Roger Roger
Bottom of the list
Ok but….civilian pilots who take a lot of time out of the cockpit are viewed as less competitive, for what I would consider valid reasons. I don’t see why the same wouldn’t apply to military folks.
Military/ Civilian Time from PSA CRJ-700 Thread
- Thread starter ppragman
- Start date
///AMG
Well-Known Member
I suppose the obvious difference would be that it wasn't by choice in the military scenario? Or at least it wasn't a work requirement. None of these non-flying tours are by choice, at least for the vast majority of folks
Not saying that there aren't valid reasons to take a career pause on the civilian side either, and that is a reasonable criticism I think one could have of the hiring/HR process.
JDean3204
Well-Known Member
Roger Roger
Bottom of the list
Are you under the impression that most people seeking a major airline job, who have spent large amounts of time in non-flying jobs, have done so voluntarily?
///AMG
Well-Known Member
Are you speaking to folks who got furloughed/left the industry? While I would agree that is non-voluntary, prior to furlough, would those folks have been competitive for the job(s) they are applying for? In other words, say I get furloughed at a regional and am out of the cockpit for 5 years and am never recalled or choose not to come back, because I needed to find work that puts food on the table. Is your scenario that those folks are no longer able to get hired at another regional due to currency issues?
To the military scenario, I'd say that going out of the cockpit for 2-3 years does result in less hours, however the % hit to total hours is probably a lot less significant than our civilian brethren. The biggest issue is normally retiring or leaving active service and not being current. Other than the highest peak of hiring in the last few years, it would be quite normal for those folks to need to go pay to fly a bunch of hours, and then just to be eligible for a regional interview, pretty much regardless of background (I'm not talking to RTP programs here). Granted they moved out of the regionals pretty quickly in that timeframe.
Boris Badenov
Fortis Leader
Perhaps that's part of it, and I'm sure some of it is institutional inertia. But I suspect the largest part of it is producing a reliable product, as I think someone mentioned up above. Not like a Superior Human, but someone who is trainable, reliable, will show up for work, etc. We've all known enough pilots of all backgrounds to know that some animals are more equal than others when it comes to not being Outliers.
KLB
Well-Known Member
True. There may also be the fact that military pilots are more likely to come to work, do what they're told, and not complain about it. They are accustomed to pay being the pay and not used to collective bargaining agreements and such.
There is still quite a transition from a military mindset to civilian mindset. I've also flown with some former military pilots that weren't all that great. So some aren't able to make a smooth transition to civilian flying.
KLB
Well-Known Member
Spoiler alert: some weren't all that great in the military either
I had figured that you'd say that!
jtrain609
Antisocial Monster
Cool.
I largely held your opinion until I started teaching. I always figured pretty much anyone could do this job until I found people who couldn't. Then I found people who couldn't pass a checkride beyond their instrument rating. Then I found people who couldn't get through part 135 training. Then I found people who couldn't get through part 121 OE.
I think this is a much rarer skill set than we give ourselves credit for, and I think there's a large amount of aptitude associated with the work we do than we, as pilots, realize.
🦈💜
Well-Known Member
I laid out my reasoning, but it's in the other thread because stuff got moved while I was typing it up.
It's more nuanced than "Everybody can do this at any time just by going through normal training," if that's your jam.
I also totally understand if nobody wants to read five minutes of rambling.
A300Capt
Freight Dawg
Dang…never thought of *buying* my way to the top? I progressed the old fashion way….hard work via sexual favors, backstabbing and sparkling personality!
TMI??
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Cherokee_Cruiser
Bronteroc
🦈💜
Well-Known Member
I think there's a lot we can learn from the other side, if we can break down the preconceptions that exist on each. That said,
Humans are remarkably adaptable.
I have a theory of mental plasticity that goes something like this:
Observation A> Humans need a model of reality to function. They can't generally work on "raw data." Examples provided upon request, but you can probably synthesize them. Think of driving-if you try to reduce it to analysis of steering wheel angles, pedal pressures in NM, closure angles, traction percentage etc, much like a computer might, you wouldn't be able to get to the grocery store. (Even automated vehicles need models)
Observation B> Humans (like many species) are born receptive to information about the world around them. As they grow, they have to continually adjust their model of reality to fit available data. That is computationally expensive, and it takes work. Adapting your model leaves you vulnerable, because you haven't compiled the parameters into instant action/reactions. ("muscle memory"). It's slower and less efficient. An elite hockey player stays in a flow state of read/react, based on how they train. Their cognition is operating nearly independently from their body.
