Pinnacle to resume classes!!!

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

240 and 12???

The guy is barely qualified to fly a Seminole let alone a R

How much time did you spend in the left seat flying with these low-time pilots, merit? I spent quite a bit, and many of them were not only good copilots, but a hell of a lot better than their "high-time" CFI classmates.

PCL's got a waiver from the FAA on the PIC time. Stems from when we used to hire a lot of GIA guys. Last I heard, they have to do more IOE than people that meet the PIC mins.

The IOE requirement is 50 hours instead of the usual 25. A member of the MEC worked very hard to make sure that happened so our pilots with less than 250 PIC could upgrade. Most airlines have this waiver.

 

[Goonie]

Is it safer than having a 1,000 CFI in the seat that hasn't been through an RJ program?

no.

 

[jtrain609]

no.

Asshat.

 

[meritflyer]

How much time did you spend in the left seat flying with these low-time pilots, merit? I spent quite a bit, and many of them were not only good copilots, but a hell of a lot better than their "high-time" CFI classmates.

Funny coming from a guy who paid to be a first officer at a part 121 airline.

EDIT: See the quote below.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

Was that before of after you PFT'd at Gulfstream?

After. Next question?

 

[meritflyer]

After. Next question?

I wouldn't want to talk about your 'questionable' past either if I were you.

Big staunch union guy who talks about keeping standards high but degrades the profession by paying someone to dress up and play pilot in their airplane. What's your excuse there?

Oh the irony, Todd.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

Excuse? I have none. I was a dumbass noob that didn't know any better. Haven't we covered this before? You can always do a search. This has been covered numerous times.

 

[Nick]

Ad Nauseum

I wouldn't want to talk about your 'questionable' past either if I were you.

Big staunch union guy who talks about keeping standards high but degrades the profession by paying someone to dress up and play pilot in their airplane. What's your excuse there?

Oh the irony, Todd.

It really has been covered quite a bit already.

Perhaps at some point even, hundreds of hours of work for a union cancels out any damage done by PFT? Or at least it ameliorates the actions of the past in some people's minds.

Not a jab at you merit, but who has helped the profession improve more: PCL_128 or your self? Despite PFTing there are things later on that people can do to try to make things better.

I can mostly look past the PFT thing if someone says they've changed their mind about it, wouldn't do it again, actively persuades newbies considering it not to do it, and so on.

If you can look past pay-for-training a few airlines past, PCL_128 typically has informative posts with real information that educates people.

Excuse? I have none. I was a dumbass noob that didn't know any better. Haven't we covered this before? You can always do a search. This has been covered numerous times.

 

[Cptnchia]

You are judging them by their experience level... I never said that... I said you can't judge them by just the number of hours they have. Not every pilot's experiences are going to be the same. Someone might have 250 hours with a lot of IFR experiences going different places with friends and family, while another might have 250 hours of flying on calm, clear days only. Both have the same number of hours, but one clearly has more experience in IFR conditions and IFR operations than the other. It's not about the hours, it's about the experience level.

Hate to break it to ya Bra, but that's exactly how airlines judge experience, by the hours that you have. And really, you need to use a better example. If a person has 250 TT, how much actual instrument do they really have, considering that all their private and most of the commercial student time would have to have been flown in VMC. Now, if you had used a more realistic example of say, 600-800 hours, then I would say you have a point.

No way around it, 250 TT is a extremely low number. Not saying that Kab can't do it, and won't make a good pilot, actually more power to him.

 

[surreal1221]

I wouldn't want to talk about your 'questionable' past either if I were you.

Big staunch union guy who talks about keeping standards high but degrades the profession by paying someone to dress up and play pilot in their airplane. What's your excuse there?

Oh the irony, Todd.

Class act there merit.

But sure. . .I suppose Todd's attempts, numerous as they may be, will never satisfy the likes of yourself. He'll never be able to make the mistakes in his past go away, but it's pretty damn clear that he's been working his ass off over the past few years to do some good for the industry, and profession.

Unfortunately, such noble acts are not recognized by the likes of yourself and others.

While he obviously has stated many times his poor judgment, there really isn't much to be said about one's past when they are in a position to make things better and perhaps make a mends for their mistakes.

Nevertheless. . .really showing your true colors I suppose. Especially when your only retort is simply to bring up something from someone's past, a certain incident/activity that they have openly stated was a negative on the profession - and wouldn't do it again. Much like a broken record, most of us here know about Todd's far past, but then again - most of us are able to recognize his most recent past that includes numerous hours spent trying to defend the profession and protect it.

Not really sure what happened to you, but I must say I have been pretty surprised by some of your most recent comments. We all change, some more than others - and in very different fashions. Let's not forget that.

 

[Cruise]

Funny coming from a guy who paid to be a first officer at a part 121 airline.

EDIT: See the quote below.

I wouldn't want to talk about your 'questionable' past either if I were you.

Big staunch union guy who talks about keeping standards high but degrades the profession by paying someone to dress up and play pilot in their airplane. What's your excuse there?

Oh the irony, Todd.

Very classy!

Actually, very classless and a week, week argument, to say the least. Like others have said, this topic has been covered. Find a better argument or move on.

 

[SmoothLanderJ]

Very classy!

Actually, very classless and a week, week argument, to say the least. Like others have said, this topic has been covered. Find a better argument or move on.

I agree. I like PCL_128, hes a good guy with lots of good info.

 

[zmiller4]

I'm not going to judge anyone who takes an RJ course to get hired at an airline. I almost did it myself as a low-time instructor, and I totally understand the allure of it.

