Deal made on hours of training for co-pilots

ATN_Pilot said:
The only crash that has had a GIA-trained pilot at the controls was 3407. In the CMR crash, the non-fly was the GIA-trained pilot, and he hadn't worked at GIA in years (where he had been an instructor, BTW). The 3701 crash involved a pilot who had worked at GIA, but he was hired at GIA as a street captain and had thousands of hours flying turbine equipment prior to ever getting hired at GIA.

Sorry guys, but you can't blame GIA. The fact remains that GIA has a spotless record with not a single fatality in twenty years of business, flying some of the oldest, least-automated equipment into some of the busiest airspace and some of the smallest strips in the islands. The best training I've ever received was at GIA, and I've got to say, some of the most professional pilots also. I can't remember flying with a single non-standard captain out of the dozens I flew with while I was there. Lack of professionalism simply wasn't tolerated.
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:yeahthat:
 
ATN_Pilot said:
The best training I've ever received was at GIA, and I've got to say, some of the most professional pilots also. I can't remember flying with a single non-standard captain out of the dozens I flew with while I was there. Lack of professionalism simply wasn't tolerated.
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Well, I've dealt with some of your less than professional alumni then. The worst was an ex-GIA student that came into my old flight school. She was doing a checkout flight with her boyfriend (he was a corporate pilot, not from GIA and was very sharp). She was unable to do anything whatsoever, except talk on the radio (she did do that pretty well). She was literally unable to even plan a simple VFR cross country flight to another airport 50 nm away.

Another time I was giving dual in a 172, demonstrating to a student how to get flight following with Palm Beach approach. After our initial callup, GIA wonder boy breathlessly calls up and starts complaining about "that little guy tying up the frequency", and proceeds to sound like a complete numbnuts until getting switched to Miami center.

Yet another time one of the other crews at my old charter job were flying to Tampa in a King Air 200. A GIA crew was about 40 nm behind them on an arrival, and requested vectors around the slower traffic. Yeah, because a B1900 is so much faster than a BE-20... ATC was like WTF??

Flying with them around the islands was always fun... So many times the GIA crews felt like they had some kind of right away over me into the pattern, apparently since I was just a loser in a Chieftain while they were a "Beech 1900 airliner".

Obviously there's going to be some good pilots that come from there, and the Captains I'm sure are pretty sharp. But the F/Os that didn't upgrade from there... I've been less than impressed with.
 
dasleben said:
You and I both know that's a bit of a stretch...

In a flight instruction environment the CFI is king. Not quite how it works in a true multi-crew environment.
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Same deal. The Captain is king :D

JOEFRIDAY2 said:
Who knows what these folks are thinking, but it sounds like a setup for a rather extensive CRM program to meet the multi crew experience requirement.

I also would expect to see some required training on FAA approved simulators for the adverse weather (minimums, icing, etc) experience.
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The vast majority of my flying experience has been in a crew environment. Now, this week I'm taking my ATP checkride in a light twin where I'm going to have to do everything myself (fly, talk on the radio, read the checklists, brief the approaches, make the callouts); I'm kind of sweating about that because I'm used to either flying the airplane or doing the rest of the stuff. I'm asking myself "why" is it done this way in light general aviation flying; it's so much more difficult than employing a little crew coordination. I know light twins are certificated for one pilot, but still, it wouldn't be difficult to create a block of training that focuses on the interaction between crewmembers. The problem is that most CFIs haven't been exposed to a crew environment themselves, so it's a little more difficult for them to teach that way. In my opinion, CRM and human factors such as risk management, decision making, and situational awareness need to be emphasized far more in primary flight training. The skills that make someone a good leader/captain aren't necessarily the skills the FAA evaluates on checkrides. The FAA is more concerned about whether or not I can hold my altitude +/- 100 feet on a steep turn; who cares? A good stick isn't necessarily a good captain.

wrxpilot said:
So how in the hell is this stuff going to be logged? Do I need to go back and log all my flights where ice accrued and I was in a crew environment? Are these going to be additional columns in the logbook now?
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I wouldn't think that'd be necessarily. Isn't it fairly evident from a standard logbook entry whether or not you're in a crew environment? The aircraft type would probably give away most of it since you'd generally know which aircraft require two pilots. And, if you logged any 'simulated instrument' time that wasn't dual instruction, you'd have a safety pilot's name in the logbook and that'd be a 'crew'. If you logged any 'SIC' time, you're on a 'crew'. I doubt any time logged in an aircraft or particular operation where a second pilot isn't required would count for anything.

ATN_Pilot said:
Bad news. An 800 hour requirement does virtually nothing, and the multi-crew and adverse weather requirements will almost certainly be whittled down to nothing in the NPRM by just making it some sort of sign-off after some sim and ground instruction. With very few pilots being hired with less than 800 hours, even during the regional hiring binge, this new requirement will do nothing. We needed the 1500 hours to make a real impact. Very disappointing, but not unexpected.
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Agreed.

Polar742 said:
I don't see why this has to be a "joke".

CRM is a well researched area in academia. There are plenty of accredited colleges with courses based on the concepts developed from this research. Actually, it's so well developed that other fields, such as medicine, are looking to CRM/Human Factors researchers and developers to implement some of the concepts developed for aviation into their specialty.

The sad fact is, outside of a narrow sliver of training in the civilian world, there is really no defined knowledge course built on the decades of experience for students desiring to be professional pilots.

We are thin on theory. I'm not saying experience should be cut, but a true course of study on areas relevant to being professional pilots. If you add a well developed CRM skillset to the other skills pilots learn, you are providing pilots with a higher-level of functioning in a crew environment.

