How much is too much?

[bike21]

Great! Can't wait to do IOE for normal wage!

I would think at my company, this dude would have been sent packing by now. Even though we are short, we don't seem afraid to send people packing. I have heard of a few lately that haven't cut it. And certainly never heard of the company allowing them to pay for that much training!

Not a jab at your company Bob, but it sounds like they need to stop trying so hard on guys like this.

The real question is, when will the next RJ crash be and the media at large do expose work on our staffing and hiring issues? When will the flying public actually pay for what a round trip really costs with a safe, professional and capable crew? When will the public and managemnt realize in order to attract and retain real aviators, that they need to pay and treat them well?

I know, preaching to the choir

 

[slushie]

So, now that we all agree that the bar has been lowered too far. What can we do about it?

The younger/yet-to-bes like myself should commit to applying when we ARE READY, not when our time meets minimums.

My situation with finishing up school is almost a safety net for me, because I can't fly anywhere but here until I graduate. I plan on 135 mins before I get a real job somewhere.

 

[Van_Hoolio]

Wow, it takes some cajones to tell that story. I'll admit that I would be too embarrassed to tell of anything similar at my company.

 

[Maximilian_Jenius]

Okay...I read stuff like this and think, will that be me. It's scary, no one wants to fail out of ground school or be "that guy" in the first post.

I'm a real good study when I want something bad enough, and focus on my goal. My instructors have called me a natural stick. But is it really that hard to go from schoolhouse to flying the real plane?

I mean I know that when you're up there for the first few time, you don't know what you're doing. You may know what to do but you're overwelmed and just system dump, if not go blank.

Is this something that all new FO's should be concerned with?

Bump! :hiya:

 

[Tram]

We just had 3 - 250ish hour guys get to do "OE" all over again..

Very nice guys, just not "ready" for the game yet..

 

[derg]

True story. I was actually on frequency:

"Airline 123, RVR is 2000, turn left heading 250, maintain 2500 until established, cleared ILS (whatever) approach"

"standby.. ahh we need 1800 for the approach sir"

"Yessir, current RVR is reading 2000, turn further left heading (whatever), maintain 2500 until established, cleared ILS (whatever) approach"

"We're going to ahh, have to divert sir because we're below minimums as per our ops specs and not much fuel to hold"

"Airliner 123, current RVR 1800 turn left NOW heading (whatever), cleared ILS approach"

"Cleared for the approach, airliner 123"

 

[Baradium]

True story. I was actually on frequency:

"Airline 123, RVR is 2000, turn left heading 250, maintain 2500 until established, cleared ILS (whatever) approach"

"standby.. ahh we need 1800 for the approach sir"

"Yessir, current RVR is reading 2000, turn further left heading (whatever), maintain 2500 until established, cleared ILS (whatever) approach"

"We're going to ahh, have to divert sir because we're below minimums as per our ops specs and not much fuel to hold"

"Airliner 123, current RVR 1800 turn left NOW heading (whatever), cleared ILS approach"

"Cleared for the approach, airliner 123"

anic:anic:

:rotfl:


Up here it's not just basic inexperience. I've seen captains that had no idea about some regs because all their time was flying VFR part 135 and doing whatever they wanted at uncontrolled airports. 20 years flying and you can still have no clue what you're doing...

 

[B767Driver]

This is why my family does not ride on the commuters.

I was commuting home last week and ended up talking to a business guy sitting next to me. He was very gracious and tactful in his approach...but proceeded to tell me how there is such an observable difference between the commuter crews and mainline. It's a sad state of affairs.

If I was starting out today, I don't believe I'd pursue employment at the commuters. It's just not a workforce I'd be proud to be a part of.

 

[B767Driver]

anic:anic:

:rotfl:


Up here it's not just basic inexperience. I've seen captains that had no idea about some regs because all their time was flying VFR part 135 and doing whatever they wanted at uncontrolled airports. 20 years flying and you can still have no clue what you're doing...

Back in the day, a person with VFR part 135 experience would not even be qualified for an interview.

 

[ComplexHiAv8r]

The younger/yet-to-bes like myself should commit to applying when we ARE READY, not when our time meets minimums.

I agree, but the problem continues as they reduce the CA time as well and now you get could get a crew with only a total of maybe 2000 hours. Not sure what can be done until something is, unfortantly, written in blood.

 

[killbilly]

Scary stuff. This whole hiring of super low time pilots is really killing places like my company, where to be a PIC you need 135 minimums. Everyones runnin to the regionals cause they dont wanna save up 1000 hours to come fly props to start (cause thats like, the end of the world to some).

