Jet Time as a Minimum..

RightSeatGirl

RightSeatGirl

KA'PLAH BITCHES!
Instead of continuing to pollute a Job Listing thread I wanted to discuss the mentality of this thought process..

The debate is basically about companies requiring "jet" time to be considered for employment.


From that thread:

Dugie8 said:
For someplace moving to a midsize jet someone with jet experience is prudent.
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This is logic-less thinking and what I term "jet-snobbery". (Not directed at you Dugie just that thought process). Flying a Jet is different because a Jet is a different type of aircraft with a different set of limitations, systems and performance numbers. Not because it's the frakin "Space Shuttle!" Once a pilot get's over his/her first thousand hours or two power-plant becomes irrelevant and just a new set of numbers to memorize. Jets are NOT harder to fly. They have their own characteristics certainly, but flying faster and higher just means one needs to consider a few things differently than flying something with props. A pilot would be no more or less safe transitioning from a jet to a turboprop vs the normal direction. And again, at that level it's just new numbers.

For example, take a guy that has flown nothing but 747's for the last 10 years and sit him down in the right seat of some oddball single engine piston type like say a Commander 114B..Do you think just because he has JET time that this studly god of a pilot will instantaneously master the specific characteristics of that type of aircraft the moment he starts the engine? For that matter going from a 747 down to a Straight wing Citation would be no easier for him. He would still need training to be safe and competent on the type. Jet time does not make a pilot more skilled or safer. It just means they have experience burning more gas and making more noise and have been exposed to more rads than us lowly low altitude slimes.

I understand someone wanting jet experience as a min, but as I said in that thread a mere 250 jet is pointless insofar as someone who has that little jet time. That's not enough time in TYPE let alone powerplant to really say that is a worthwhile min for a job. And a pilot with 5 or 6 years TP 121 experience but no jet time will be no more or less able to handle moving into a jet. In fact, I'll venture to say a twelve hundred hour pilot with a scant 250 TJ would be woefully underskilled compared to a year 5 or 6 regional TP slave..
 
On the list of all things • with this industry this is probably on page 12 or 13. Insurance is not set in stone. Almost anyone with any amount of time can fly for a price.
 
Frankly, I find a college degree requirement to be a lot more ridiculous than a jet time requirement. At least jet time has something to do with the job itself. In both cases, the company is usually doing nothing more than trying to minimize the pile of resumes that they need to look at. I agree with you that it's probably a silly requirement, though.
 
It's another way to cull the herd. Picture yourself as an HR Manager. Every time you need a pilot (or, say, 10 pilots) you get 10,000 resumes dumped on your desk. So you start thinking up ways to narrow it down. Time in type, jet time, crew time, FMS time, 121 time, >40 tons time, etc etc etc ad infinitum. Now, are these especially effective ways to limit your pilot pool to the "best" candidates? IMHO, probably not. But Joe HR doesn't have the budget to do NASA tests on every one of those 10,000, so he needs a quick n dirty way to get the pile down to a managable size...

The thing is, the fact that the policy is deeply and personally unfair to people don't have Jet time doesn't enter in to anyone's calculations. It has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with someone else's petty frustrations and difficulties.

The simple fact of the matter is that there are jobs that all of us could do perfectly well that we're just not qualified for. I'd rather have most JCers as President than the absurd choices with which we're presented. Hell, they'd sing songs about me for thousands of years, but no one's beating down my door to accept the nomination...[/I]
 
While those views are valid, you need to look at it from the employer's perspective. Years ago I worked for a major aircraft manufacturing company. Following a leave of absence, I came back to find out that things were messed up in the personnel office and as a result I had to spend the better part of the day killing time there. However, it was an excellent education. I stood by the person who did the first review of resumes and it was eye opening. The stack of resumes for just that one day was around three inches high. Then, she would look for a couple key words that she understood and based on that shuffle the resume off into one of a couple stacks. Later I talked with a friend who was a manager in personnel about the experience. He reminded me that the minimum requirement to apply for a salaried job there was a bachelor's degree. He said to imagine how tall the stack of resumes would be if they let everyone apply for a position.

Fair or unfair, right or not, it's all about supply and demand. If a company has two positions to fill and there are a hundred people with degrees and jet time applying for the job, there isn't much motivation to throw the application process open to everyone.
 
Boris, the reason I think this needs to stop is that the process you describe is no longer necessary. Many airlines are now using computers to weed out the resumes first and actually select candidates for interviews based on a purely mathematical formula. No HR person has to actually sift through the resumes. The computer does it and spits out a list of people to interview next. The only thing the HR person has to do is specify which criteria gets more weight than other criteria, and then the computer does all the work. For example, you could tell the computer that each hour of TPIC time is worth 0.1 points. If two pilots have nearly identical resumes, but one pilot has 10 hours more TPIC time, then the computer selects him for the interview. No one had to sort through resumes, and a logical decision was made on who to give the interview to.
 
