month they fly.

....(Like Mesaba did)
 
*This is kind of going with my post above. I'm not trying to be sarcastic at you, but sarcastic at the situation which has a fix and it's a known fix. *

My God, if only there was some guidance out there from Bombardier about using white needles in strong crosswinds to the OM. If only that were... like.. written down somewhere... and companies put it in their books so pilots could use it and enjoy what every Challenger pilot (very unofficial and very unscientific survey) has the 2x a month they fly.
No offense taken, as I fly an Embraer airplane (with similarly 'deficient' automation).
 
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