LOL yes!
Ameriflight PA-31 Accident - Arizona
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NickH
Uber Driver
Except it IS an entry level job, which most pilots come to with 1200 hours and no previous experience of high performance twins, or any kind of weather. Many of the pilots I trained with had no previous IFR experience, coming from mapping or VFR 135.
My training captain was, as I recall, excellent. Simulator training could have been very useful, but the opportunity was wasted by the sim instructors in Burbank, who had no interest or ability in teaching.
Combine this with a focus on asinine procedures rather than flying the airplane, and accidents are an inevitable result.
What I mean is, its not entry level in terms of wet commercial ticket or wet instrument ticket. You have to come there with something experience-wise of some kind, in order to be able to get what needs to get done. You need to have some degree of ability to make the judgement calls that are needed, ability that comes through some kind of experience. Yeas, you do get the VFR 135 guys who didn't have the hours for IFR, but at least they aren't new to the ops, they're just new to one segment of requirements, rather than being swamped with operation/135/multi/IFR all at once.
I came from 207s and PA-32Rs, then 208s; first as a VFR 135 guy then as an IFR guy. Only had a little over 130 ME hours or so when I moved into the PA-31.
Training-wise, there has to be standards and consistant training, and it can't be poo-poo'd. Even with someone who comes in with time and experience. Even me, who flew the same PA-31s from the same bases and hauling the same cargo over the same routes as AMF; if I were to have transferred to AMF, I'd expect some sort of training program with standards; not just a change of uniform shirt.
It's too bad that AMF got rid of the PA-32Rs. Great way to get into 135 and gain experience before moving to bigger iron, for those that don't have that previously.
Autothrust Blue
PCU M/Y SPIRIT OF MELLIE
Two words: "Regulatory failure."
Agree, and this is what I've been trying to explain. It's easy to use the catchy-phrase "one level of safety", but it's not a reality when it comes to different operations. For what's considered a safety standard at Delta Airlines, isn't going to be the same for the 39th Tactical Airlift Squadron and their C-130s. Will the culture of safety generally be the same, in terms of desire to not have accidents, to identify and mitigate risks? Of course. Will the acceptance of risks be the same? Not by a longshot. Delta won't (and shouldn't) be taking unnecessary risks that potentially endanger pax, crews, and the aircraft. There's no overriding need for Delta to get from Pt A to Pt B. The can delay or ultimately cancel, and at worse it's an inconvenience. On the far other side of the coin, the C-130 unit may have to fly to get critical cargo in, or get troops out, or whatever.....WX be damned, hostile fire be damned, etc.....since those items can only be mitigated so much, but the mission is still going to happen because it has to.
So the two examples above, are the extremes: Delta who has zero requirement to take unnecessary risks, and the combat airlift unit where risks that would be unnecessary or necessary-but-carefully-executed in peacetime, are now a requirement to be dealt with in wartime. In the middle of these two extremes is where the "shades of grey" are: operations like 135 cargo. In this shade of grey, you have an operation where the job is to get boxes from A to B. There are no pax lives at risk, just the pilot. So the pilot only has to worry about his own comfort level, no one elses. It's up to him to determine....consistent with FARs and OpsSpecs......where his own comfort level lies, and what risks he's willing to accept. Some are easy: Thunderstorm and penetrating them? You'd have to be nuts. Others are not so much and are determined by available aircraft equipment, criticality of cargo (if any), what the conditions are you're dealing with, and pilot comfort with the identified risk(s). This is where the PIC makes his decisions......this is what he's getting paid to do: make decisions. Get boxes from A to B, yes; but make the decisions on how to do it without damaging or destroying the boxes or cargo, and ultimately himself and his aircraft. This may involve flying at night, flying in WX, flying above mountainous terrain, or any combo therein. There is no one answer to what it right and what is wrong (excluding obvious extremes), and the PIC is paid to make those decisions on risks and their mitigation potential for flight, or not. He can end up making good decisions. He can end up making bad decisions. And with either of these, he can ultimately succeed or fail due to factors outside his control. We've all seen the guys who make all the right calls, and die; as well as the guys who screw everything up, and manage to live or make it.
Ultimately, the pilot is getting paid to do a job and make decisions on how it's do be accomplished. He's his own risk mitigator. When combined with ego, over/underconfidence in ability, pride, and/or peer pressure, he can either be his own best friend, or his own worst enemy. "Safer" doesn't necessarily or primarily come from the latest and greatest gizmos installed in the plane (though they can help); "safer" comes from a PIC who is making smart, informed decisions based upon what he observes, and backed up by his training and experience. Without the PIC doing the aforementioned, none of the gizmos can make up for that.
jrh
Well-Known Member
No it doesn't. The general public has nothing (err, very very little) to do with this, the same way the general public has nothing to do with pilot pay. Unions can try to get the public "on their side" all they want, but it doesn't mean jack when it comes to negotiating higher wages.
