Military/ Civilian Time from PSA CRJ-700 Thread

derg said:
Oh god, that guy. I think he had an extra cup of Taster’s Choice today because he was a brushfire of UberStoopit all afternoon.
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I prefer this myself:

Tim-Hortons-brand.jpg
 
tlove482 said:
I posted that but then deleted it cause I didn't want to make it political. Lol
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Aviation safety is political.

I think we delude ourselves by thinking anything else. The FAA, ultimately, works for the President of the United States, taking care that laws written by the Congress are faithfully executed. (See e.g. the NTSB not putting out email notifications and requiring you to have an EXXXXX account for briefings and the like.) And corporate and union politics play a large hand in safety as well. We just haven't seen such a brazen politicization of an accident investigation because Presidents of both parties almost universally know better.
 
DE727UPS said:
I used to have a bias against military pilots like 30 years ago. I thought I paid my dues going from part 61 to Riddle to Grand Canyon tours to fish spotting to 135 light twins to 121 Convairs to UPS. Then I actually met some military guys. They had a different path but they spent time sleeping in a tent in the desert not knowing when they would get to go home and getting shot at pretty regular. Certainly, the selection process to go the military route is much higher. Must admit that. I would say they were often more disciplined and regimented. I'll never forget the time I was taxiing out in KLGB in a 76 and had a generator drop off line. I reached up to cycle the switch and the F/O (USAF academy) literally screamed "NOOO...." Kinda scared me. He said we gotta run the checklist. Okay. Checklist said to cycle the switch (which I knew). Generator came back on and all was well. But I've always admired the discipline to follow procedure no matter what. The book said I could do a reference checklist from memory, which I was doing, but the discipline instilled in him to stop the Capt from doing something he thought was wrong impresses me to this day. Both routes have their advantages. I just don't discount the 1000 hour C17 guy cause he's got 1000 hours. Those 1000 hours were to a higher standard of flying and a high standard of selection to get there. In the end, we both got hired at a 121 major. Went through company training. All meet the standard at that point and you have to move on from there.
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Why would you have a bias against MILpies even before meeting or flying with them? They go through a grueling selection process, and once hired are trained to our military standards and then fly props and jets like you as an airline puke. What made you so special lugging around cancelled checks, to have a chip on the shoulder against a guy who served in the military as a pilot?

I love MILpies. They are by the book and respect the chain of command regardless of the age of their Capt.
 
Minuteman said:
While I love Waffle House chat, we have managed to keep this thread about the DCA crash out of the Lav so far and there’s more information and outcomes ahead. May I request a share to figure out who has the best hashbrowns?
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To be fair that’s because they yanked the worst of it out and threw it to the Lav.
 
Wardogg said:
Even in long range cargo aircraft in the military 1000 hours was usually the bench mark for the next phase. IE instructor or evaluator, WTI, etc etc. That’s why it blew my mind that CFI was the first pilot job you got as a civilian. Whereas it’s at least mid career or last job you get in the military.
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FAIPs across the nation have entered the chat... :)
MikeD said:
Pressure altitude, radar altitude information, and what the displays were indicating, especially in glass cockpit aircraft. Used to be a bit more difficult to tie-in with round dial aircraft with indicated values. But easy to record these with glass cockpits. Plus, the radar data and any ADSB data, would all correlate with one another.
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I am getting more and more curious about the altitudes. The METAR at the time of the accident indicated that the pressure was rapidly rising. I don't recall how much it had gone up from the last METAR or what baro the Blackhawk had set. Not that it would have made a HUGE difference if was set incorrectly, but 25 feet here, then 25 feet there, another 25 feet just because and then...co-altitude.

Oh as to the MIL pilots selection/discussion. Over my 20+ years of MIL flying experience, I know a LOT of pilots that had zero business flying jets in the MIL or otherwise. Sure, most were pretty great (or at least met standards) but there were quite a few that should have never sat in the front of an airplane.
 
Wardogg said:
Fair but not the norm.
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What percentage of graduating UPT classes are FAIPs?

How many CFIs get their ticket shortly after getting their commercial?

550 of my 1800 part 121 PIC hrs are as a line check pilot. I have taken FOs with 0 jet time in and out of DCA with paying passengers on board, in the same tail number that’s now being taken out of the water.

All this being said, I was not unique or special. What arbitrary number do we place on this? Folks with less than 200 hrs are PIC in single seat fighters.

I guess I’m just not understanding the point/correlation you’re trying to make.
 
pwttogfk said:
Turning right back around and teaching what you just learned is the civilian norm. The military has the ability to weed out people based on aptitude instead of based on pocketbook. I don't see anything at all wrong with the military also having relatively low time instructors.

