1500hr Rule Must Comply by 2019

I have and I'll take that guy that instructed for 1500 hours any day over some one who jumped straight into a CRJ. Yes the guy that jumped into the RJ can fly just fine 99% of the time but he doesn't have the experience of seeing every single way a maneuver or procedure can be screwed up like a CFI does. A CFI has seen 1000's of stalls, ones that are done right and ones that are completely botched. He has learned how to anticipate and recover from those situations. It doesn't matter if he's not touching the controls, he's seeing and learning even while teaching. If something goes wrong I want the guy that has that broader experience flying the plane.

I still disagree in this scenario we are comparing. You listed all of the items the CFI has learned but mentioned nothing the RJ pilot has gained, although I don't agree that we should be sticking 250 hr wonders in the right seat so they can learn the basics, I'm simply compared two pilots after the fact. If you want to be better at bench pressing then you bench press, if you want to be a better CFI, then you CFI, if you want to be a better at your carrier landings in the FA/18 then you practice doing just that. I still agree that the CFI makes a great foundation and I would rather see a 1000 hour CFI head to the right seat than a 250 hr wonder but we are simply comparing two pilots at a given moment in time. One will surpass the other once their relevant experience catches up to the other when you include their foundation but right now in this comparison (all other personal advantages held constant), all we have is a good foundation.
 
Time spent watching the air go by in a jet is just as worthless in an emergency as time spent watching the air go by in a cessna. Except typically you're not just watching the air go by in the cessna.

Exactly,

To your point about what the RJ pilot has learned, lets be honest here, there is nothing difficult about flying an RJ. It's a very structured environment. Granted the schedule was tough and fatiguing, but the actual flying portion was some of the least stressful flying I've done. As an RJ pilot you learn the system, you don't learn much about physically flying a plane.

I think your argument about after the fact is a little silly. You're talking about a tiny window in time. Of course anyone fresh off IOE is going to be less experienced in the plane, that's obvious. But I think you only need to give someone that has a diverse background, including instruction, about 100 hours in the plane before he's caught up. Because they have experience to fall back on.

And I'll still take the CFI with barely any time in the plane because if you get into a stall, at night, in icing, around Buffalo, I like my chances with him better that the guy that's only ever flown a jet in his career.
 
Exactly,

To your point about what the RJ pilot has learned, lets be honest here, there is nothing difficult about flying an RJ. It's a very structured environment. Granted the schedule was tough and fatiguing, but the actual flying portion was some of the least stressful flying I've done. As an RJ pilot you learn the system, you don't learn much about physically flying a plane.

I think your argument about after the fact is a little silly. You're talking about a tiny window in time. Of course anyone fresh off IOE is going to be less experienced in the plane, that's obvious. But I think you only need to give someone that has a diverse background, including instruction, about 100 hours in the plane before he's caught up. Because they have experience to fall back on.

And I'll still take the CFI with barely any time in the plane because if you get into a stall, at night, in icing, around Buffalo, I like my chances with him better that the guy that's only ever flown a jet in his career.

It is a silly argument but I have the time so I digress. I'm glad you brought up the stall again. A veteran CFI is an expert working with stalls in a 172 and will react without hesitation at the first implications of the stall, which in a certain situation could be life threatening. When the veteran gets out of his 172, gets into a high performance t-tail aircraft and encounters a tail stall he immediately treats it like the stall in his 172, ignoring his short amount of airline training and does the opposite of what he should do. If he had more 121 experience and more airline training in a 121 t-tail aircraft, he could have recognized that the buffet was felt only through the yoke and not throughout the aircraft and understood that the tail stalled, not the wing and pulled back, although Colgan was not a tail stall this was just an example.
 