The big factors here are what pilots and FAA regulators are willing to accept as safe enough. Convince one or both of those two groups to demand better and change will happen regardless of what the general public thinks. If freight companies have such a difficult time recruiting pilots, or the FAA implements tighter regulations (rest requirements, equipment, etc.), the economics of moving boxes will take care of itself. John Doe might pay $12 instead of $10 for his overnight shipping, but fewer pilots will die.
It's kinda like how most people on this site are preaching, "Don't work for free, demand better compensation, you're worth more," etc. As this message spreads, one possibility is that pilots, as a whole, will demand more money and therefore everyone will get paid better. Another possibility is that individual pilots will be more satisfied by their careers because they will steer clear of the bottom feeder companies.
Instead of preaching about money, I was preaching about safety records this time.
You very well might be right that nothing will change on the safety front, just like how I'm highly skeptical anything will change on the financial compensation front. You're absolutely right that people still want their packages overnight and pilots still want their flight time, possibility of death be damned. The economics of the situation are against us, at the moment.
Still, I disagree with your fatalistic viewpoint. This is a fight worth fighting.
KSCessnaDriver
Well-Known Member
People are only going to invest time and effort into fighting an effort like this if it is something that helps them long term. Why would anyone want to spend years trying to get 135 cargo regulations changed, when in all likelihood, a person is only going to fly 135 cargo for a few years, versus flying 121 pax for decades.
jrh
Well-Known Member
I agree, that's the reality of what's happening and why it's happening.
The same argument can be made for why pilot pay is embarrassingly low, especially at regional/entry level jobs. Everybody gets in, gets out, and doesn't care. Should we abandon the effort to raise pay, as well?
Ironically, I've come to many of the same conclusions Boris has...we, as an industry, are royally screwed. The industry is a patchwork of jobs involving crappy pay, crappy QOL, and/or crappy safety records.
Still, I'm an optimistic person who doesn't like admitting defeat.
KSCessnaDriver
Well-Known Member
Autothrust Blue
PCU M/Y SPIRIT OF MELLIE
There is a space between "Air" and "Lines," MikeD
Correct. I overlooked that error!
I was hoping Doug would catch that too now.
z987k
Well-Known Member
This. It is very much an entry level job, and the vast majority of the people have no experience in much weather, little to no IFR, usually have never seen the inside of a cloud, never seen ice on a wing, certainly never operated a big turbo charged piston twin.
I had pretty much the same experience in training. I also concur with the last statement.
Although I think the majority of people come from instructing in the swamp or the desert.
At my company, you were required to have come from a 135 cargo background already, usually single engine, but we did have guys with same experience. Maybe we had standards....
Alot of FOs from SKW and Scenic pax side would want to transfer over to get PIC time in the Metro, but they usually didn't meet the quals.
Alot of FOs from SKW and Scenic pax side would want to transfer over to get PIC time in the Metro, but they usually didn't meet the quals.
z987k
Well-Known Member
You can only have standards if you pay enough to get pilots of enough quality to meet those standards. AMF could require people have 2500TT and previous IFR, but they'd have to start parking airplanes because they wouldn't have the pilots to fly them.At my company, you were required to have come from a 135 cargo background already, usually single engine, but we did have guys with same experience. Maybe we had standards....
Alot of FOs from SKW and Scenic pax side would want to transfer over to get PIC time in the Metro, but they usually didn't meet the quals.
As I mentioned before, it's too bad that they got rid of their PA-32Rs. Great way to hire good guys who have time, just not in a 135 operation, and "work them into" the program by incrementally building experience.
z987k
Well-Known Member
The Lances were all VFR *I think*. The problem with VFR in places like the NW at least is... well you can legally go, but it's not remotely safe to do so. Some of the most dangerous flying I've probably ever done has been VFR. Just flying IFR is 100x safer than trying to make it VFR because you're not allowed IFR because you don't have 1200 hours. What a VFR flight would consist of would be scud running at 1000' agl or less in mountainous terrain with 1-5 miles vis. No thanks. I'll go IFR.
I believe they were VFR too. jtrain609 would know for sure. Even so, it gets guys into the 135 cargo operation and day-to-day with judgement, situations, etc; prepping them much better for move up eventually, IMO.
z987k
Well-Known Member
I don't know. Honestly I think it's significantly more difficult to fly VFR in crap weather than IFR. Unless they had company imposed minimums significantly higher than FAA VFR mins.
I definitely agree there. It's possible too that they only launched on the days when things weren't marginal. But again, Im just not sure how they ops went with those specifically.
My first 135 company out of P19, we routinely did IFR in the 207s and PA-32/32Rs. Those mainly only really happened on the northern AZ runs, and specifically northeastern AZ. For the guys who only had VFR 135 mins, we'd put them on the P19/PHX-YUM-PHX runs, or PHX-P20-HII and reverse. Only about a 3.0 per day logged or so on the first, and about a 4.0 or so on the second, but there was hardly ever any WX on those. Longest run was southern/southeastern AZ, and best run was PHX-PRC-IGM-IFP and reverse, mainly because we had a permanent company rented room at the Don Laughlin's resort casino. $3 lunch buffet and $1 movies at the theatre inside.