FAA to boost Co-pilot training, avoid ATP rule

I would venture to say that the flying public does not see flying a transport category aircraft as a trade. The majority hold us to the same confidence they hold a doctor, lawyer, or engineer. The vast majority like the uniform, like the hat, and think of their pilots as professionals, and even look at it as highly reguarded career. It's us whom hate the uniform, hate the hat, and don't see ourselves as professionals. But, please, have some respect for yourself, your colleagues, and your profession.

You know what they say looks like a duck, sounds like a duck - it's most likely a duck...

Cheers!
 
FlyPurdue said:
I would venture to say that the flying public does not see flying a transport category aircraft as a trade. The majority hold us to the same confidence they hold a doctor, lawyer, or engineer. The vast majority like the uniform, like the hat, and think of their pilots as professionals, and even look at it as highly reguarded career. It's us whom hate the uniform, hate the hat, and don't see ourselves as professionals. But, please, have some respect for yourself, your colleagues, and your profession.

You know what they say looks like a duck, sounds like a duck - it's most likely a duck...

Cheers!
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I agree with the respect yourselves part.

You'll find the general public is clueless. But it's cute that you think otherwise.
 
FlyPurdue said:
It's us whom hate the uniform, hate the hat, and don't see ourselves as professionals. But, please, have some respect for yourself, your colleagues, and your profession.
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Why is a trade a bad thing? Just because I view this profession as a trade doesn't make me less of a professional. The uniform bit is laughable though. Making sub-30's your first couple years in the industry is not a mark of a professional. How much does a metalworker make?
 
Polar742 said:
I was hired at 550TT.

I flew with experienced CAs into low wx, snowstorms, contaminated runways and stuff like that with someone experienced sitting with me. I learned by their mentorship, even while doing my job and gaining experience.

They even let me do OE at my last job after I upgraded.

If you want to play the accident game, let's talk about ALL 121 accidents, not just 2. How many hours did the FedEx pilots in NRT have? How about in EWR? AA in LIT? AA in JFK? SWA in MDW? You listed 2 accidents, I'll toss in CMR in LEX to give you 3. I had 5 more off my head.
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I am not trying to get into a debate. I am asking opinions of you guys and girls in the system. I was not paying the accident game? I was asking a question. I am not aware of the hours they had. It was an example to go along with my 5000 hour comment. I liked how you stated that your hire in time had nothing to do with your current ability. That is what I was looking for. You are saying that it is what you experience in the time that matters more. Hours is a generic benchmark. I respect your position. Please do not read it as anything but that.
I come from a Navy background. In that case the Captain was ultimately responsible for everything. It was a lot to put on one person, but that was the price for the prestige. To me, the PIC, or the Captain, is ultimately responsible for the safety of any flight. Sure they need the support of the rest of the crew for things to work right, but at the end of the day they are the deciding factor between a good outcome, or a disastrous one. To me, and again only my opinion, the captain is the one who needs to be the center of all this attention when it comes to discussing safety in the airlines. Not the new hire first officer. As you pointed out, they can become great with the right guidance.
 
jhugz said:
Making sub-30's your first couple years in the industry is not a mark of a professional. How much does a metalworker make?
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That's actually a little harder to do than you think on your second year. Most trades don't require a 7 week investment of paid training in their new hires so their first year pay isn't docked. I know there are plenty of examples of sub 30 second year pay but it's not the average but at any rate, raises would be nice for the profession or trade as some call it.
 
By "playing the accident game", you mentioned 2 accidents you thought would bolster your point since you guessed they fit your theory of low time guys are unsafe. I just want to point out that there are many more accidents in the same time frame completely not related to the low time SIC argument. If planes with a 250 hr FO and a 1500 hr Captain were falling out of the sky, I would be 100% on board. That is not the case though.

The Captain is ultimately responsible for the operation and it's outcome. However, there is no reason a pilot shouldn't have the basic, fundamental set of skills by 1500 hours to command a plane in commercial transport.
 
jhugz said:
Making sub-30's your first couple years in the industry is not a mark of a professional. How much does a metalworker make?
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Actually, starting lower for a few years is exactly the mark of a profession. Doctor's internships, lawyers working as a law clerk, etc. It is the trades where their pay usually starts out fairly high, it just doesn't have as much upward potential.
 
jhugz said:
You can thank automation, a variable you tend to leave out in this argument.
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1900s, J31s and even the metro you fly, are, or were, flown every day with no automation in 121.

