A bad/poor pilot

Overall I can deal with people who are • or people who suck at their job. When the two attributes meet, that’s where I stop having a good time.

If someone is a bad pilot, but a good person, they’re usually open to suggestion. Nobody is perfect and we all have our off days, so as long as you’re open to communication from the other seat and apologetic for your mistakes, it’s usually no big deal. There’s two of us up there for a reason.

If you’re an • and a good pilot, we can revert to conversation only involving operational stuff and I can expect that you’re going to do what you’re supposed to do.

When someone is an • and a bad pilot, they make excuses, they get upset with you for pointing out their mistakes (which is the primary reason there are two of us), and they treat other people poorly. Those are the 4 day trips that feel three times as long.
 
Maximilian_Jenius said:
I often here and other message boards as well in IRL pilots often saying "so and so" is a bad, or a poor pilot. Or they either flew with a pilot who they say is a bad, or a poor pilot. Not knowing what to know, I wanted to pose it to the group and maybe get some examples of a bad or poor . My instructor @ KGEU always bad mouthed other CFI's, the owner and the chief pilot as bad pilots during our flights. Saying that he was smarter and a better pilot than all of them. When I was at my pilot mill I would hear CFI's gossip about students, or other CFI's saying that they were bad or poor pilots/instructors. @jtrain609 as another example in another thread mentioned a Compass pilot that was a poor pilot, because he landed with a 25 kt. tailwind.

So, what exactly makes a pilot a bad pilot or a poor pilot? Is it judgement calls, decision making ability, bad/poor stick and rudder skills? Pilot type control issues, insecurity?All of that, maybe more that I didn't mention? What specifically?
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Your CFI is pretty typical...
 
In professional flying, as in, everything after you've gotten your certificates and ratings, the only time I'd consider someone a bad pilot is if they scare me. Don't do anything to scare me and you'll be fine. I don't scare easily. It's not a high bar to meet.

Nobody is perfect, but no matter what plane you're in, know the systems and limitations well enough and have good enough judgement to keep from scaring me.

If you lack knowledge or judgement, you might still make the cut in my book if you have such amazing stick and rudder skills that you can fly your way out of whatever stupid spot you put us in. But I'd rather not be in a stupid spot to begin with, so understand if we end up in such a spot, you're dancing perilously close to the "scaring me" line.
 
jrh said:
In professional flying, as in, everything after you've gotten your certificates and ratings, the only time I'd consider someone a bad pilot is if they scare me. Don't do anything to scare me and you'll be fine. I don't scare easily. It's not a high bar to meet.

Nobody is perfect, but no matter what plane you're in, know the systems and limitations well enough and have good enough judgement to keep from scaring me.

If you lack knowledge or judgement, you might still make the cut in my book if you have such amazing stick and rudder skills that you can fly your way out of whatever stupid spot you put us in. But I'd rather not be in a stupid spot to begin with, so understand if we end up in such a spot, you're dancing perilously close to the "scaring me" line.
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I used to know a guy who loved to take unwitting passengers up for a ride and do stalls to scare the excrement out of them. He would also occasionally take off and stay low to clear under the powerlines at the end of the runway, or "launch" against landing traffic just to scare them, and he did a few other things that were pretty unnerving too.
He was being dumb again and messing around at very low altitude one day when his engine quit in a steep turn. His airplane stalled and spun almost instantly. He was just a little bit higher than the trees and houses he was buzzing. The incident was witnessed by maybe a dozen people on the ground. They estimated his altitude around 200-300 feet when he stalled.
He was killed on impact leaving a widow and his 3 year old daughter behind.
His passenger survived, but is a paraplegic as a result of the crash.
 
