***breaking news***colgan***
- Thread starter Hernandezcfi
- Start date
Cruise
Well-Known Member
At the Job fair i was at just a few weeks ago in Miami, Mr. Colgan said that those are the absolute minimums. Now it seemed to me that C Colgan was looking for lower time pilots. His reason was that out of the last class that they had, the people who did the best in training were people with right around 1500 hours. The higher time pilots somehow did not do that good. Now I don't know how true that is, seems unusual to me but I'm not in the airlines yet. Regardless, he was excited to meet "low time" guys (1000-1500 TT). Also, they are pretty strict on the "no more than 2 failed checkrides" thing. If you have more than 2, I over heard him say to one of the guys that you will have to get one of the pilots to send a recommendation letter to the Chief Pilot. Best of luck to you and everyone else.
L-16B
Well-Known Member
I highly doubt Chuck said that. There will be a plethora of applicants for the positions, that's for sure. I have about 4 buddies I'm going to try to get hired, and I'm writing letters for all of them. I've talked to our CP and some other people within the company about it, and they seem like they can pick from just about any stipulations or requirements that they deem important. It seems like everyone in my crashpad knows someone that they want to help get hired. It definitely won't be as easy as it was when I got hired or any of us for that matter. Life's all about timing.:dunno:
Boris Badenov
Fortis Leader
I'm waiting in the wings with boatloads of pic turboprop to TAKE YORE JOBZ! Jesus, I'm kidding, put down the pitchfork!
A-300F4-622R
Well-Known Member
Boris, you can fly with me any day. We need guys who don't deviate around CLOUDS.
jynxyjoe
Queso King
Heh. Eh, I just like stirring up trouble. I'll put in an early bet though. Colgan/Pinnacle will somehow screw their current pilot group over somehow when hiring begins. It's just their nature.
Boris Badenov
Fortis Leader
Perfect! Now all that remains is to repair the global economy, spur increased hiring, and pass the interview! See you on Monday.
Hmm yes 10:1 the regional airline management does something unpleasant? What are we playing for, tiddlywinks? Monopoly money? That's like betting that on any given Monday a bunch of dudes will chase a ball of some description around.
Not that he was planning on it...I call BS!!! I can attest that everyone did well straight across the board in the last class. However, there was 1 bad apple in the last class that was "low time." But there's usually one in every class...
A-300F4-622R
Well-Known Member
Here's a quote from a well respected DAL pilot on APC about when he was an IOE instructor at the regionals.
"As a former LCA at a regional I could not agree more. A cat D CRJ-50 is not a good place for a 500 hr wonder to be. It is fast as heck and nothing that they have seen before. Add to it the fact that they are on reserve so it takes at least a year or two to get comfortable with the jet and the airspace.
When I was doing OE I wanted to see them fly the jet. My God, where most of them scared to death to take that Auto Pilot off. They were comfortable with the automation, but not the stick and rudder stuff that made them a pilot. And Please God, do not ask them to critically think!"
"As a former LCA at a regional I could not agree more. A cat D CRJ-50 is not a good place for a 500 hr wonder to be. It is fast as heck and nothing that they have seen before. Add to it the fact that they are on reserve so it takes at least a year or two to get comfortable with the jet and the airspace.
When I was doing OE I wanted to see them fly the jet. My God, where most of them scared to death to take that Auto Pilot off. They were comfortable with the automation, but not the stick and rudder stuff that made them a pilot. And Please God, do not ask them to critically think!"
A-300F4-622R
Well-Known Member
I agree. Stick and rudder skills / hands / airmanship are seemingly a thing of the past. Even military-wise, I see kids who trained from scratch on T-6s, who aren't comfortable with basic raw data. Planning / flying low-level nav missions where they're engrossed with Portable Flight Planning Software (PFPS) systems and plugging coords into the GPS. When that's taken away, and they have to fallback to clock / 1:100 map / ground / speed, while still staying low-level, you can see the helmet-fire rapidly burning.
Automation may be the future, but too many are forgetting, or never learned, how to go "back to basics".
A-300F4-622R
Well-Known Member
Buddy of mine is a retired Raven FAC and A-10 pilot from the 70s early 80s, back when the Hog had no INS. He used to fly all over the congested airspace of central Europe with just a compass, map and clock. When the finally put INS in, he said he rarely used it.
That was back too when the A-10 had no ILS, just a TACAN; so it could only fly TACAN or ASR/PAR approaches. The INS we finally got in the Hog, and which was used up until @2001 drifted so much that it was only basically reliable for point to point, nothing that required any major precision.
A-300F4-622R
Well-Known Member
LASTE was just after Desert Storm. Added GPWS, enhanced HUD capabilities, and formation lighting. Prior to that, all bombing and gunnery/rocketry was non-CCIP, basic HUD and/or iron sight manual. Took a good amount of skill. These days, the new C-model is pretty much a slow F-16.....consent-to-release bombing systems that will auto-release when the jet knows you're in parameters (almost no need to get parameters solid prior to the pass), glass flight displays, GPS/Laser-guided munitions.
With the automation, came the new era of pilots automation-trained, and to a certain worse extent.....automation-dependant.
To a comparable extent, the same concept is being seen in the civilian world too, with new pilots.
Heck, by and large helos are the seemingly one of the last stick and rudder......well, cyclic and collective......parts of aviation left.