I feel ya. Its just as retarded as requiring a college degree. I've been told because I had large turbo prop experience I wouldn't be happy flying a KA200 (air ambulance) and then told a few weeks later that the guy that had less than 1000 hrs was more qualified than me (Be400) because he had sat in the right seat of a Citation I for about 75 hrs (compared to my 3800 hrs at the time with a couple thousand single pilot, Tpic, yadda yadda yadda). Its really no different than airline interviews. In the world you describe people would show up, present credentials, verify work history, have a chat and be hired. No sims, no bs written exams, no extreme BS essays to write (Expressjet/ASA-write a short paragraph on the importance of working as a team-really, really? Plumbers don't have to plum, doctors don't perform surgury but yet I have to convince some guy that I haven't faked my whole career.
I'd put my ability to perform a flawless V1 cut with no up trim and auto feather with some hotshot jet jockey any day.
(And never forget-Chicks dig beta)
 
I'm not sure where this angst comes from. An employer or potential employer is free to set whatever min requirements they want and no amount of "complaining" will change it.

You seem to think that 121 time is somehow the holy grail of experience and that anyone without it is under qualified.

I've trained with and flown with high time TP only driver whoes first jet was a moderately high performance one and they were way behind the eight ball FOR A LONG TIME.

I went from the dash8 to the DC8 and held onto the tail of that airplane for quite a while and ATIs training is well above most other 121 airlines let alone 142 schools. I also had the benefit of flying cargo only at ATI.

Take the company in the original thread wanting to move from a king air to a super midsize jet you need the other pilot to be relatively up to speed on jet ops not just total time flying between the same dozen or so airports under the very regimented operation of 121 ops.


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I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=44.008403,-92.396558
 
ATN_Pilot said:
Boris, the reason I think this needs to stop is that the process you describe is no longer necessary. Many airlines are now using computers to weed out the resumes first and actually select candidates for interviews based on a purely mathematical formula. No HR person has to actually sift through the resumes. The computer does it and spits out a list of people to interview next. The only thing the HR person has to do is specify which criteria gets more weight than other criteria, and then the computer does all the work. For example, you could tell the computer that each hour of TPIC time is worth 0.1 points. If two pilots have nearly identical resumes, but one pilot has 10 hours more TPIC time, then the computer selects him for the interview. No one had to sort through resumes, and a logical decision was made on who to give the interview to.
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Sometimes places that aren't airlines also hire pilots. Even for jets.
 
I think you bring up some valid points RSG, but I will also say that transitioning from any airplane with a prop on it to one with a jet/jets is a bit more than just learning to "think differently about a couple things". It is a significantly different undertaking, with IMHO a lot less room for error. The SA piece in particular has to be wired pretty tight for one to be successful at 2-3 times the speed, especially in a jet with limited fuel and special landing considerations. I absolutely agree with you on the idea that this goes both ways. My pure stick and rudder skills would probably be pretty embarassing at first if I were to jump from the last 3-4 years of flying high performance jets to something like an Archer, and I will also admit that my proficiency in pure GA VFR flying would need some tightening up. I guess my point is that companies aren't wrong to seek candidates for employment who have the kind of experience that is needed to succeed on the job in whatever type of aircraft they are flying. I'd love to go fly P-51's for a job sometime, but I doubt they would look at my F/A-18 time and my 0 tailwheel hours and think "now here's a guy we won't have to spend a lot of money training". Better to work with the system and qualify yourself, then bitch about not being qualified. Just my .02.
 
///AMG said:
I think you bring up some valid points RSG, but I will also say that transitioning from any airplane with a prop on it to one with a jet/jets is a bit more than just learning to "think differently about a couple things". It is a significantly different undertaking, with IMHO a lot less room for error. The SA piece in particular has to be wired pretty tight for one to be successful at 2-3 times the speed, especially in a jet with limited fuel and special landing considerations. I absolutely agree with you on the idea that this goes both ways. My pure stick and rudder skills would probably be pretty embarassing at first if I were to jump from the last 3-4 years of flying high performance jets to something like an Archer, and I will also admit that my proficiency in pure GA VFR flying would need some tightening up. I guess my point is that companies aren't wrong to seek candidates for employment who have the kind of experience that is needed to succeed on the job in whatever type of aircraft they are flying. I'd love to go fly P-51's for a job sometime, but I doubt they would look at my F/A-18 time and my 0 tailwheel hours and think "now here's a guy we won't have to spend a lot of money training". Better to work with the system and qualify yourself, then bitch about not being qualified. Just my .02.
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No I agree with this. I do understand about req'd mins, insurance wants, operational diffs etc..This was really more about a pointless 250 jet minimum just to check some box. 250 jet, does not a jet pilot make, lol. If jet time is required then make it substantial enough to where the experience actually has merrit vs. just a reason to move someone's resume to another pile...I get the need for that kind of qualifier from an HR standpoint but there are other qualifiers that make more sense as they deliver at least some ration behind them.
 