As humans become more efficient at things, they start to build that muscle memory, including cognitive process. That's "the model." Once we achieve a state where we're just responding to everything by read/react, we start locking down the model, because it's proven to work for us. We've determined this to be an accurate and efficient way to exist in our current environment. We do the things we do, we understand the things that come in. The world "makes sense."
In short:
When humans are young, they change their model to fit available data.
As humans grow, they reach a point where they start altering the incoming data to fit their model.
Once humans have a model that adequately explains the world around them, and allows them to operate efficiently therein, that model becomes almost immutable, and they question anything that doesn't fit it. To challenge that model is to challenge their existence, and what has become their fundamental self.
When people say "the brain is still growing until 13/16/18/20/24/25/28", it's actually just a reductive conflation of correlation and causation, and I believe the above demonstrates some of the causative factors. The brain is plastic as long as you're expanding it to new ideas. As soon as you lock that model down and determine that no, X is Y, and that's just common sense, you begin losing the ability to grow. It takes you less time and energy to think, but you start to solidify those pathways.
The muscles atrophy as comfort ("common sense") grows.
The problem with common sense is, as the saying goes, that it's not common. But people fundamentally misunderstand that statement--it doesn't mean "it's not common" as in "most people don't have it," it means "it's not common" as in "it's not shared between people."
When you teach people something that doesn't rely on that "common sense," like flying, you have to figure out where they are on the adaptivity scale, and sometimes you have to break into the model. And they have to voluntarily open that model for you, or they'll just keep bouncing off the new concepts and ideas. That doesn't mean everyone will actually be able/willing to open that model, and most instructors won't go through the effort to do so because they are (understandably) not devoted solely to that student's learning process. They have better things to do than spend many hours psychoanalyzing their students, and the students won't want to pay for that anyway. This is not an ideal world, and some compromises have to be made.
And there are some people who have developed maladaptive responses to external pressures, and at times those maladaptive responses can be highly inappropriate in aviation. (Atlas, Houston) Does that mean the individual can't be a pilot? Not necessarily, but the foundational issues must be addressed and can't be ignored. If those foundational issues are uncorrectable, then, and only then, have you found a candidate that isn't suited to the profession. CA might have been one of those due to extreme impulsivity, but more likely the instructors along the way passed the buck by just meeting the minimum standard at the exact right time to "cooperate and graduate."
Anyway, if anyone has read this far, thanks for giving up half your day to read my inane ramblings.
TL;DR: Humans are remarkably adaptable and capable of learning, in my observation, but once they lock in their model of reality as "truth," it becomes impossible to natively teach new concepts. They can assimilate new concepts only by adapting them to fit their model, rather than adapting their model to fit the concepts.
Exactly none of which is relevant to the titular accident, but is at least tangentially relevant to the discussion at hand.
Right, but the question is why. That 'why' is the essence of understanding what I'm saying. Do you think that some humans are just fundamentally "not cut out for it" from birth?bimmerfile said:
Humans are remarkably adaptable.
I have a theory of mental plasticity that goes something like this:
Observation A> Humans need a model of reality to function. They can't generally work on "raw data." Examples provided upon request, but you can probably synthesize them. Think of driving-if you try to reduce it to analysis of steering wheel angles, pedal pressures in NM, closure angles, traction percentage etc, much like a computer might, you wouldn't be able to get to the grocery store. (Even automated vehicles need models)
Observation B> Humans (like many species) are born receptive to information about the world around them. As they grow, they have to continually adjust their model of reality to fit available data. That is computationally expensive, and it takes work. Adapting your model leaves you vulnerable, because you haven't compiled the parameters into instant action/reactions. ("muscle memory"). It's slower and less efficient. An elite hockey player stays in a flow state of read/react, based on how they train. Their cognition is operating nearly independently from their body.