There is such a safety-net added when proper CRM is implemented that it would be a fallacy to omit proper training from a professional pilot's development track. Allowing it to be watered down to an "endorsement" or some 1 day schtick is just as bad as when CRM classes start, and pilots go to sleep.
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Agreed.
 
CFIscare said:
Which makes flight instructing even better. You are forced to learn how to make decisions by yourself.
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Anyone can make a decision by themselves. The challenging part is soliciting the right inputs from the rest of your crew, making the best decision you can, and then coordinating that decision with the crew. I flew with a handful of 'one man show' bosses who simply saw the copilot as the gear jerker; I had little respect for them.

Firebird2XC said:
The 1500 hour rule was never intended to be a fix all- it was just intended to curb the 250 hour/bridge agreement hiring concept.. to make it impossible, to deter the foolish and over eager from trying to go down that path.
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I agree with the 1500 hour rule. People love to accuse the government of 'reacting' instead of being proactive, and then complain when a rule comes down the pipe that doesn't address a direct cause of an accident, etc. Would the 1500 hour rule have prevented the Colgan accident? No, probably not. But it's still the right thing to do. Even if no one has been killed yet by a 250 hour wonder, it's still an accident waiting to happen eventually unless there are tighter controls placed on who can sit in airliner cockpits.
 
JOEFRIDAY2 said:
I didn't know the guy and I don't want to talk bad about someone that is dead. This pilot had 3,379 hours. I don't know where he received his primary training. What I do know is that he held the FAA required certificates that qualified him to fly the aircraft. If the FAA issued those certificates, and for some reason he was not qualified, then the problem lies with the FAA.

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You are NEVER going to get consistent tough calls when:

(1) The "system" allows you another "do over", and another, and another, and another, as long as the checks clear.....

(2) The FAA allows Designated Examiners to issue certificates to the guy that pays him.....

(3) A series of tests that allows rote memorization of the test bank and a passing score with NO understanding of the subject material....

There are so many fundamental flaws here it is no wonder no that people are getting killed and we see calls to "raise the bar".

I'm very sorry for Marvin, his family, and the passengers and crew of 3407. I have no doubt he was a very good guy. I don't fault him personally but the system we have here in the United States that is full of holes and allowed someone who had no business into the left seat of a part 121 airline operation. In fact, Pinnacle admitted to that very thing.

Facts,

(1) He busted his check to get his Instrument, then,
(2) He busted his check to get his Commercial, then,
(3) He busted his check to get his Multi, then,
(4) He busted his check to get his ATP, then,
(5) He busted his check to remain current at Colgan on the Saab 340.

There is more dirt but I'm not going to drag him through the mud.

It is not fun to look someone in the eye and say no. It's almost impossible if they are paying you money. The bar needs to be raised in several areas but no one has the guts to do it. So, stuff like 3407, and close calls will continue.

:bandit:
 
Y'all crack me up. The point of having two capable, experienced crewmembers up front is that they BOTH have actually faced adversity when the need to roll the hard was in their lap. Project Mercury proved that can teach a monkey to fly a spacecraft, let alone an airplane. You pay peanuts, you get monkeys, but I can't for the life of me figure out why pilots are asking for peanuts. I look forward to the first guy with 4000+ hours who says "hours are a ridiculous measurement of skill, what matters is sim sessions (or whatever)". I think there will probably be one along sooner or later, and I promise I'll then shut up and leave you to carefully consider the quality of the source. The hilarious and wonderful thing about flying (like a lot of things) is that you don't know what you don't know until you do, then it's too late.
 
I'm a big supporter of the ATP mins for part 121 F/O bill. I can't believe its being dumbed down to 800 hours and some stupid requirements I guarantee all applicants are not going to actually meet.
 
Hootie said:
800 hours?? Better..... But you still can't fly cargo by yourself in a baron.
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Man you shoulda heard the rants from the management guys who were at Amflight when I was there. They went on and on about how it was stupid that you could have a 600 hour guy giving training in a Chieftain, which has a much higher workload than just flying the plane, at all hours of the night, and never had a problem; but they couldn't go out and fly canceled checks.
 
Give it time. Just the fact that a 121 SIC position can't be sold to someone with a newly minted certificate will be good for the nature of hiring, training, and the mentality of applicants everywhere.
 
jtrain609 said:
Man you shoulda heard the rants from the management guys who were at Amflight when I was there. They went on and on about how it was stupid that you could have a 600 hour guy giving training in a Chieftain, which has a much higher workload than just flying the plane, at all hours of the night, and never had a problem; but they couldn't go out and fly canceled checks.
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Training is a controlled environment. Having your own run and having to deal with the environmental variables (weather, etc) and decisions that are a part of that is not.

Also, to take that to a silly level the 1900 is easier to fly than the Navajo or Baron -- why don't 600 hour guys start in that?
 
SpiraMirabilis said:
Training is a controlled environment. Having your own run and having to deal with the environmental variables (weather, etc) and decisions that are a part of that is not.

Also, to take that to a silly level the 1900 is easier to fly than the Navajo or Baron -- why don't 600 hour guys start in that?
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We trained in whatever weather we had, the worse the better. We were flying to the same airports too.

The turbine vs. large piston discussion was another one we had frequently. The insurance company doesn't agree, but a Beech 99 IS easier to fly than a Chieftain; but the 99 cost more, and thus, people went to the Chieftain first.
 
jtrain609 said:
We trained in whatever weather we had, the worse the better. We were flying to the same airports too.

The turbine vs. large piston discussion was another one we had frequently. The insurance company doesn't agree, but a Beech 99 IS easier to fly than a Chieftain; but the 99 cost more, and thus, people went to the Chieftain first.
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Agreed. I found the King Air to be easier to fly than the Chieftain. And now I find the Citation easier to fly than the King Air. Funny how it all works!
 
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