The worst pilots I've flown with are the ones that didn't care. Either they thought they were too good to be at that company, were disgruntled to the point of disregarding all forms of professionalism, or just had no desire to put in any effort because they were just a contract pilot and it wasnt "their jet". I can deal with mediocre or worse flying skills but with a good attitude, I can deal with maybe not clicking with the other pilot, I can even deal with complaining. What I can't stand is someone that doesn't give a crap about their job and doesn't even try a little bit to be professional
 
GypsyPilot said:
I cannot like this post enough. It absolutely amazes me when some of the guys I fly with have a meltdown over the most trivial issues. They wouldn’t make it through one day of an easy 4 day RJ trip.

RJ and freight guys quickly learn that going into chill out mode when crap hits the fan is the fastest and most error free way to handle issues. Without question, this is what makes me want to upgrade ASAP.
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I always find it amusing after bad weather days when people start rolling again it’s a 50/50 split of people who are super cheerful just happy to be moving and alive or thr most grumpy mf’ers you’ll ever hear
 
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Maximilian_Jenius said:
I often here and other message boards as well in IRL pilots often saying "so and so" is a bad, or a poor pilot. Or they either flew with a pilot who they say is a bad, or a poor pilot. Not knowing what to know, I wanted to pose it to the group and maybe get some examples of a bad or poor . My instructor @ KGEU always bad mouthed other CFI's, the owner and the chief pilot as bad pilots during our flights. Saying that he was smarter and a better pilot than all of them. When I was at my pilot mill I would hear CFI's gossip about students, or other CFI's saying that they were bad or poor pilots/instructors. @jtrain609 as another example in another thread mentioned a Compass pilot that was a poor pilot, because he landed with a 25 kt. tailwind.
So, what exactly makes a pilot a bad pilot or a poor pilot? Is it judgement calls, decision making ability, bad/poor stick and rudder skills? Pilot type control issues, insecurity?All of that, maybe more that I didn't mention? What specifically?
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In general, I've seen the most problems with RTP guys. They've been flying helicopters for years and don't have any 121 experience. IMO they have proved to be the most difficult to get through training. It's really beyond me why regional carriers place a premium on getting these guys up to speed when cadets from pipeline universities are readily available. Fortunately at Envoy, this has shifted and cadets are now getting the nod when it would be between the two.
 
BEEF SUPREME said:
I think you need to re read what you wrote. Most of this is coming from insecurity from the pilots trash talking other pilots.
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mikecweb said:
Your definition will change over the course of your career. Right now it’s probably test scores and landings/maneuvers which probably divide “good” & “bad”. When you start flying professionally, no one cares about what your tests scores are and it more morphs into cockpit behavior and who makes the job harder than it needs to be.

It’s very personal too. For me, I judge another pilot with how smooth they are on the controls and how they behave when plans change. If you throw an airplane around because you did that in a previous life (i don’t care if there’s just boxes) it shows me nothing except you don’t have finesse. It’s much harder to fly smoothly than aggressively. Second when plans change, do you lose your • or do you calmly adjust and manage the situation. I also can’t stand people that rush.

This explains why captain cadet @Dacuj is getting so much blowback. He still thinks someone’s background and career foundation makes a pilot better or worse. Don’t be a dick is really the only foundation that matters. The rest can be trained (for the most part). There is the 5% who have a good attitude but just are in the wrong career. Usually the bad attitudes also lack ability. I’ll let you psychoanalyze the chicken or the egg with that one.
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Richman said:
Good or bad aside, a CFI talking poop about other CFIs or students is unprofessional, and it would cast serious doubt with me about anything else they said.
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Space Monkey said:
Your CFI is pretty typical...
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Honestly when I hear someone say that so and so isn't a good pilot, it always seems to come off first sounding like an invective that pilots like to arrogantly throw out as a means to bully another pilot due to their own insecurity. It comes off so type-a and petty. Top Gun-like behavior always needing to be seen as the smartest, best person, pilot in the room. In the pilot mill world (my only experience to date) it always seemed to almost be a cliquish dick measuring contest of the top management sycophant(s) and the CFI's that were their CFI's. Now legitimately there are bad or lazy pilots, but there has to be some sort of ruler to measure them by, some of which has been posted here in this tread. So, thanks for that.