As humans become more efficient at things, they start to build that muscle memory, including cognitive process. That's "the model." Once we achieve a state where we're just responding to everything by read/react, we start locking down the model, because it's proven to work for us. We've determined this to be an accurate and efficient way to exist in our current environment. We do the things we do, we understand the things that come in. The world "makes sense."
In short:
When humans are young, they change their model to fit available data.
As humans grow, they reach a point where they start altering the incoming data to fit their model.
Once humans have a model that adequately explains the world around them, and allows them to operate efficiently therein, that model becomes almost immutable, and they question anything that doesn't fit it. To challenge that model is to challenge their existence, and what has become their fundamental self.
When people say "the brain is still growing until 13/16/18/20/24/25/28", it's actually just a reductive conflation of correlation and causation, and I believe the above demonstrates some of the causative factors. The brain is plastic as long as you're expanding it to new ideas. As soon as you lock that model down and determine that no, X is Y, and that's just common sense, you begin losing the ability to grow. It takes you less time and energy to think, but you start to solidify those pathways.
The muscles atrophy as comfort ("common sense") grows.
The problem with common sense is, as the saying goes, that it's not common. But people fundamentally misunderstand that statement--it doesn't mean "it's not common" as in "most people don't have it," it means "it's not common" as in "it's not shared between people."
When you teach people something that doesn't rely on that "common sense," like flying, you have to figure out where they are on the adaptivity scale, and sometimes you have to break into the model. And they have to voluntarily open that model for you, or they'll just keep bouncing off the new concepts and ideas. That doesn't mean everyone will actually be able/willing to open that model, and most instructors won't go through the effort to do so because they are (understandably) not devoted solely to that student's learning process. They have better things to do than spend many hours psychoanalyzing their students, and the students won't want to pay for that anyway. This is not an ideal world, and some compromises have to be made.
And there are some people who have developed maladaptive responses to external pressures, and at times those maladaptive responses can be highly inappropriate in aviation. (Atlas, Houston) Does that mean the individual can't be a pilot? Not necessarily, but the foundational issues must be addressed and can't be ignored. If those foundational issues are uncorrectable, then, and only then, have you found a candidate that isn't suited to the profession. CA might have been one of those due to extreme impulsivity, but more likely the instructors along the way passed the buck by just meeting the minimum standard at the exact right time to "cooperate and graduate."
Anyway, if anyone has read this far, thanks for giving up half your day to read my inane ramblings.
TL;DR: Humans are remarkably adaptable and capable of learning, in my observation, but once they lock in their model of reality as "truth," it becomes impossible to natively teach new concepts. They can assimilate new concepts only by adapting them to fit their model, rather than adapting their model to fit the concepts.
Exactly none of which is relevant to the titular accident, but is at least tangentially relevant to the discussion at hand.
I am kind of reading this as a computer scientist trying to contextualize meat computers. Yes, given some plasticity by learning other things and yes, breaking down patterns and established behaviors and yes, breaking into someones psyche and figuring out their experience and how they learn to get them to complete a task
These are all things that can be accomplished given an infinite timeline, money supply and effort and biological age. Most of those things dont happen for a lot of people, except the rare cases that you mentioned have some sort of plasticity. I think those people are generally referred to as “jack of all trades,” and I’ve met maybe three people in my life that can truly master anything you put in front of them in short order.
Specialization works for meat computers, some people just have either the formative experience or epigenetics or whatever that predispose them to be successful in a particular field
good read though, thank you
These are all things that can be accomplished given an infinite timeline, money supply and effort and biological age. Most of those things dont happen for a lot of people, except the rare cases that you mentioned have some sort of plasticity. I think those people are generally referred to as “jack of all trades,” and I’ve met maybe three people in my life that can truly master anything you put in front of them in short order.
Specialization works for meat computers, some people just have either the formative experience or epigenetics or whatever that predispose them to be successful in a particular field
good read though, thank you
WacoFan
Bigly
Interested in your (and other instructors) thoughts - have you noticed a degradation in the manual dexterity (for lack of a better word) or just basic mechanical skill with the people generationally? Just curious about that because the kiddos can't seem to find their ass from a hole in the ground today - wonder if people drawn to flying are maybe more better and such.