When 1500 Hours Equals 10

These are the kinds of things you hear old boomers talking about at cruise. Based on no real evidence, just emotion and what their boomer sim buddy who’s pissed age 67 failed told him about new hire students who probably fair better than some vets do in CQ. But let’s not talk about that…

To put this kind of • on an actual article and sign your name to it for the internet to see is certainly…a choice…

I’m heading back to the left seat so I’ll make my own comments in a year after flying with new hires but I’m not the slightest bit worried really
 
Aviation, firefighting, law enforcement… heck anything really, are all suffering due to a generation of unrealistic expectations. We’ve been programmed to think stuff is so cool, because it looks so cool on YouTube and instagram. When we get there, is suddenly isn’t so cool. So we just move on to the next thing, because it looks sooooo much cooler than what we are doing. Same thing with relationships too.

Finally we can’t move on anymore, so we suffer in whatever job or relationship we have at that time, then spend time buried in our phones wishing we had it as good as that other guy.
 
Give you an example from just yesterday. Giving a yearly checkride. Check-ee is a CFII. I don’t normally do any kind of oral ground eval, I just do a flight brief and during the course of the flight, I’ll ask things related to what we are doing at the time, and get a good idea of where someone is knowledge-wise.

On a VOR approach. One question that pops up since it’s there, I ask what the “V” is just shy of the missed. The evaluee stumbles for a bit, but finally says “a kind of visual point to leave MDA from, but it doesn’t apply to us.” Which is correct. But when I ask why it doesn’t apply to us, he had a blank stare. All he figured he needed to know is that it doesn’t apply. But one should know why it doesn’t apply to us by knowing what it is, how it works, and what it does. Same for selecting circling minima when I told him a different runway was in use, instead of selecting the straight in minima. Which isn’t totally incorrect, but which is unnecessarily restricting him to a higher MDA for no reason. He had no idea what exactly circling minima is specifically providing, vice the straight in minima, in terms of who it applies to and why it does

This is the kind of “pride in craft” that I see lacking more and more. Pilots who know the basic answer for something, but who don’t know the why behind it. Especially as a CFI or CFII, who are supposed to be striving to be masters of the aviation craft.
 
Murdoughnut said:
"In a nutshell, the 1500-hour rule has resulted in a generation of ATPs who have only the vaguest idea how to fly any airplane, much less a 100,000-pound jet."

Old man shouts at cloud, or legitimate beef? Discuss.

www.avweb.com

When 1500 Hours Equals 10

The 1500-hour rule is creating the previously non-existent problem it was meant to address.
www.avweb.com www.avweb.com
Click to expand...
Extremely Legit Beef. Has been since Colgan crashed. This situation is not news, but it remains somewhat terrifying.

The problem actually pre-dates the 1500hr rule. The problem is that our training "system" remains bass-akwards, and that older pros have -these past several decades- by and large abrogated their responsibility to mentor. After that happened - decades ago- more and more rather useless, but lawyer-worthy "training" requirements were laid down, which made the problem worse, not better. Experience is not necessarily hours, but it is working with a pro and learning the things that can't efficiently be taught in a classroom.
 
Last edited:
Murdoughnut said:
I was training for my CFI when life popped up and put a stop to it. At the time I didn't have to take the FOI because I was adjunct teaching at a community college. But I did review the FOI material and it made me laugh - every training prep focused on acronyms for the various concepts of learning, while also stressing the importance of deep understanding of material. "Deep understanding and experience is best! Here's a silly acronym to help you remember that!"
Click to expand...
I blame Sheppardair, at least with Gleim you had to learn *something* to pass a written
 
MikeD said:
Give you an example from just yesterday. Giving a yearly checkride. Check-ee is a CFII. I don’t normally do any kind of oral ground eval, I just do a flight brief and during the course of the flight, I’ll ask things related to what we are doing at the time, and get a good idea of where someone is knowledge-wise.

On a VOR approach. One question that pops up since it’s there, I ask what the “V” is just shy of the missed. The evaluee stumbles for a bit, but finally says “a kind of visual point to leave MDA from, but it doesn’t apply to us.” Which is correct. But when I ask why it doesn’t apply to us, he had a blank stare. All he figured he needed to know is that it doesn’t apply. But one should know why it doesn’t apply to us by knowing what it is, how it works, and what it does. Same for selecting circling minima when I told him a different runway was in use, instead of selecting the straight in minima. Which isn’t totally incorrect, but which is unnecessarily restricting him to a higher MDA for no reason. He had no idea what exactly circling minima is specifically providing, vice the straight in minima, in terms of who it applies to and why it does

This is the kind of “pride in craft” that I see lacking more and more. Pilots who know the basic answer for something, but who don’t know the why behind it. Especially as a CFI or CFII, who are supposed to be striving to be masters of the aviation craft.
Click to expand...
I fear that we are now at a point that we have a lot of blind CFIs leading even blinder students. Meanwhile, there is almost NO adequate oversight by anyone; Flight schools mostly just want to keep their slot machine 172s producing billable hours, and the FAA... well, I think anybody who is qualified to have an opinion about these things knows where the FAA is at these days.
 
ahw01 said:
What has it got to do with 9/11? Both Colgan pilots had 1500hr+ Let’s not rose tint things here.
Click to expand...

