rude to ask a fellow pilot their hours?

Flyinhigh728 said:
I had a very shocking interaction with a fellow pilot today. I’m finishing up my Cfi now, but I have always been following the industry in many ways including multiple forums for over 10 years now.

Anyway, this person is a CFI and just got hired at a small airline in the northeast. I asked them what there hours were out of curiosity. It was a totally innocent question. This person then went off on me. I was told how asking a pilot their hours is like asking someone about their bank account. This person said all of the senior pilots they knew told them this. I was then told to never ask a senior pilot their hour out of respect. They were genuielly upset with me.

The interaction did not end well and I was completely shocked with that viewpoint. Am I wrong for asking a fellow pilot their hours?
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Your fellow pilot probably works for Cape Air. That means he has somewhere between a commercial multi with 500 hours and maybe not quite ATP (<1,500) or around that. Or if they have more than that, no big deal. Maybe they are lying about their hours and doesn't want you to figure it out. "You did your private in July, and you have 6,000 hours by December?" We've all encountered that guy.

Generally every time you meet someone, the conversation usually goes down a standard path of: Who are you, where are you now, what did you do before, how did you earn your ratings, etc... For the most part listening to the amount of hours other pilots have can get old quick. Unless you run in to some cool people. Last summer at Oshkosh, Budd Davisson shared that he has over 7,000 hours of Pitts time and more than 5,000 hours of that has been in the traffic pattern. He's been teaching in the Pitts for over 40 years. That's something worth bragging about.
 
CFI A&P said:
Last summer at Oshkosh, Budd Davisson shared that he has over 7,000 hours of Pitts time and more than 5,000 hours of that has been in the traffic pattern. He's been teaching in the Pitts for over 40 years. That's something worth bragging about.
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That's awesome. I'd love to get some Pitts experience with that dude.

Anyway, most of the "senior guys" I know would answer that question something like... "How many hours? Too ******* many."

The NTSB will broadcast my total time to the world if I bend an airplane. It can't be that personal...
 
Flyinhigh728 said:
That’s very fair. It was actually a very friendly back and forth conversation about both of our goals in the industry, and flying in general. My intention in no way was to ask them about their new job. It just happened to come up, so I was genuinely curious about the hour requirement. It was very strange to say the least.
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Then why not just ASK what the hour requirements are?
I wasn't there so all I can do is trust your recap of the conversation.
In all fairness, if I'm interested in applying to McDonald's, I don't ask the fry guy what his highest level of education is. I ask him what the requirements are for the job and then silently compare my creditials with the requirements. OR I listen and then ask him if he thinks my creditials are acceptable.

AFTER you're standing next to the fryer dripping sweat into someone's Filet-O-Fish THEN ask him about himself.
 
CFI A&P said:
Your fellow pilot probably works for Cape Air. That means he has somewhere between a commercial multi with 500 hours and maybe not quite ATP (<1,500) or around that. Or if they have more than that, no big deal. Maybe they are lying about their hours and doesn't want you to figure it out. "You did your private in July, and you have 6,000 hours by December?" We've all encountered that guy.

Generally every time you meet someone, the conversation usually goes down a standard path of: Who are you, where are you now, what did you do before, how did you earn your ratings, etc... For the most part listening to the amount of hours other pilots have can get old quick. Unless you run in to some cool people. Last summer at Oshkosh, Budd Davisson shared that he has over 7,000 hours of Pitts time and more than 5,000 hours of that has been in the traffic pattern. He's been teaching in the Pitts for over 40 years. That's something worth bragging about.
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When someone has an outsized response like this, I tend to think they're falsifying their logbooks. "The lady doth protest too much."
 
dustoff17 said:
Then why not just ASK what the hour requirements are?
I wasn't there so all I can do is trust your recap of the conversation.
In all fairness, if I'm interested in applying to McDonald's, I don't ask the fry guy what his highest level of education is. I ask him what the requirements are for the job and then silently compare my creditials with the requirements. OR I listen and then ask him if he thinks my creditials are acceptable.