Then again, I'd like to hear your experiences in 121 training or checking or line operations. Were you in a 121 cockpit where you saw an issue?
 
seagull said:
Actually, starting lower for a few years is exactly the mark of a profession. Doctor's internships, lawyers working as a law clerk, etc. It is the trades where their pay usually starts out fairly high, it just doesn't have as much upward potential.
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Yes, you should really talk to my friends the med students about how it works...not only do they get a crappy job but they usually don't have any choice in the place of employment. And the odds are they're unbelievably tired when they're treating you too.

(Medicine is ironically a human factors disaster that repeats itself over, and over, and over.)
 
jhugz said:
You can thank automation, a variable you tend to leave out in this argument.
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So on that note, my former CP with umpteen thousands of hours and 9 type ratings shouldn't have washed out of Hawker school because he couldn't hack the Pro Line 21.
 
jhugz said:
You can thank automation, a variable you tend to leave out in this argument.
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Do you not remember the pilot shortage of the 1960's? I've seen 60's advertisements from EAL so desperate they were willing to pay for a new hires instrument rating. These low timers definetly didn't have the automation that we have today.
 
Polar742 said:
Why shouldn't a professional pilot show up in possession of the fundamental knowledge to do the job?

For example, you should have had turbine theory before you transitioned to the metro, in the same way you knew about piston engine theory before you flew the 402.

I didn't say teach a student who can barely fly a skyhawk swept wing aero. But a commercial pilot candidate, who could very well walk into a job flying a jet after the checkride should have a good understanding of the environment in which they are going to operate.
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So your saying I can't learn those things part 61?
 
Let's face it. You can have an exceptional student in a Part 61 school, and you can have a piss poor student in a Part 141/142 school. The exceptional student goes above and beyond and learns many things on his own, just for the pleasure of expanding his knowledge bank. The poor student couldn't care less about high altitude aerodynamics and physiology, turbine engine operation, and the other finer points of aviation. They go through the motions, complete the courses, fill the logbook, and then go kill someone by "410'ing it".

No amount of legislation will change any of that.
 
TFaudree_ERAU said:
Let's face it. You can have an exceptional student in a Part 61 school, and you can have a piss poor student in a Part 141/142 school. The exceptional student goes above and beyond and learns many things on his own, just for the pleasure of expanding his knowledge bank. The poor student couldn't care less about high altitude aerodynamics and physiology, turbine engine operation, and the other finer points of aviation. They go through the motions, complete the courses, fill the logbook, and then go kill someone by "410'ing it".

No amount of legislation will change any of that.
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That's true.

However, a standardized course of learning, while not addressing each individual, addresses deficiencies in the civilian training track for professional pilots.

Accredited University degrees go a long way towards the goal of establishing a defined career track.
 
GypsyPilot said:
Not sure I understand this... Do you have any experience flying an RJ at an airline? Your profile indicates you are a low time commercial pilot, so I was just curious.
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PGT's flown farm more advanced stuff than I have, trust me! :)
 
Inverted25 said:
Let me rephrase. So you don't think that you can attain that level of knowledge outside a accredited college program.
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Sure you can, but again, that's not what I said. You can learn to be a lawyer without going to law school too.

Here's the catch: Right now, if I was hiring a civilian that had all the requisite qualifications, has a degree in Biology, CFIAIM, blah blah blah. How do I KNOW exactly what that person studied? With a military pilot, there is a STANDARD course of study. We don't have that in the civilian side.

An accredited degree program goes a long way to setting up that standardized course of study.
 
Polar742 said:
Accredited University degrees go a long way towards the goal of establishing a defined career track.
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I can't believe I'm going to side with Jhugz here, but why does there need to be a *defined* career track? In my time at the airlines I flew with some absolutely awesome captains, and there was no correlation whatsoever between their abilities and the "track" they took to their jobs. I flew with fantastic, cautious, diligent guys who went collegiate aviation programs, flew their way up through crap jobs, had changed careers, even PFJ'd. Their capability as captains was almost entirely dependent on their attitude, not their background.

That's my personal opinion--you can learn the stuff required to fly for an airline pretty easily. It's the attitude that counts, and that's certainly something that's not going to be instilled by a collegiate aviation program. You want to make the career path more stringent...put the difficulty in the training programs for the airlines. Make groundschool, the sim, and IOE more difficult, and you'll be weeding out the schmucks from mom and pop schools and ERAU alike.
 
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