Separately, I'm quite curious if there's a standard for the military for when to use radar altimeter/baro altimeter, and if all low-altitude baro ops are QNH or if any QFE operations happen. I have (literally) just enough time upside down to be extremely dangerous and never feel quite right using QFE in the box.
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I thought military guys got hired with less time since they will never have competitive times in relation to civilians.
 
pwttogfk said:
Turning right back around and teaching what you just learned is the civilian norm. The military has the ability to weed out people based on aptitude instead of based on pocketbook. I don't see anything at all wrong with the military also having relatively low time instructors.

Separately, I'm quite curious if there's a standard for the military for when to use radar altimeter/baro altimeter, and if all low-altitude baro ops are QNH or if any QFE operations happen. I have (literally) just enough time upside down to be extremely dangerous and never feel quite right using QFE in the box.
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I don’t see any issue with military having low time either. I think the large reason they have lower times is because they (and rightfully so) brief/debrief hours for one sortie. My old man flew UH-1s, C-141s and C-5s for 24 years active duty and only had a little over 3000 hrs total. Fighter folks usually less from what I understand.

I was never pressured to pass/sign anyone off as either a CFI or an LCA. If pilots didn’t meet the standards they got more training or were washed out.

My point was that hours alone don’t dictate whether an instructor is effective/good at their job. Civilian or military.
 
tlove482 said:
I thought military guys got hired with less time since they will never have competitive times in relation to civilians.
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From what understand, it’s industry standard/accepted for military pilots to add 0.3 to every sortie flown when applying to a 121 job.
 
pwttogfk said:
Turning right back around and teaching what you just learned is the civilian norm. The military has the ability to weed out people based on aptitude instead of based on pocketbook. I don't see anything at all wrong with the military also having relatively low time instructors.
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I'm going to go ahead and say it: I think the concept of "aptitude" is dramatically overrated. Nearly anyone can successfully be a pilot. Some people may be predisposed to it by their attitudes and how readily they pick up kinesthetic skills, but in general that's mostly a question of background. The reason it takes some people longer ("pocketbook") isn't that they're not predisposed to be a pilot or that they don't have the aptitude for it, it's largely due to the fact that there are attitudinal and judgmental things that they have to unlearn and re-learn, and that's more about mental plasticity than any innate aptitude.

The concept that one out of a hundred people taken off the street could be successful at X is one of those things that persistently hangs around and leads to the thinking that people who do certain things are supermen. Flying takes the following: visual measuring, extending your proprioception, judgment, and some basic good default settings. It helps to start early, because once you allow your thought processes to ossify, once you get mentally lazy, any new skill is much harder to learn. You typically want to rely on adapting existing skills and knowledge to suit rather than relearning things that you may not have had correct to begin with.

I've flown with a lot of military pilots and a lot of civilian pilots. I've seen good and bad on both sides. The best pilots I've flown with were the ones who were dedicated professionals who started young.

No matter what their background was.

Also, while I'm here: I wasn't joking earlier when I said that veterans preference is one of the earliest and most pervasive forms of DEI. I know lots of people who have been hired for jobs that others were equally (or more!) qualified for simply because they were in the military.

You know what, though? I don't have a problem with that. Putting yourself on the line to serve your country deserves some lifelong appreciation from your country. For that matter, many veterans deserve a lot more than they get.
 
🦈💜 said:
I'm going to go ahead and say it: I think the concept of "aptitude" is dramatically overrated. Nearly anyone can successfully be a pilot. Some people may be predisposed to it by their attitudes and how readily they pick up kinesthetic skills, but in general that's mostly a question of background. The reason it takes some people longer ("pocketbook") isn't that they're not predisposed to be a pilot or that they don't have the aptitude for it, it's largely due to the fact that there are attitudinal and judgmental things that they have to unlearn and re-learn, and that's more about mental plasticity than any innate aptitude.

The concept that one out of a hundred people taken off the street could be successful at X is one of those things that persistently hangs around and leads to the thinking that people who do certain things are supermen. Flying takes the following: visual measuring, extending your proprioception, judgment, and some basic good default settings. It helps to start early, because once you allow your thought processes to ossify, once you get mentally lazy, any new skill is much harder to learn. You typically want to rely on adapting existing skills and knowledge to suit rather than relearning things that you may not have had correct to begin with.

I've flown with a lot of military pilots and a lot of civilian pilots. I've seen good and bad on both sides. The best pilots I've flown with were the ones who were dedicated professionals who started young.

No matter what their background was.

Also, while I'm here: I wasn't joking earlier when I said that veterans preference is one of the earliest and most pervasive forms of DEI. I know lots of people who have been hired for jobs that others were equally (or more!) qualified for simply because they were in the military.

You know what, though? I don't have a problem with that. Putting yourself on the line to serve your country deserves some lifelong appreciation from your country. For that matter, many veterans deserve a lot more than they get.
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Remind me, did you flight instruct?
 
