FAA Releases NPRM for 121 Pilot Mins.

Xiph said:
Putting it that way makes it seem like the only time anyone learns something is when they're in the air, and leaves out all the time spent in ground training, or learning outside of class altogether.
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Book learning is one thing, but I wouldn't exactly say you're qualified to run a business after 4 years of college and 2 months on the job. Sure, you THEORETICALLY have an idea of what's up. Theory is often trumped mercilessly by experience. I'd rather have the guy with 2000 hours in the air sitting next to me than a 4.0 GPA Riddle guy with 250 hours. You can talk all you want about what to do at night in a t-storm and icing. It's a whole different ball game if you can say "Well, this one time I did this...."
 
I do think (against my own interests, I should add) that there should be a certain amount of time in a 121 crew environment before someone is ready to sit in the left seat. Freight (for example) will put some hair on your chest and teach you a lot of things about a lot of things, but the "glory days" schemes of 2006 where guys would go from the left seat of a 99 or 1900 to the left seat of a CRJ in a couple of months always struck me as nearly as insane as putting 250 hour guys in the right seat. IMHO, you need a combination of things...time in type of operation, type of aircraft, good training, and overall experience. I know, I know, Asking Too Much! Orbitz does NOT approve! ;)

PS. I will say, though, that 1500TT to sit in the right seat does not strike me as a bad place TO START.
 
Boris Badenov said:
I do think (against my own interests, I should add) that there should be a certain amount of time in a 121 crew environment before someone is ready to sit in the left seat. Freight (for example) will put some hair on your chest and teach you a lot of things about a lot of things, but the "glory days" schemes of 2006 where guys would go from the left seat of a 99 or 1900 to the left seat of a CRJ in a couple of months always struck me as nearly as insane as putting 250 hour guys in the right seat. IMHO, you need a combination of things...time in type of operation, type of aircraft, good training, and overall experience. I know, I know, Asking Too Much! Orbitz does NOT approve! ;)

PS. I will say, though, that 1500TT to sit in the right seat does not strike me as a bad place TO START.
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If I had gone to Mesaba, I would have "upgraded" in initial class. As soon as I would have hit 1,500 hours total, WHAM! Left seat in the Saab.

A few guys on here did just that.
 
Hacker15e said:
I'm actually serious.

For JC peeps that will be in the OKC area, I'm more than happy to do it.

In fact, if guys want to do a JC meet-and-greet at Vance AFB and go play in the T-6 and T-38 sims, we can organize that.
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Seriously?

Id non-rev out to OKC in a heartbeat to jump in the t38 sim....
 
jtrain609 said:
If I had gone to Mesaba, I would have "upgraded" in initial class. As soon as I would have hit 1,500 hours total, WHAM! Left seat in the Saab.

A few guys on here did just that.
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I know Joe did that, but I *think* he had time in type from Colgan. Personally, I would be scared of getting violated or killed if I wound up in the left seat of an airliner I'd never flown before other than a sim. 9E's got a 100 hour requirement before you can upgrade, but that wasn't always the case. Even then, 100 hours is a little short to learn the ins and outs of our screwed up operation. :)
 
How many hours flying does it take to realize you don't know jack about flying?

I think this is a good start.
 
Boris Badenov said:
I do think (against my own interests, I should add) that there should be a certain amount of time in a 121 crew environment before someone is ready to sit in the left seat. Freight (for example) will put some hair on your chest and teach you a lot of things about a lot of things, but the "glory days" schemes of 2006 where guys would go from the left seat of a 99 or 1900 to the left seat of a CRJ in a couple of months always struck me as nearly as insane as putting 250 hour guys in the right seat. IMHO, you need a combination of things...time in type of operation, type of aircraft, good training, and overall experience. I know, I know, Asking Too Much! Orbitz does NOT approve! ;)

PS. I will say, though, that 1500TT to sit in the right seat does not strike me as a bad place TO START.
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For the record, the more you say, the more I agree.

Beers are on me, next time you're in the DFW area.
 
jtrain609 said:
If I had gone to Mesaba, I would have "upgraded" in initial class. As soon as I would have hit 1,500 hours total, WHAM! Left seat in the Saab.

A few guys on here did just that.
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Depends when you got hired here but yeah you could have. Like I got hired in Nov '07 ahead of the street captains (I came in as an FO so I wouldn't be the third class of street captains) and did upgrade in class on the first award. If you came in after about December or waited until December or later to put your bid in you wouldn't have ever upgraded here.

This wasn't my first 121 job so I was fine with the upgrade part. In many ways Mesaba is easier to upgrade at than Colgan (the Colgan I left) because you never had to balance cowboying with your certificate. Colgan was a step up from my 134.5 gig.