That's when I started my flight training, so I know the ATP required 1500 hours then, and it was 7 years before the Colgan crash. Just establishing the timeline, as I have no idea when the rule was enacted that required 1500 hours for an ATP.
 
MikeD said:
Mr Koehn was old school Hog pilot, brought his Phantom experience forward into it. Think he had something like 5 or 6 DFC awards earned.

What you write above is true, regarding the passion, or lack thereof, for aviation. To many these days, it’s just another job, one that they can make a lot of money quickly in…so they have been told. But there’s no flame of passion for it.

Another place this exact thing is being seen, is in the professional fire service. Example: Phoenix, AZ fire department used to, way back in the day, be nearly impossible to get on with unless you were a legacy surname or knew tons of the high ups in the department. Yearly, there would be nearly 3500 applications for maybe 20-30 slots, and these were applicants who had a passion for the job.

Today, Phoenix, along with many other large departments, who historically never had a problem hiring, are advertising hard for applicants. What is being seen, are people applying for the job, getting hired, but who have no real passion for the job. They get into the academy, and maybe a few weeks in or so, decide the job is too much work or too much effort. Not what they thought it would be etc etc. And they’d drop out. So here’s a slot that could’ve been taken by someone who maybe didn’t test as well on the written test, or didn’t score as high on the oral board, or whatever; but who had a complete passion to do the job, whatever it took. And time and effort was wasted on someone who was just looking for a job that maybe looked somewhat interesting….figured they’d try it out and see if they like it.

Similar to aviation, I’m running across a lot of young hires in both fields…..aviation, firefighting, and to some extent LE, who don’t have that pride in their craft. To want to know as much as they can and constantly strive to improve. Lately, I’m seeing more and more people only strive to want to know just enough to get by, that if the minimums weren’t good enough, then they wouldn’t be the minimums, would they?
Click to expand...
Good words and true.

That said, I really can appreciate some of the angst suffered by the newbies these days. A lot of old dudes are riding on their laurels and getting real paid. Many of these old guys see the newbies as just stupid pests rather than the future of the industry. Some old guys are so crotchety they would probably get fired immediately for their ***** attitudes if they were still plebes. That said, many of the kids coming up have no expectations of passion or service whatsoever; they have lots of expectations, but very little perspective because they have always lived in an INSTANT GRAT gram world. And they don't get fired immediately even though they are still plebes.

And so, yeah... that combo platter equals a hot mess: Many old dudes don't want to mentor, but just get paid and go home; Many young dudes don't want to learn, but just get paid and go home.

So, yeah, you're spot on with the lack of passion.
 
Last edited:
"Got the gouge for the DPE? Good. Just do Sheppard air for the written."

This is what "cooperate and graduate" looks like, y'all. It's why I rail against checking boxes. It's the logical conclusion of box-checking.

Passion and professionalism are intrinsically linked.

But passion and professionalism aren't what get you hired at a
"career destination."
 
Man, I don’t know that you can blame it on a generational thing. Limited sample but the vast majority of my new hire class was millenial and younger and very engaged, hard working, showed interest, etc. and I’ve flown with plenty of boomers and Gen X who are just checked out. One thing that doesn’t get enough attention is how much airlines have trimmed training footprints to save $$$ and time. I’m not saying we need to go back to the days of following a drop of fuel through every valve, pump, and pressure sensor from the tank to the fuel nozzle but maybe we oughtta swing a little more that direction.
 
🦈💜 said:
"Got the gouge for the DPE? Good. Just do Sheppard air for the written."

This is what "cooperate and graduate" looks like, y'all. It's why I rail against checking boxes. It's the logical conclusion of box-checking.

Passion and professionalism are intrinsically linked.

But passion and professionalism aren't what get you hired at a
"career destination."
Click to expand...
That's because the "career destinations" are no longer run by aviators; They are run by fresh-scrubbed MBAs out of the "finest schools".

Ask doctors why they are so frustrated with their "working" conditions that they are killing themselves at higher rates than combat vets. It's the same thing.

Professional industries need to be run by industry professionals. Nothing else works in a sustainable way. MBAs might make their corporate masters more money for a little while, but that's going to end badly and hurt lots of people during the transition to the bad end.
 
Wardogg said:
We’ve swung too far to the extreme other side. You used to have to know how to build the airplane to fly it. Now rote memorization is the key to passing a checktide. In almost every aspect.

I now have 4 business jet types in the last four years. The checkride is the same. Only the numbers change.
Click to expand...