I think he's referring to the fact that many airlines use T-Tail configurations in the aircraft they fly. And that a 1,000 hour CFI who has a lot of experience in recovering from a "normal" stall might not be as practiced at recognizing and recovering from the T-Tail or "deep" stall. I see where he is coming from, but it isn't like airline pilots are going out and practicing recovery from deep stalls in an CJ on a daily basis. They have sim training and thats about it. I think the 1,000 hour CFI could be up to speed pretty quick on that stuff and still have better quality experience than the 250 hour wonder. I think more training should be required in complex aircraft personally. I think this would help all pilots out that much more.
 
Now I'm even more confused. Not having been through Airline Training, I was under the impression that in order to get into a deep stall (as opposed to a tail stall, which was what he wrote), one needed to be in a wing stall to begin with...
 
If you want to be better at bench pressing then you bench press, if you want to be a better CFI, then you CFI, if you want to be a better at your carrier landings in the FA/18 then you practice doing just that.

Monkey skills are one thing. Airmanship is another -- they are very much different (although very closely related).

You are correct in saying that, if you want to be good at monkey skills, then practice monkey skills. Stick and rudder skills in a particular aircraft are monkey skills.

If you want to have good airmanship, you need to have a wide variety of experiences. Airmanship is something you take from aircraft-to-aircraft, experience-to-experience. It is the basis for your judgment and decisionmaking as an aviator. It is what the Navy calls "headwork", because it is the skills your brain has, rather than the skills your hands and feet have.
 
When the veteran gets out of his 172, gets into a high performance t-tail aircraft and encounters a tail stall he immediately treats it like the stall in his 172, ignoring his short amount of airline training and does the opposite of what he should do.

No.

The veteran goes back to his airline training, because he had the experience and airmanship to learn the new monkey skills. Even better, his airmanship meant that he was able to be far enough ahead of the aircraft to not get into a tail stall in the first place. If it was a surprise to him, then it was his airmanship to correctly analyze the situation and take the appropriate action.

Again....monkey skills vs airmanship.

Monkey skills can be learned quickly as well as forgotten quickly.
 
The 121 environment is so structured that you can't really learn any more. You can learn about weather and new systems but your days of practicing airmanship, scaring yourself and seeing what an airplane can do are over.

Unless you continue GA flying or instructing on the side your bag of skill is as full as its going to get with regards to airmanship as its going to get when you get to 121. You just aren't allowed to move much from the middle of the envelope in that kind of structured environment.

But what do I know. I've only instructed, done 135 freight, government contract work in the mountains low level in support of fire fighting operations and now 121 in my first jet. The 121 stuff requires the least amount of airmanship and decision making. Most of your decisions have already been made by your FOM. The CFM handles most of your airmanship decisions. Its those small areas that aren't covered by those manuals that the guy who brought more to the table than 300 hours at All ATP really shines. The other guys are woefully underprepared and borderline incompetent when their decisions aren't being made for them by the manual.

1500 hours isn't even remotely close to what should be required to sit in front of 50 or more people. There's tons of amazing jobs in aviation. Having had several of them should be a diversity requirement for a professional career.

Now how do I get off this soap box? Boris, get those kids off my lawn!!
 
It is a silly argument but I have the time so I digress. I'm glad you brought up the stall again. A veteran CFI is an expert working with stalls in a 172 and will react without hesitation at the first implications of the stall, which in a certain situation could be life threatening. When the veteran gets out of his 172, gets into a high performance t-tail aircraft and encounters a tail stall he immediately treats it like the stall in his 172, ignoring his short amount of airline training and does the opposite of what he should do. If he had more 121 experience and more airline training in a 121 t-tail aircraft, he could have recognized that the buffet was felt only through the yoke and not throughout the aircraft and understood that the tail stalled, not the wing and pulled back, although Colgan was not a tail stall this was just an example.


Out of curiosity have you ever had the tail want to stall in an airplane? T-tail or not? If what you're talking about is the "deep stall" condition, then you have to be stalled in the first place, if you're talking about an ice-induced tailplane stall, that's a different story. Regardless, it's pretty obvious when you're "tail stalling" due to ice as opposed to wing stalling.
 
