1500hr Rule Must Comply by 2019
- Thread starter snOOp
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JDean3204
Well-Known Member
Through reading other related discussions about the 1500 hr/ATP rule, I find it troubling that so many people disagree with the new law. Sure setting the minimum to a certain numerical value does not dictate ones ability and aptitude, however it certainly dictates their level of experience and their judgement in adverse situations. I feel that the flying public deserves to have experienced individuals flying them safely from point A to B in all sorts of environmental conditions.
One of my current mentors who is currently flying for Spirit shared with me his viewpoint on levels of experience. When you reach 250 hrs, you think you know everything, but the truth is you have experienced a fraction of all that makes a pilot seasoned. Same at the 500 hr and 1000 hr marks, granted those fractions become larger as your experience accumulates.
So why the rush to get into the right seat of an RJ? As a sub 100 hr pilot, I know that I have a long road ahead of me before I have the opportunity to become a FO for a regional, but that is what excites me. Being able to observe and absorb all that being a professional pilot entails throughout training and the early stages of my career will be significant for the future. I understand that the QOL as a CFI, or any other low time job is difficult. But from reading and interacting with regional pilots, their QOL is not that much better if not sometimes worse. That is why I am personally in no rush to make it to an airline, flying a jet with 50 plus lives in my hands.
All the hype about how the current generation will not want to pursue a career because this law creates a barrier to a career is nonsense. It will just negate all of the Shiny Jet Syndrome that has risen from the zero to hero days of the current past. Weeding out all the ones who do not want to put in the time and effort molding themselves into true professionals, and giving the jobs to those who are well experienced pilots. Maybe this will slightly raise the QOL for new hires, as they have reached a certain level of quality and experience in their careers before hand.
This viewpoint may be one of a young and naive student pilot, but I am sure many others out there at all ends of the pilot spectrum feel the same way as me.
One of my current mentors who is currently flying for Spirit shared with me his viewpoint on levels of experience. When you reach 250 hrs, you think you know everything, but the truth is you have experienced a fraction of all that makes a pilot seasoned. Same at the 500 hr and 1000 hr marks, granted those fractions become larger as your experience accumulates.
So why the rush to get into the right seat of an RJ? As a sub 100 hr pilot, I know that I have a long road ahead of me before I have the opportunity to become a FO for a regional, but that is what excites me. Being able to observe and absorb all that being a professional pilot entails throughout training and the early stages of my career will be significant for the future. I understand that the QOL as a CFI, or any other low time job is difficult. But from reading and interacting with regional pilots, their QOL is not that much better if not sometimes worse. That is why I am personally in no rush to make it to an airline, flying a jet with 50 plus lives in my hands.
All the hype about how the current generation will not want to pursue a career because this law creates a barrier to a career is nonsense. It will just negate all of the Shiny Jet Syndrome that has risen from the zero to hero days of the current past. Weeding out all the ones who do not want to put in the time and effort molding themselves into true professionals, and giving the jobs to those who are well experienced pilots. Maybe this will slightly raise the QOL for new hires, as they have reached a certain level of quality and experience in their careers before hand.
This viewpoint may be one of a young and naive student pilot, but I am sure many others out there at all ends of the pilot spectrum feel the same way as me.
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
I think that as experience grows, most smart aviators' point of view changes into understanding just how much they don't know.
I think the argument is if the requirement is going to be raised, ie harder and more specialized, then the goal (landing a regional job) should be worth it. With the pay and QOL the way it is now, that simply is not the case. Thats why more and more young professional pilots (myself included) have given up the airline "dream" for careers that have a much brighter future.
Jet
Well-Known Member
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.
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
A regional job isn't generally 'the goal'.
Regional jobs are comparatively a lot of work for not much pay because they, too, are traditionally just intermediate jobs enroute to a major airline job (which has traditionally been a true career destination).
What we have seen in the last 10 years at regionals -- where many have ended up having to make them a career in and of themselves -- is an anomaly over the last 40-ish years of the post-deregulation business model between the majors and 'commuters'.
Because regionals have always been a stepping stone, they've always had comparatively below average pay and QOL. That never changed when the entire career path ladder was put on pause after 9/11 and extended in 2007 with the age 65 change.
SrFnFly227
Well-Known Member
A bit of a thread drift, but I am so sick of reading this on various forums or news comment sections. Yes, the Captain had 3,379 hours at the time of the crash. The problem with your statement is that the accident that caused congress to change things DID involve A pilot with less than 1500 hours WHEN HIRED at his first passenger flying job. When he started the first officer training at Gulfstream Training Academy, he had around 328 total hours (Total time at crash 3379 - Turbine time of 3051). In fact, he only had 618 hours when hired at Colgan. He is exactly the pilot that this bill will keep out of the cockpit. He even admitted to such on the CVR of that flight. The following is straight from the NTSB Accident Report:
"The CVR recorded the captain stating, about 2050:33, “I went through Gulfstream’s program ‘cause … it was the best program for … the timeframe that I had. You know how fast I wanted to get into the one twenty one environment … so it really worked out well for me.”
Do you honestly think he would have been Captain of that airplane if he had been required to put in the years of effort that it would have taken to reach 1500? I'm willing to bet that he wouldn't have.