Maybe raise the bar a bit as far as being a 121 SIC is concerned? I dunno, 500 hours....750 hours?

for every bad egg im sure theres a few good ones too, but I'm still a firm believer in experience being the best teacher...

I wonder if they mightn't consider splitting the difference. Some pilots might like continuing to fly 135 freight (if conditions were right, I could see a full-bore career for myself doing that) if the pay and schedule were more to their liking.

I wonder if an airline would consider subsidizing a 135 operation to groom pilots before bringing them up - sort of like a farm club or triple-A ball before The Show.

 

[B767Driver]

I don't want to move this into a low time pilot debate, although that is most certainly the root cause here.

Here's what I saw while jumpseating (on a company aircraft) today.

FO was doing IOE. He was assigned to this check airman yesterday at at the start of the trip had already had 60 hours of OE. During sim he had taken 12 sessions to pass (instead of the normal 7 and then a checkride) and after 45 hours of IOE had been sent BACK to the sim on his own dime to get procedures down.

During the flight he had trouble keep the plane near the centerline during the take off roll and then had problems pitching up during the rotation (even with the FD up). The climb out was pretty basic with runway heading until we were given direct a fix on our route out of 2000 feet. The climb was erratic in pitch and his turn on course was very shallow and when told to tighten it up by the captain he ended up overbanking the aircraft. Once established on the new heading he blew through his attitude by 300 feet (again, with the FD) and recovered by throwing on the autopilot while still in the climb. Stuff was ok then although he had trouble syncing the engines and spent most of the (relatively short flight) trying to keep the power about even and within 40 knots of our cruise speed of 290. Once we got a runway assignment it took him about 5 minutes to go through a visual approach brief and in the mean time almost oversped the aircraft while descending. He went through 10,000 with out slowing (did even catch it when the captain called out "10" a few times) and once he did put the power back to slow he forgot to put it up once we leveled off and we slowed to about 200 before he realized it. The approach was on the autopilot and our speed varied about 20 knots in each direction of what ever the current target was. He configured about 10 miles out to be "ready" although when he did dump the autopilot at 400 feet he WAY over controlled and and was about 2 dots wrong in both directions. He eventually got it down and the landing was soft but about 4000 feet down the runway (which was 10K so we were ok).

The scary thing is he had NO idea that stuff wasn't going well.

Again, this isn't a commentary on low time pilots (although he is) but rather just me wondering when the training department is just going to cut their losses. Remember... this wasn't a training flight. There were 50 paying passengers in the back.

To me, the training department is as much as fault here as the pilot applicant. Whatever training, checking and evaluation process is effect here is flawed if not inept in itself.

Why was the applicant allowed to proceed in the training process? Why was he still flying the line at 60 hours without having basic control of the aircraft? Does the place have a standards department?

 

[kellwolf]

I was commuting home last week and ended up talking to a business guy sitting next to me. He was very gracious and tactful in his approach...but proceeded to tell me how there is such an observable difference between the commuter crews and mainline. It's a sad state of affairs.

In moderate defense of that, there SHOULD be a difference b/w commuters and mainline. The mainline guys have more experience not only flying the airplane but dealing with all the little passenger situations that come up. That should be true even if the regionals weren't hiring fetuses.

Tram, back when I went through OE last May/June, I had to have it extended b/c of my visual approaches (common in the CRJ). It was pretty much made clear to me by a couple of OE CAs that I was getting to the end of the game. Basically, I had about one or two more trips to get it down or I was done. I was lucky enough to get a string of check airmen that CARED apparently. The guy that really fixed it for me knew what was at stake, made me fly EVERY leg that trip in order to get the visual approaches down and taught me a lot of tricks to get it right. He's also one of those check airmen that has told a lot of FOs in the past "Maybe this isn't for you" and stopped their OE. He's still one of my mentors, even though he's flying 767s in Japan now. I don't think we'd see that here now. I think we'd see people repeating OE over and over again until they got it right.

On a humorous note, I listened to the PCL conference call for the financial report. According to Phil, we're hiring higher caliber pilots (yeah, b/c they know they can upgrade in about three weeks if they have the time) and we're not losing FOs to other regionals. WHAAAAH? Out of touch much, Phil?

 

[Stone Cold]

I wonder if an airline would consider subsidizing a 135 operation to groom pilots before bringing them up - sort of like a farm club or triple-A ball before The Show.

The problem with this is you need more hours (read: experience) to do 135 flying than you need in the regionals. On top of that, quite a few of the freight dawgs don't even want to consider the regionals. Why would you do all that then go where most people have a wet comm cert to get on? I am very proud of the fact that I didn't go to a regional, and hearing these stories makes me happy with my decision.

Other's mileage may vary...cue Wheelsup in 3....2.....1.....