Could you elaborate on these adverse situations please? I don't think you're experiencing much in the right equipment to gain valuable experience. The systems, situations, emergencies learned in the 172 don't translate well to the operations of the 80,000 lb regional jet. I personally think 250 is a little low but flying Chinese in the pattern for 1,250 more hours doesn't prepare you well for the right seat of a RJ. Ironically, the accident that caused congress to changes things did not involve pilots with less than 1500 hours. If there was a way to gain more relevant experience for flying 121 then I would say lets make the minimum 2,000 hours but for right now, 750 or 1000 is a good number.


That is a very good point you made there, and I do not have enough experience first hand what so ever to argue that with you. I am sure that a CFI with 1500 hrs will have to learn from drinking the water from a fire hose at first being that the aircraft is 200% more complicated than any plane they previously came from. However, they will learn those systems much more efficiently than lets say someone with a wet commercial who is still lacking some airmanship skills let alone systems and theory skills.

I am not saying that a every veteran CFI that has reached 1500 hrs will be great right out of IOE, however you do have to agree they will adapt faster than someone with less experience in whole. You also made a great point about someone who has less hours but maybe flew a more complex a/c earlier in their career ( SIC in a King Air or a Metro for example) will be a better asset to the airline at first. No disagreement from me on that theory. So how do we weigh what is considered valuable experience in that situation? Again my way of thinking may come across as naive about this topic to someone who has seen these situations play out in the past.
 
flying Chinese in the pattern for 1,250 more hours doesn't prepare you well for the right seat of a RJ.
Well, here we go again...
Not all CFIs only fly 152s in the pattern on CAVU days! My CFI experience included plenty of actual, plenty of cross country, a good bit of complex multi time, and lots of Class B experience. And that is the norm rather than the exception for CFIs that I know. And lemme tell ya, overseeing a student taking a twin into KDAL IFR (or VFR for that matter!) is way, way more ADM intensive than making that same flight solo.
 
What about all the guys start started flying at 135 SIC's up in Alaska for ERA or places like Seaport? I know a few that had about 300 hours that went and did that. Are they worthy enough to fly 121 after 1500 is attained which about 1100 of that is turbine.
 
If we're really still talking about what makes a capable, useful Pilot, why this distinction between flying 121, 135, and 91? The airplanes don't know under which part)s) of the CFR they're operating. Either you can fly the thing well or you can't.

If anything, the stuff that requires the most death-defying skill/judgment happens under 91, precisely because there are FEWER rules that must be observed. There have been many nights that I've laid head to pillow grateful that I was at least flying under 135 because if I'd been under 91 I'd have been nodding off in the cockpit of an aircraft that still goes 250 in the terminal area when it's close to the ground (just like your 747), single pilot, shooting a non-precision approach to a marginal runway surrounded by mountains in a thunderblizzard with no 60% rule to protect me. Try that in your RJ.
 
I still think an important part of the discussion is missing--the actual goal of being an airline pilot simply isn't as appealing as what it was, and the amount of training/experience/money/sacrifices needed to get there arent worth it for more and more pilots.

I've been very blessed in my career. Flew turbo props and jets 135 sic, and got some good pic time on empty legs. Lots of different variety of weather, pax, mission etc that really kept my skills sharp. Learned how to be a safe, effective crew member, working in a CRM type environment and yet since I'm short of the ATP requirements, the airlines won't even talk to me. The value of my experiences means nothing.

So i have to instruct (135 gig ended) for 18ish months to get the hours needed to be able to get a job making just over minimum wage in an industry with a dim future at best. And even if I did make it to the majors, chances are I will be furloughed multiple times, get knocked to the bottom of a seniority list and have to start all over. For me, until the industry makes it a priority to attract talent and reward them appropriately (not just have enough "hours" no matter how those hours were obtained), I have no interest in going down that road. And I know I'm not the only young pilot in this boat. I've started another career, still in aviation but not flying, with a much brighter outlook and a clear path to long term success. Make no mistake that this looming "pilot shortage" is self inflicted
 
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