250 FO's

NOGUFFCHET

NOGUFFCHET

Well-Known Member
ive gotten into a good little debate in another section and i thought i would move the talk here...

simple topic: is it important to have an experienced FO in a transport airliner? so many times i have heard of guys getting in the right seat to an RJ with the temporary commercial in hand. I dont really think that it is right for ethical and occupational reasons, not to mention saftey, but poeple have raised good points countering my opinions.

*** note: if I had had the opportunity to jump to the FO with a fresh commercial, (had that been my intended route in aviation) i would have jumped at the chance.:rawk:
 
Yup, it's important. The captain isn't a god nor is he completely omniscient.
 
A good captain is going to have enough leadership to look to his right and say, 'I need help' and a good FO is going to be able to assist.

If he replies with an "I don't know skipper! I... I didn't see this when I went through CAPT" he's not an FO, he's ballast and probably better off serving cokes on the other side of the cockpit door.
 
Another issue I always thought of was what kind of captains does that make. Straight from flight school to right seat then left seat with what 50 hours pic? Instructing isn't just for time building but to also grow into a good pilot. I always thought a license doesn't say ur a qualified pilot but that ur now qualified to learn the rest on your own.
 
NOGUFFCHET said:
simple topic: is it important to have an experienced FO in a transport airliner?
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No, I would rather have a complete inexperienced green horn idiot sitting next to me!:sarcasm::p

However, now that you mentioned it, define what you mean by "experienced". I've had 10,000hr f/o's who seem to be flying their first hour in aviation 10,000 times over and over never learning or improving. I've had 2,000hr f/o's fly better than a lot of Captains I know. A lot of it is attitude, pride in a job well done and natural ability. Those three things you really can't teach.

I've flown with high time f/o's that I wouldn't let drive my car around the parking lot. I've flown with new hire f/o's that were incredibly sharp, made great judgement calls and flew the airplane like they've been doing it all their life and were a joy to fly with. I've also flown with superb high time f/o's who should be Captains if not for their seniority number and some very questionable low time pilots. Point being....time in a logbook is not the hallmark of an "experienced" (ie..great) pilot.

I assume by "experienced" pilot you mean one that is very good at what they do and they've been doing it a long time. In that case and in a perfect world I would, and I'm sure the flying public would, prefer to have an "experienced" f/o in the seat.
 
A300Capt said:
I've flown with new hire f/o's that were incredibly sharp, made great judgement calls and flew the airplane like they've been doing it all their life and were a joy to fly with.
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I completely agree with your post but wanted to point out that (unless you are talking about where you were before UPS... and I don't know your history) a "new hire" FO at Brown and a "new hire" FO at a bottom feeder commuter are two entirely different animals.
 
And there are of course, exeptions to the rule.

It is a huge debate, sending a 200-300 hr pilot into the right seat of a transport category airplane. I can see arguments for either side. That being said, I side with not allowing sub 1000 hour pilots in charge of the FO position.

The problem is, getting into a jet is not the time "making those mistakes" that allow a pilot to grow and really become sharp. There is alot at risk. Simple things, like communication, judgement making and cooperation with the person in the other seat can all be greatly hindered by lowtime guys who need to be handed everything.

I am not saying a young pilot cannot learn to fly part 25 aircraft. It is hard for people who do not put alot of time in smaller aircraft to really understand what we are getting at here. In the first 1000 hours pilots really do change, but should that change happen with 50 - 100 people ignorantly sitting behind them?
 
If training is through and complete shouldnt a 250 hr FO be able to handle the basics of the job?

I ask because doesnt the military take even lower time pilots and stick them right seat of large transport aircraft or in single seat fighters?

If people an be trained to handle an F-15, F-22 or to sit right seat in a C-5 or C-17 at sub 250 hours, then I think they can be trained to handle an RJ.

Then again, I have no professional flying experience, so I have nothing to base this opinion on.
 
Matt13C said:
If training is through and complete shouldnt a 250 hr FO be able to handle the basics of the job?

I ask because doesnt the military take even lower time pilots and stick them right seat of large transport aircraft or in single seat fighters?

If people an be trained to handle an F-15, F-22 or to sit right seat in a C-5 or C-17 at sub 250 hours, then I think they can be trained to handle an RJ.

Then again, I have no professional flying experience, so I have nothing to base this opinion on.
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Military pilots are screened a LOT more thoroughly than civilians. Military training is many orders of magnitude more intense than civilian.
 
A lot of it depends on attitude as well. I'd MUCH rather have a 250 hour FO in the seat next to me that's asking questions, has situational awareness and is gonna speak up if they see something wrong rather than a 1500 guy that's just waiting for his turn to upgrade, reading USA Today and can't be taught anything new. Now, the problems really come in when you have that guy's attitude paired with a low time FO that bought into the whole "zero to RJ in six months" and started asking "when can I upgrade?" the second day of ground school.
 