AFTER you're standing next to the fryer dripping sweat into someone's Filet-O-Fish THEN ask him about himself.
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Because United's minimums are an ATP and a High School diploma. Nobody's getting hired with that.
 
jtrain609 said:
CFI A&P said:
Your fellow pilot probably works for Cape Air. That means he has somewhere between a commercial multi with 500 hours and maybe not quite ATP (QUOTE] When someone has an outsized response like this, I tend to think they're falsifying their logbooks. "The lady doth protest too much."
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I concur. Deny deny deny and make counter accusations. There's a guy from my area that had an unexplainable amount of hours for his age. When challenged, one of his defense strategies was to claim 50 hours of sim training per type. The irony is that he had several SIC ratings from doing three landings and not attending a sim school for that make/ model. Sent from my Startac using Tapatalk.
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JordanD said:
Because United's minimums are an ATP and a High School diploma. Nobody's getting hired with that.
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Ahhh, that's why I wrote "requirements" not "minimums".....
If it sounds better: "Ask what it takes to be hired, not what a senior pilot's log book shows."
 
A300Capt said:
BTW....asking about my total time or experience level and then telling them, isn’t near as irritating as someone asking, “So, do you ever want to become a commercial pilot....?”:confused2:

My brother's kid (college junior and generally very smart) was just at my house over Christmas. He asks, "So, are you like the main, ah..pilot dude or are you like the other, hmmm..copilot other guy?" I said, "Are you asking if I'm the Captain or first Officer?" He says, "Yea, yea..that's what I mean". I said, "I'm the main pilot dude!"
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To be fair, my SIL is an electrical engineer and to me she’s the “lady who designs electrical substations,” because I don’t have a clue what her actual job title is.
 
dustoff17 said:
Ahhh, that's why I wrote "requirements" not "minimums".....
If it sounds better: "Ask what it takes to be hired, not what a senior pilot's log book shows."
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When a person just got hired, asking what they have and what it takes to get hired is the same thing.
 
What’s more likely is IF he was hired at Cape as an FO then disclosing his hours means he’s a) not a captain and b) just signed a $30K training contract to sit as ballast in the right seat.

Both could be sensitive points to an emotionally unevolved wannabe Maverick.
 
pete2800 said:
When a person just got hired, asking what they have and what it takes to get hired is the same thing.
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Not really.

A job posting could show an FFA 1,500hr minimum but HR advertises a 2,000hr requirement because there are enough pilots to fill that "want". A newly hired pilot may have aircraft specific experience, multiple ratings and a lot of experience but is hired at 1600hrs. Revealing this total puts both he and HR under the gun with someone that has 1900hrs and way less "real world" experience.

But.......like I stated before, I wasn't there to listen to the conversation. I do understand someone not wanting to reveal his total hours but I also agree the guy handled it like a tool!
 
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CFI A&P said:
Last summer at Oshkosh, Budd Davisson shared that he has over 7,000 hours of Pitts time and more than 5,000 hours of that has been in the traffic pattern. He's been teaching in the Pitts for over 40 years. That's something worth bragging about.
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There are certainly types of hours that are benchmarks. Budd is a legend! Our full time B-17 captain has more B-17 time than anyone recorded, yea he can tell me that over and over and I still swoon lol.
 
Flyinhigh728 said:
I had a very shocking interaction with a fellow pilot today. I’m finishing up my Cfi now, but I have always been following the industry in many ways including multiple forums for over 10 years now.

Anyway, this person is a CFI and just got hired at a small airline in the northeast. I asked them what there hours were out of curiosity. It was a totally innocent question. This person then went off on me. I was told how asking a pilot their hours is like asking someone about their bank account. This person said all of the senior pilots they knew told them this. I was then told to never ask a senior pilot their hour out of respect. They were genuielly upset with me.

The interaction did not end well and I was completely shocked with that viewpoint. Am I wrong for asking a fellow pilot their hours?
Click to expand...

Ask away. It's a very common question. Offensive in no way.
Anyone referring to himself in any way sans irony in the third person or as a "senior pilot" is likely Bob Dole, living in a rest home, or some inexperienced, pretentious wanker... or perhaps the trifecta.
When you ask someone how many hours they have and the answer is "3 o'clock", that's a good sign.
Maybe more important... where did this senior DB get hired??
Maybe even more important... is he on this board reading this, and learning something??
 
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fholbert said:
They say one in five is a nut case. Look at four other people, if they're not nut cases, it must be you.

In this case, you're safe.

redneck-demonstrates-how-to-i-dead-handle-a-burmese-python-3915500.png
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I got worried recently when i read that 8 out of every 5 people is dyslexic.
 
“Maybe ask, how many hours did they hire you with?” Put it in context. Not that I’d care if someone asked me my hours. However I’m great at solutions to problems and issues long past. So there’s that... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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