That being said, I think that $10,000 pay-for-job/pay-for-interview programs that get you to an airline at 250hrs are the biggest threat to professionalism in the airline industry. I really do respect PCL's efforts to improve the profession, but I think that he's a little out of step with his fellow pilots by not recognizing the threat that low-time pay-for-job guys pose.

 

[higney85]

Too much chest thumping in this thread IMO. Here is the moral of the story- we all (on this forum) learn from others mistakes (and prosecutions) of others. I can only imagine how many have been steered away from places like gulfstream and Mesa just by reading comments/flame sessions on this board.

As a disclaimer I did the CFI route BUT:

If you decided to "be an airline pilot" and your choices were to get your ratings at an FBO and instruct and it would take 2 years MINIMUM to have enough time with ratings/instructing to have the time to get to your first 121 (regional) OR you could pay a little more (as a grand total) and be in a jet in 9-12 months going to an "academy" what would you think would happen? Not everyone is "informed", many have NO CLUE about other regionals and even the regional they work for. I would venture to say that the vast majority are the "show up, give my best effort, and go home" type instead of lurking or being an active poster on a forum where you get to hear/learn about other regionals and the industry as a whole.

I have flown with quite a few GIA folks (CA's) here at PNCL and to be honest I cannot tell the difference between a gulfstreamer or a previous instructor. The gulstreamers were FO's longer and learned from CA's here that were previous instructors. I have heard CA's talk about the "low timers" and some issues during non-standard situations such as the occasional diversion, holds, go-arounds, and slam dunk visuals where the experience just wasn't there to make the situation "idealy smooth", but I have also heard these situations happening with higher time FO's. Everyone has to learn somewhere and while idealy they would start off with a 2 seat trainer and work the way through pistons, tprops, and jets- but thats not the way it was working when we had the "Shortage" a year ago. Now we have thousands of folks on the street who are far more qualified than many of us on this board.

The original poster gets alot of points with me for being honest about his time and experience and I give him respect or his attitude knowing that there are 5K hour heavy CA's competing for his same job. While I think 240TT is low time and I do not see why PNCL would hire someone with such low time, I wish the poster the best. I understand why HR would NOT hire the high time guy/gal- its going to be a $25K expense they won't get a return on. Now someone out of a job looking for a way to continue the career (lat move) I do understand. But thats just me.

 

[kellwolf]

The problem I have with the jet courses is it raises the cost of getting a low paying job. It's expensive enough to get that $18-20K a year FO job as it is. In fact, I couldn't afford it right now. The only people that really benefit from the jet courses are airline management and the schools. Management knows the person has seen all this stuff before, so they are less likely to fail out of ground school there by wasting training dollars. There are some that make the argument that they are concerned about flunking ground school, so they take the jet course to help them out. IMO, if you NEED to take a jet course to pass a 121 gound school at a regional, you're not ready yet. It's akin to paying someone for a copy of a mid-term or final so you can pass the class.

I hear the "well some 250TT guys are safer than some of the high time CFI guys." Yeah, that might be true. I'm sure some of the high time CFI guys are safer and better FOs than some of the other high time CFI guys in their class, and I'm sure some of the 250 hour guys are LESS safe and worse FOs than the other 250 hour guys in their class. It varies from individual. However, taken as a whole, I'd say the 250 hour guy doesn't have the experience. Not saying that ALL 250 hour guys don't, just on average. They have less time in the air, therefore are less likely to have "been there, done that." Depening on how the 1000 hour guys spend their time, they've had more time, therefore more chances for things to have gone wrong. I judge things more on how much PIC time a guy has rather than TT. At 250 hours, you're not looking at a whole lot of PIC time, though. I know you can log dual given as PIC time in a lot of cases, but I personally don't count time spent with an instructor as "decision making" time.

 

[flyingmaniac]

Well, I am EXTREMELY lucky.....I've got 240TT and 12 Mutli. I'm a ATP RJ Program graduate as well as a Middle TN State grad. When they called me with the offer, I wasn't too far away from going into shock because of my low times. I expected the interview though, but I didn't expect the offer at all. All I know now is that I've gotta work my a-- off, because I'm not letting this opportunity pass by at all...

Well he is an MTSU Graduate. That says a lot about his skills and expertise. MTSU has a great Aerospace program, and I am one of those graduates myself.

GOOD LUCK!!

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

The problem I have with the jet courses is it raises the cost of getting a low paying job.

I consider this a good thing. The more it costs to get into the business, the smaller the pool of potential candidates. Less supply, greater demand. That means our leverage goes up. If medical school was cheap, then my allergist wouldn't make $250k a year for some of the easiest work a human being has ever done. It's all about controlling the supply.

 

[surreal1221]

I really do respect PCL's efforts to improve the profession, but I think that he's a little out of step with his fellow pilots by not recognizing the threat that low-time pay-for-job guys pose.

I'm pretty sure Todd has stated a couple times that PFT/PFJ establishments are bad for the profession.

So I'm not too sure how you came to the conclusion that he is out of step with his fellow pilots by not recognizing the threat that exists.

 

[higney85]

Well he is an MTSU Graduate. That says a lot about his skills and expertise. MTSU has a great Aerospace program, and I am one of those graduates myself.

GOOD LUCK!!

That makes another one on this board... I graduated in 06- when did you get out?

 

[kellwolf]

I consider this a good thing. The more it costs to get into the business, the smaller the pool of potential candidates. Less supply, greater demand. That means our leverage goes up. If medical school was cheap, then my allergist wouldn't make $250k a year for some of the easiest work a human being has ever done. It's all about controlling the supply.

Downside to that is higher salaries - higher school loans = same take home pay......

When the pay actually starts sliding the right direction, I'll say "Todd was right."