Jet
Well-Known Member
I was aware of that and it sounds like you're trying to say that you would rather of had a pilot in the cockpit with 3,051 hours and 1,500 of that C172 time vs the pilot who was in there that had 3,051 hours and 2,723 hours of 121 turbine time?
chrisreedrules
Master Blaster
Not a chance... The public outcry would be deafening.
ahsmatt7
Well-Known Member
So what your saying is that if one was to get hired with less than 1500, they are forever branded as incompetent and the experience they gain afterwards does not count at all? Lets be real; what would you have said if the Colgan 3407 was United 3407 and the total flight time of the crew was 25,000 hours and you found out the captain was hired at colgan at 500 hours way before when he first started in the 121 side of the fence?
With your thought process, no one would be able to even learn how to fly because they never had experience in an airplane so they when they start to learn and pass the first check ride, everything after that doesn't count.
It was a fact of life a few years ago that people where getting hired with wet CMELs. However, since then, I am sure they have seen enough and have had enough repetition that they are more competent now than when they were hired.
N519AT
Ahh! This is how I change this!
I honestly don't think that they care. All they care about is getting their $125 round trip to Orlando.
Sure, some nightly news program would air a 2 minute clip on congress revoking the rule, people would watch it and say "now das jus not righ." and then go on with their lives.
Plus, the congress doesn't even care about this fiscal cliff thing. What makes you care that they'd revoke the rule in the first place, then say "oops, my bad" when a few people write them letters and put it back into place? All they care about is getting re-elected.
Matt13C
Well-Known Member
I think you giving way to much credit to 121 time vs just flight time. An airplane is an airplane. Airmanship is a skill learned in the real world, outside of a sim or the highly controlled environment of 121.
People like Cohen chastise spending hours towing banners or putting around a pattern, but the reality is you can and will get yourself into many more difficult situations than you will in a 121 cock pit, and right fully so.
Taking a new student out to work on stalls, steep turns or emergency engine outs don't just help the student, they help the instructor. They learn to anticipate, react and recover from students mistakes. They are both instructor and safety net for the new students, not just useless weight occupying the right seat until they hit a magical number of hours.
Banner towing, pipeline, survey and traffic watch all teach different skills but they are all applicable to jets as a 172 and a 787 are all subject to the same basic laws of flight.
The Colgan accident was a tragedy and the improper reaction to a stall is but one factor that resulted in the loss of life. Nobody knows how they will react in an emergency, but if you have a few student induced while flying around the pattern you will have experience to pull from when flying a 121 aircraft.
Jet
Well-Known Member
Yes, 1200 more hours deciding which tower to pick for turns around a point, what to do with a mechanical situation with systems nothing like those in 121. One of those pilots also has 1200 more hours flying a complex airframe in high altitude and dealing with weather not often encountered flying locally around the pattern or with the occasional 100nm flight. I would rather put my mom on a plane with a pilot that has 1500 hours and 1200 jet vs a pilot with 1500 who is fresh off IOE but was a veteran CFI. Now if we're taking about when the 300 hr pilot first got in the jet, well that's a different story.
Have you ever flown a RJ to personally compare the two environments?
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
+1
I shake my head every time I hear the "1500 hours of 172 time..." dragged out.
Airmanship is portable, and can be learned in a Cub just as easily as a P-51, F-15, or 767. What is learned in one is completely portable and applicable to the other. Judgment and decisionmaking are not equipment-specific. The difference is, a pilot should not be (trying to) learn core-level airmanship while there are 50 paying passengers in back.
There is, of course, something to be said for the limits of what can be learned flying "one hour 1500 times", but the vast majority of pilots aren't going to just be putting around getting $100 cheeseburgers on saturday for 1500 hours. Instead, they'll be doing the same entry-level commercial jobs that GA pilots have transitioned into for decades.
The only thing this rule change eliminates is the direct-to-an-RJ-at-350-hours guys that emerged in the '00s.
pete2800
'Member?
Yes, actually. Especially with the PIC time difference. I won't re-state what the others have said, except to extend a big "+1" to everything Hacker15e posted.
Here's the thing. Renslow wasn't a very strong pilot. I mean no disrespect to the man at all, but anyone who has that much trouble with proficiency checks has demonstrated that either their flying skills or decision making are weak. He was able to by-pass having to prove himself as a pilot by paying Gulfstream for his first airline gig. From there, Colgan picked him up because he had some experience.
Would the same individual have been motivated enough to go instruct for a few years? Would he have been able to get hired as an instructor, or tow pilot, or diver driver? Would he have survived making banner pick-ups? We don't know, and we won't know... but any process that might weed out the weakest pilots before they get to a situation in which they can end an airplane full of lives is a good one.
I am extremely grateful for my general aviation experience, and I long to go back. My 121 gig is my job, but it's not flying the way I love flying to be. I feel sorry for those folks who's logbook reads 172, then Seminole/Duchess, then RJ. There are fantastic jobs out there for those who are willing to look. I spent a considerable amount of time hand-propping vintage airplanes, and instructing motivated and excited high-school kids in them, and it was some of the most rewarding work I've done. A friend of mine makes more money than I do, while flying Beavers on floats. There is brilliant aviation outside of the 121 world, and people should experience it.
TrustMeI'maPilot
Well-Known Member
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.
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