In a way I agree. But the modern jet is so electronic these days that it would be damn near impossible to use the old reverse engineering it on checkrides like we used to. 90% of the issues that happen on my jet is essentially pull up the page that tells me what electronic component is having an issue.

We've also had issues with pilots so fixated on the issue in the past where they could have just whipped out the QRH and let it efficiently tell them what to do. There's not much 10 years in the right seat before upgrade like it used to be.

I believe the issue could also be that retirements and industry growth has forced a lot of companies to upgrade a lot sooner than they had done in the past. There isn't a lot of time for FO's to sit and learn from captains with a lot of experience.
 
Wardogg said:
We’ve swung too far to the extreme other side. You used to have to know how to build the airplane to fly it. Now rote memorization is the key to passing a checktide. In almost every aspect.

I now have 4 business jet types in the last four years. The checkride is the same. Only the numbers change.
Click to expand...
Make sure you start that timer over the smoke stacks when you're doing the circle to land at JFK! :bounce:

Roger Roger said:
Man, I don’t know that you can blame it on a generational thing. Limited sample but the vast majority of my new hire class was millenial and younger and very engaged, hard working, showed interest, etc. and I’ve flown with plenty of boomers and Gen X who are just checked out. One thing that doesn’t get enough attention is how much airlines have trimmed training footprints to save $$$ and time. I’m not saying we need to go back to the days of following a drop of fuel through every valve, pump, and pressure sensor from the tank to the fuel nozzle but maybe we oughtta swing a little more that direction.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's funny that the 135 freight dog in house training that I got a decade ago was the best training I ever had, and it has gotten progressively worse every step of the way up. I was shocked how little I had to learn at AA.
 
Last edited:
FlyChicaga said:
Talking with some DPEs, there are some serious deficiencies in pilot training right now. I'm also hearing some interesting stories from friends who are simulator instructors and check airmen at legacy airlines. Is it because of the 1500-hour rule? Eh, maybe indirectly, but doubtful that's the full picture. I personally believe what we are seeing is a change in generational learning, and we are continuing to teach the way we've done it for decades hoping for the same results. The US flight training industry should consider a generational shift away from standard training methods and move into more simulator-based training, especially with VR and AI. In a simulator you can expose a student to an array of experiences they would not get flying in VFR-daytime conditions repeatedly as a CFI. Build decision makers through artificial experiences. Those artificial experiences can then be used as a building block for actual flight operations. If we are training our airline pilots only on simulators, can we not do the same with the rest of our pilots? Some young students who turn into CFIs may not have the confidence to be good teachers. Why force them?

A side benefit of this shift towards VR-based simulation training would be a reduced cost to obtain pilot certificates. Fuel is expensive. If you could train someone for $20 an hour of simulator maintenance cost versus $143 of airplane rental cost, that opens up aviation to a potential whole new group of candidates. Potential students from low-income communities now could potentially afford to get their certificates and start down a path to a lucrative aviation career. This industry would be diversified as a byproduct of this. There is likely a large group of potential outstanding instructors out there who maybe lost their medical and would enjoy teaching young pilots part-time to stay in aviation.

A week ago I had an opportunity to fly a full-motion VR-based helicopter simulator. It was incredibly realistic. I fully believe you could train a pilot in VR using a similar system and reduce the number of actual flight hours by two-thirds. That saves fuel, the environment, and will produce a better pilot due to increased decision-making ability by sheer exposure to abnormal events.
Click to expand...
Reading your post, its sounded a lot like the MPL system used in Europe to train their pilots. My second thought was that what you described would make flight training less expensive, which means more people can get into the business. Which sounds good, but will cause salaries to drop sharply. I think that if you want the career to continue to have the prestige and financial opportunities, that it does (real or Instagramed), you need less people doing it, or high standards of entry. If we went back to the days when people were in a 50-75 seat 121 jet between 250-750 hours, in my current situation would be...grrrreeeaat! Like Tony says.

But that $19-24 starting FO wage would not. 1500 hrs. is what was getting regional FO's $55-75 starting salaries, back before they were making $90-100 dollars an hour starting out. They started making $90-100 an hour at regionals because of supply chain related issues. They couldn't get butts in seats, post AMEL quick enough to replace all the ones moving up the chain to legacies. Because of the 1500 hr rule. If they could have gotten 250-750 tt pilots into seats, then $150k-200k signing bonuses and $100 starting hourly wages, wouldn't have ever been a thing. But what do I know. I could be wrong.
 
derg said:
It’s a big Rube Goldberg advice. The only “shortage” was regional captains, which created a certain amount of synthetic scarcity up the food chain for pilots.

Basically todays “low time pilot” at the upper echelon of employers are in the 3-4000 hour mark.
Click to expand...
I havent flown with anyone who has been underqualified. Pretty much everyone I fly with is X-Military or 5+Year regional pilot. I dont know who this 30 something 737 Captain at UAL is flying with, or maybe he just has an over inflated opinion of his own flying skills.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top