Fair enough, and I agree that the lightbulb was just a faint glow in my brain at 250 hrs of jet time.
 
Dugie8 said:
I'm not sure where this angst comes from. An employer or potential employer is free to set whatever min requirements they want and no amount of "complaining" will change it.

You seem to think that 121 time is somehow the holy grail of experience and that anyone without it is under qualified.

I've trained with and flown with high time TP only driver whoes first jet was a moderately high performance one and they were way behind the eight ball FOR A LONG TIME.

I went from the dash8 to the DC8 and held onto the tail of that airplane for quite a while and ATIs training is well above most other 121 airlines let alone 142 schools. I also had the benefit of flying cargo only at ATI.

Take the company in the original thread wanting to move from a king air to a super midsize jet you need the other pilot to be relatively up to speed on jet ops not just total time flying between the same dozen or so airports under the very regimented operation of 121 ops.


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I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=44.008403,-92.396558
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I find this interesting. I run into pilots at majors that came from a civilian route. Guess what aircraft they were flying before hopping into their 737s and such? BE-99, BE1900, SA-227. Somehow I find this myth of godly part 121 and jet time to be hard to take.

Aircraft these days are easier to fly than back when these guys upgraded. Just look at the A320 emergency flows and checklist for an engine failure after takeoff.

I have seen a guy easily move from a KA-200 to a Premier 1A all single pilot with no issues.
 
I think if you are one of those who put in 4yrs at college for something other than aviation then it doesn't sound that stupid. College has nothing to do with flying, however it doesn't mean it doesn't have a lot to do with someone I want to hire at my company.

The only people I hear bitch about a college degree are those that don't have one and are pissed because despite their 8000 hours as a captain, they know they will never even been considered for a job at a major airline. I feel pity for them.
 
People seem to get bent out of shape about jet time. Don't have any so I can't really comment, but honestly speaking, airplanes become airplanes after a certain point. Turbines are turbines. A swept-wing turbojet speed machine is no different than any other airplane, you just can't fly it like you'd fly a King Air, you have to fly the spacific airframe how it was designed to be flown. You can't fly a Caravan like you'd fly a Cherokee, you can't fly a 1900 like you'd fly a skyhawk. Once I learned that, transitioning between airframes has become easier and understanding what I need to do with a specific airplane has become more elementary. The only thing that matters reallyis time in type.

I fly a fairly heavy turbo prop, often by myself, in the middle of the night. That doesn't make me Chuck Yeager (because, damn I'm barely competent at this stuff to begin with) - but it does mean that I understand workload management, and I think that I'd safely transfer to a jet without a whole lot of difficulty. Will there be differences? Yes. Will there be challenges? Yes. Will it be demonstrably "harder" than flying a turboprop? Probably not. I still think the hardest flying I've ever done was flying single engine pistons up north, in terms of decision making, precision, and challeging conditions, the IFR environment I've seen down here doesn't even compare. There were still things that were "tough" - and by tough I mean "different" - you learn, then you go from there, and you accept each flight for what it is.
 
Pilotdude3407 said:
I think if you are one of those who put in 4yrs at college for something other than aviation then it doesn't sound that stupid. College has nothing to do with flying, however it doesn't mean it doesn't have a lot to do with someone I want to hire at my company.

The only people I hear bitch about a college degree are those that don't have one and are pissed because despite their 8000 hours as a captain, they know they will never even been considered for a job at a major airline. I feel pity for them.
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I'll have my degree within a year, and the only reason I'm doing it is to check a box. I love learning, love exploring new ways of thinking, but college is a ripoff, and the only reason it's required is to thin the herd. It'll probably help me out way down the line, but honestly, I really don't see it as a good investment.
 
ppragman said:
I'll have my degree within a year, and the only reason I'm doing it is to check a box. I love learning, love exploring new ways of thinking, but college is a ripoff, and the only reason it's required is to thin the herd. It'll probably help me out way down the line, but honestly, I really don't see it as a good investment.
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It is sad you feel like that. Education should never be looked at as a poor investment. To be honest though, I didn't see the value in it until after I got in the workforce and I realized how valuable it was to have. Nonetheless you have put in 4yrs of hard work that someone next to you might not have and you will be rewarded for it before they will, and I guarantee it will make you feel good then.
 
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