Matt13C said:
If training is through and complete shouldnt a 250 hr FO be able to handle the basics of the job?

I ask because doesnt the military take even lower time pilots and stick them right seat of large transport aircraft or in single seat fighters?

If people an be trained to handle an F-15, F-22 or to sit right seat in a C-5 or C-17 at sub 250 hours, then I think they can be trained to handle an RJ.

Then again, I have no professional flying experience, so I have nothing to base this opinion on.
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Apples and oranges comparing low time military to low time civilian. The goal of the military is to churn our quality pilots. The goal of low time civilian schools is to make $$$. The military trains their pilots to do the job. The civilian schools train their pilots to pass the checkride. Sure, they can probably handle the "basics" of the job, but that's not all of the job. Their job also covers taking control of the airplane if the CA becomes incapacitated. Now, if that's at night in the middle of a thunderstorm with aircraft holding and bad weather all around, I don't get the warm fuzzies with a 250 hour FO that has 30-50 hours of PIC under his belt.
 
Roger said:
Military pilots are screened a LOT more thoroughly than civilians. Military training is many orders of magnitude more intense than civilian.
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kellwolf said:
Apples and oranges comparing low time military to low time civilian. The goal of the military is to churn our quality pilots. The goal of low time civilian schools is to make $$$. The military trains their pilots to do the job. The civilian schools train their pilots to pass the checkride. Sure, they can probably handle the "basics" of the job, but that's not all of the job. Their job also covers taking control of the airplane if the CA becomes incapacitated. Now, if that's at night in the middle of a thunderstorm with aircraft holding and bad weather all around, I don't get the warm fuzzies with a 250 hour FO that has 30-50 hours of PIC under his belt.
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Again, I have no experience in the pro flying world. So I am just asking questions to improve my understanding.

With saying that, I am not talking about flight school training, I am talking about company training. If a pilot is hired and placed right seat without the ability to handle the aircraft they are flying, I would say that is an issue with company training and not the pilot themselves.
 
kellwolf said:
Now, the problems really come in when you have that guy's attitude paired with a low time FO that bought into the whole "zero to RJ in six months" and started asking "when can I upgrade?" the second day of ground school.
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You mean they wait until the second day?? :panic:

Had a guy in my new hire class with less than 200 TT that was asking about upgrade on the first day :banghead:
 
We (XJ) had our first rounds of 250-500 hour wonders upgrade to captain recently. It was quite a mixed bag. The result?

Now all first year guys take their PC at the 10-11 month mark so Mesaba can fire them before they are off probation.
 
Matt13C said:
Again, I have no experience in the pro flying world. So I am just asking questions to improve my understanding.

With saying that, I am not talking about flight school training, I am talking about company training. If a pilot is hired and placed right seat without the ability to handle the aircraft they are flying, I would say that is an issue with company training and not the pilot themselves.
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Don't be so sure. I have heard recently of pilots with over 2000 hours failing a Part 135 recurrent checkride due to their in ability to navigate to and from a VOR. I understand that you don't have any professional flying however, think about it. The civilian world doesn't take you to the middle of no where Mississippi to learn to fly in a simulator that has every switch in the exact same place as in the airplane. We use Frascas while they use bubble simulators where it looks excatly like the airplane. We have 30 different setups for 30 different aircraft. No simulator can do that.

It's not a function of how many hours the person sitting next to you has it is a function of how much the pilot next to you wants to learn. From 20 hours to 2000 hours. When you stop learning, you start dying. (I forget who said that)
 
Matt13C said:
Again, I have no experience in the pro flying world. So I am just asking questions to improve my understanding.

With saying that, I am not talking about flight school training, I am talking about company training. If a pilot is hired and placed right seat without the ability to handle the aircraft they are flying, I would say that is an issue with company training and not the pilot themselves.
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And you think the company really cares about turning out quality pilots like the military does? All their training program does is check a bunch of part 121 boxes. If the company had their way all the FO training would be is three bounces in the sim, and telling all the pilots to read the FOM, and all the other books, and that IOE starts in a week.


A skipper at the old mans commuter airline once said "I've never met an FO worth his weight in fuel". Of course this was flying a turboprop that could be flown single pilot part 91, but the past couple of years were probably the closest that the statement should ever get to being true. I cant imagine the usefulness of an FO that has 190TT out of a part 141 program that has had his hand held the entire time, just taught enough to pass the ride, and probably does not have any "real" PIC time. They were always getting answers from dispatch departments on go/no go decisions, and telling them where to fly.
 
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