Learning style I also think is a thing that is often criticized and a reason that people often label others as a real sharp, good or bad pilot, because of how quickly they pick things and retain the info quickly. Versus others that might need to do it several times before nailing it down. That was a problem for me during my training at first during my time at pilot mill. My first CFI only had one method of teaching his students. I'm 100% a visual learner, he demanded that I learn to do everything in my head. Being a visual learner, I have to see it to be able to work things through. Which makes me a very poor mental math person. That coupled with my dyscalculia, it caused problems at least at first. Kyle was very impatient and would always ridicule me and put pressure on me to think faster, be better, be smarter. Which only caused me to shut down with his repeated confrontations. Not everyone learns at one speed. It wasn't until stopped listening to him. Fired him and started trusting myself and my known method of learning that my training finally improved and I think that I became a better student and pilot for my next instructor. It didn't matter and I wasn't embarrassed anymore to whip out the calculator when asked to do a surprise fuel burn equation on the spot while airborne. My third CFI, because I was at a pilot mill, so they were always leaving to OO, he said it best. It doesn't matter how you attain the info, your head, a calculator, the POH, whatever. As long as you know how and where to find the right answer to the question asked or facing you at the time to be able to solve the problem correctly.

Yeah, Jeremy and Kyle both labeled me a poor pilot and a bad student. But every DPE I flew with, who passed me said I was an amazing stick that had excellent command of my plane that accepted feedback, positive or negative without ego and learned from my mistakes.
 
In all seriousness, the flight school environment is ripe for demonstration of Dunning-Krueger. Every 300 hour ink still wet CFI thinks they're hot •, and it is also common to get unsolicited opinions from them.

Take a look at the five hazardous attitudes, and how a pilot operates the machine. You can be a bad pilot because of those attitudes or just a terrible equipment operator.
 
I don't think I've flown with anyone at the professional level that couldn't complete the basic tasks and fly the airplane at a reasonable level. I did witness a captain have a complete meltdown when the APU died while starting the engine. Ultimately, not a big deal, but this guy just went pure animal. It looked like a legitimate panic attack or something.
 
CoffeeIcePapers said:
I don't think I've flown with anyone at the professional level that couldn't complete the basic tasks and fly the airplane at a reasonable level. I did witness a captain have a complete meltdown when the APU died while starting the engine. Ultimately, not a big deal, but this guy just went pure animal. It looked like a legitimate panic attack or something.
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Those with control issues get angry and flustered, when they're not in complete control.
 
CoffeeIcePapers said:
I don't think I've flown with anyone at the professional level that couldn't complete the basic tasks and fly the airplane at a reasonable level. I did witness a captain have a complete meltdown when the APU died while starting the engine. Ultimately, not a big deal, but this guy just went pure animal. It looked like a legitimate panic attack or something.
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I haven’t either, but I’ve heard about someone at my airline that’s at a legacy that had the controls taken away from multiple people both as a captain and FO
 
Cory Trevor said:
I haven’t either, but I’ve heard about someone at my airline that’s at a legacy that had the controls taken away from multiple people both as a captain and FO
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Yeah, it's always a guy who knows a guy though. 121 training isn't perfect, but it generally does a good job of making sure people meet a minimum set if standards.
 
CFI A&P said:
In all seriousness, the flight school environment is ripe for demonstration of Dunning-Krueger. Every 300 hour ink still wet CFI thinks they're hot •, and it is also common to get unsolicited opinions from them.

Take a look at the five hazardous attitudes, and how a pilot operates the machine. You can be a bad pilot because of those attitudes or just a terrible equipment operator.
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Thinking back to the flight school days I can recall 2 of the 'worst' pilots I've probably ever known. One of them died in a stupid crash and the other last I heard still enjoying renting and flying safely. The difference? One was humble, recognized his issues and worked on them relentlessly, the other? Well, you can probably guess.
 
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