I had two thousand or so hours and I turned down the upgrade at Colgan in the 1900. I didn't have any time in the Saab, but going from the Beech to the Saab isn't hard except for the systems. The Saab is slower and less performing in about every way. We had more than one guy in the initial class and the upgrade class who couldn't get it done and left or stayed an FO (or quit). Mesaba's never been big on min times from the guys I've talked to, but they make the sims and ioe and fed rides tough and that weeds out a surprising number of guys. Guys that I was in class with, who I thought were good guys, couldn't get the upgrade or the initial done. Mesaba doesn't make it easy.

Was it scary as Steve said? Eh, I don't think so. My concern was always working at Colgan. I felt like Mesaba's culture gave me the solid footing I needed and I don't have any regrets upgrading when I did. Have 1200 or so TPIC in the Saab and now I'm slinging gear on the crj. Resume is done for a bit.
 
kellwolf said:
I know Joe did that, but I *think* he had time in type from Colgan. Personally, I would be scared of getting violated or killed if I wound up in the left seat of an airliner I'd never flown before other than a sim. 9E's got a 100 hour requirement before you can upgrade, but that wasn't always the case. Even then, 100 hours is a little short to learn the ins and outs of our screwed up operation. :)
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In my opinion, a turbo prop is a turbo prop. I've never flown a big Dash or anything or a big ATR.
 
jynxyjoe said:
Was it scary as Steve said? Eh, I don't think so. My concern was always working at Colgan. I felt like Mesaba's culture gave me the solid footing I needed and I don't have any regrets upgrading when I did. Have 1200 or so TPIC in the Saab and now I'm slinging gear on the crj. Resume is done for a bit.
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Airline culture makes a HUGE difference. 9E's culture, at least it seems sometimes, falls under the "We need butts in the seats because we're junior manning and canceling flights due to lack of crews." It also depends on which examiner/check airman/fed you get. Some are harder than others. It shouldn't be that way. You shouldn't get a pass from a guy on something that's questionable, and you shouldn't be dequaled because you don't know something off the top of your head that isn't a memory item. Both happen here. I've heard rumors of check airmen being pressured to sign guys off because "we need them flying the line." Not sure if it's true, and this was all prior to Colgan 3407.
 
kellwolf said:
Airline culture makes a HUGE difference. 9E's culture, at least it seems sometimes, falls under the "We need butts in the seats because we're junior manning and canceling flights due to lack of crews." It also depends on which examiner/check airman/fed you get. Some are harder than others. It shouldn't be that way. You shouldn't get a pass from a guy on something that's questionable, and you shouldn't be dequaled because you don't know something off the top of your head that isn't a memory item. Both happen here. I've heard rumors of check airmen being pressured to sign guys off because "we need them flying the line." Not sure if it's true, and this was all prior to Colgan 3407.
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Well we were hiring as fast as we could and upgrading in class and still sending guys home, or back to the right seat even after 6 years at Mesaba. The pilot group here and training department are very concerned with quality in the cockpit. Worked well enough for now, but we haven't had to grow from 300 guys to 1500 guys like you all at Pinnacle did. Heck, I suppose with Colgan you are up around 2000 now.
 
jynxyjoe said:
Well we were hiring as fast as we could and upgrading in class and still sending guys home, or back to the right seat even after 6 years at Mesaba. The pilot group here and training department are very concerned with quality in the cockpit. Worked well enough for now, but we haven't had to grow from 300 guys to 1500 guys like you all at Pinnacle did. Heck, I suppose with Colgan you are up around 2000 now.
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Honestly, we haven't seen THAT kind of growth on the 9E side since we started taking delivery of RJs, which was before my time. We're actually about the same size on the seniority list as when I started here 4 years ago. I MAY even be smaller. Can't say for Colgan, though. I don't count their pilots as "ours" since it's two different corporate structures, training departments, etc, etc. Hopefully one day we'll be one, somewhat happy, seniority list.
 
Hacker15e said:
I'm actually serious.

For JC peeps that will be in the OKC area, I'm more than happy to do it.

In fact, if guys want to do a JC meet-and-greet at Vance AFB and go play in the T-6 and T-38 sims, we can organize that.
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I wouldn't mind playing around w/ the -38 sim for awhile ;)
 
dhc2tacksby said:
How many hours flying does it take to realize you don't know jack about flying?

I think this is a good start.
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Good Point. I remember working on my Commercial realizing that I didn't know jack when I was flying around as a Private Pilot. And I'm sure I'll have that feeling once or twice more.
 
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