🦈💜 said:
I'm going to go ahead and say it: I think the concept of "aptitude" is dramatically overrated. Nearly anyone can successfully be a pilot. Some people may be predisposed to it by their attitudes and how readily they pick up kinesthetic skills, but in general that's mostly a question of background. The reason it takes some people longer ("pocketbook") isn't that they're not predisposed to be a pilot or that they don't have the aptitude for it, it's largely due to the fact that there are attitudinal and judgmental things that they have to unlearn and re-learn, and that's more about mental plasticity than any innate aptitude.

The concept that one out of a hundred people taken off the street could be successful at X is one of those things that persistently hangs around and leads to the thinking that people who do certain things are supermen. Flying takes the following: visual measuring, extending your proprioception, judgment, and some basic good default settings. It helps to start early, because once you allow your thought processes to ossify, once you get mentally lazy, any new skill is much harder to learn. You typically want to rely on adapting existing skills and knowledge to suit rather than relearning things that you may not have had correct to begin with.

I've flown with a lot of military pilots and a lot of civilian pilots. I've seen good and bad on both sides. The best pilots I've flown with were the ones who were dedicated professionals who started young.

No matter what their background was.

Also, while I'm here: I wasn't joking earlier when I said that veterans preference is one of the earliest and most pervasive forms of DEI. I know lots of people who have been hired for jobs that others were equally (or more!) qualified for simply because they were in the military.

You know what, though? I don't have a problem with that. Putting yourself on the line to serve your country deserves some lifelong appreciation from your country. For that matter, many veterans deserve a lot more than they get.
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One of the differences between MIL and CIV pilots is that CIV training affords a LOT of opportunity to "try again" whereas the MIL does not...particularly in UPT. The syllabus is followed and if a candidate cannot keep up or meet standards, they are done. Over. No shiny wings. In the CIV side, you can have repeated check ride failures and keep on keeping on. Of course, those rules have modified a bit in the 121 world, but still...there is a difference.

And +1 on veteran's preference. I won't get into my personally beliefs, but I do think there are *some* folks that seek way more credit/entitlement than they really should...but that's for another thread.
 
CUTigerPilot said:
I don’t see any issue with military having low time either. I think the large reason they have lower times is because they (and rightfully so) brief/debrief hours for one sortie. My old man flew UH-1s, C-141s and C-5s for 24 years active duty and only had a little over 3000 hrs total. Fighter folks usually less from what I understand.

I was never pressured to pass/sign anyone off as either a CFI or an LCA. If pilots didn’t meet the standards they got more training or were washed out.

My point was that hours alone don’t dictate whether an instructor is effective/good at their job. Civilian or military.
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I flew the C-5 for 18 years...7 of those years were in an operational squadron (5 of those years were post 9/11 and there was a LOT of flying) the rest were either school house or flight test and when all was said and done, I had about 5,000 hours. I flew *a lot* between 2002-2007 and "timed out" often (maximum flight time for a given period). BUT...I was a line flyer/instructor and NEVER said no to the scheduler. If I was home, it was to do laundry. The school house and HHQ tours dramatically dropped those hours as did the flight test (last few years).

Nonetheless, those hours logged were out of the ordinary prior to 9/11. After that, everything changed. I don't know what the Ops tempo is like now, but I would assume it's pretty freaking high. Also, a lot of pilots/crews do staff tours and can go years and not log any time at all. Most of the folks I flew with in that period had logged between 3500 and 6000 hours when they retired.

One last thing...the flying sorties can vary greatly. In the C-5, it's like FedEx flying with lots of long legs. School house flying is between 3.0-5.0 hours a sortie and a line instructor usually would fly 2-3x a week and have non-flying duties about a week each month.
 
HeyEng said:
Also, a lot of pilots/crews do staff tours and can go years and not log any time at all.
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This is a great point that I failed to mention. Not that it adds particularly to the flight hour comparison in terms of merit, but it does help to explain another reason why over the course of a 20 year career, the flight hour totals are nowhere close between civilian and mil flyers. My community (F/A-18's) was probably the least burdened by these staff/non-flying tours compared to others that have a surplus of aviators (big wing/P-8/P-3 and Helo), but even then, it is a near expectation that there is one tour in there that isn't flying, typically as a mid-senior level O-4, following completion of an operational squadron department head tour. Then potentially again, prior to 20, if you were junior in your command tour, and aren't retirement eligible yet or on track for major command (which takes you well past 20 years anyway). I'm fortunate that I have been in the cockpit for 17 years straight now, and flying my primary aircraft for all of that save a couple years of flight school. But that isn't the norm, even in my community, and a lot of it is because I quit and came back as a reservist in a flying unit.
 
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