 

[Brand X]

Scary stuff. This whole hiring of super low time pilots is really killing places like my company, where to be a PIC you need 135 minimums. Everyones runnin to the regionals cause they dont wanna save up 1000 hours to come fly props to start (cause thats like, the end of the world to some).

Maybe raise the bar a bit as far as being a 121 SIC is concerned? I dunno, 500 hours....750 hours?

for every bad egg im sure theres a few good ones too, but I'm still a firm believer in experience being the best teacher...

You are so right!!! It would literally be the END for some of them! END as in DEAD.

 

[Brand X]

This is why my family does not ride on the commuters.

I was commuting home last week and ended up talking to a business guy sitting next to me. He was very gracious and tactful in his approach...but proceeded to tell me how there is such an observable difference between the commuter crews and mainline. It's a sad state of affairs.

If I was starting out today, I don't believe I'd pursue employment at the commuters. It's just not a workforce I'd be proud to be a part of.

Best post ever!!!

 

[Brand X]

In moderate defense of that, there SHOULD be a difference b/w commuters and mainline. The mainline guys have more experience not only flying the airplane but dealing with all the little passenger situations that come up. That should be true even if the regionals weren't hiring fetuses.

Tram, back when I went through OE last May/June, I had to have it extended b/c of my visual approaches (common in the CRJ). It was pretty much made clear to me by a couple of OE CAs that I was getting to the end of the game. Basically, I had about one or two more trips to get it down or I was done. I was lucky enough to get a string of check airmen that CARED apparently. The guy that really fixed it for me knew what was at stake, made me fly EVERY leg that trip in order to get the visual approaches down and taught me a lot of tricks to get it right. He's also one of those check airmen that has told a lot of FOs in the past "Maybe this isn't for you" and stopped their OE. He's still one of my mentors, even though he's flying 767s in Japan now. I don't think we'd see that here now. I think we'd see people repeating OE over and over again until they got it right.

On a humorous note, I listened to the PCL conference call for the financial report. According to Phil, we're hiring higher caliber pilots (yeah, b/c they know they can upgrade in about three weeks if they have the time) and we're not losing FOs to other regionals. WHAAAAH? Out of touch much, Phil?

The scariest words a new commuter pilot will ever hear, "cleared for the visual".

 

[wheelsup]

Scary stuff. This whole hiring of super low time pilots is really killing places like my company, where to be a PIC you need 135 minimums. Everyones runnin to the regionals cause they dont wanna save up 1000 hours to come fly props to start (cause thats like, the end of the world to some).

Maybe raise the bar a bit as far as being a 121 SIC is concerned? I dunno, 500 hours....750 hours?

for every bad egg im sure theres a few good ones too, but I'm still a firm believer in experience being the best teacher...

Here's something to ponder. If someone is hired at 300-400 hours TT, by the time they hit 135 mins they are in their second year at a regional. Here that means $35.38/hr, 2 weeks vacation (~4 weeks/1 month after trip touching takes effect), 14, 15, 16+ days off. Why take a pay cut, cut in benefits, and cut in QOL to go fly 135 freight just to be "cool"? It has nothing to do with it "being the end of the world".

As far as people running to the regionals at low time, there aren't many CFI jobs that can guarantee you a salary and benefits like the regionals do. There are significant advantages to getting out of the CFI work force and into a regional, IMO.

For the love of God, stop blaming the "pilots" that don't want to fly for your company and instead blame your management for not creating an attractive compensation package.

 

[kellwolf]

Gee, never would have thought this thread would turn into Brand X vs regional pilots or regionals vs freight......again.

 

[flyover]

When will the flying public actually pay for what a round trip really costs with a safe, professional and capable crew? When will the public and managemnt realize in order to attract and retain real aviators, that they need to pay and treat them well?

They are called customers and without them no industry, no job. Question: When will JCers and pilots in general stop blaming their customers and start solving their own problems.

As for the IOE guy, if at this point he can't level off at altitude it's time for the streets. This guy is our responsibility, not the customers.

Longer term solution would be the same as the military which demands that it's pilots fly complex missions in complex airplanes with very low experience.

IOW it's the training stupid. This guy should have washed out of training and not even be on the line getting an IOE. The solution will be at the training level because there is no pool of experienced pilots to meet the demand. FYI the majors have always hired very low time pilots when they had to. There is nothing new going on here.

If current trends continue it won't be long before airlines in the US will be hiring non-pilots and training them. What the financial arrangements will be, I don't know, but if the training is excellent and the wash out criteria is brutal enough good pilots will be produced. A well trained pilot with good operation procedures is heads above a poorly trained pilot with lots of experience.