Willing to • myself out!!!

B767Driver said:
I don't have numbers in front of me...but I think the Europeans and Asians have a significantly poorer safety record than our domestic airlines.
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I just went to the IATA website and even Korean, after being a pariah, has cleaned up its act and is now on the list of approved airlines.

Even if there is a difference, it's the difference between one in ten million and one in say, 50 million. Does it really matter?
 
I could be mistaken but from what my buddy told me who is in class with this guy said that he went to that Regional Airline Academy and I guess they offer the option to get typed in the CRJ...Would they have different stipulations if it was a 141 school like that?...i can't imagine
 
B767Driver said:
Neither the 1000 hour pilot, nor the 250 hour pilot has any business in an airliner.
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I agree 1000%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It doesn't matter if the FO is making $500K year. A person with that little experience (make that NO experience) doesn't need to the washing an RJ unsupervised, much less flying the thing.

Do we really have to wait until CNN and the NTSB are investigating before someone says, "Oops, bad idea?"
 
NJA_Capt said:
...Do we really have to wait until CNN and the NTSB are investigating before someone says, "Oops, bad idea?"
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We keep waiting, but nothing so far. Actually, it appears to be all the high time guys getting into trouble. I'm sure at some point a crew with a low time FO will run afoul somewhere, and every high-time pilot and mainline guy in th world will drag the incedent through the streets screaming "We told you so, we told you so!!". Just as I'm also sure the incident will be statistically meaningless compared to the accident rate of the older dudes. It would take a severe rash of bad incidents and accidents to make the "unsafe low time pilot" theory valid, or even comparable to the rate of the high-time or older pilots, but the years keep ticking by. How long should we wait till you guys change your mind? A decade?

I really shouldn't have a dog in this fight-- I was hired with 1500TT and 500ME. Not a huge amount, but certainly not peanuts. I just reject such an obviously emotional response that has no basis in statistical fact. I still contend that the pay is the thing- if the low-time guys were not whoring thier careers out for the turbine PIC, I really don't think the issue would even come up, ref. my earlier posts.
 
"How long should we wait till you guys change your mind? A decade?"

I don't think it's right for an RJ Capt with 70 or 90 people in the back to have to babysit a 250 hour F/O just because his airline has an agreement with Flight Safety. You're in a better position that me to be the judge, though, it's never gonna be my problem.

We all know that training and real life are two different things. When someone comes in at 1500 and 500 and a freight background, they have a certain level of experience and background in real life. They can bring something to the flight deck no 250 hour guy can bring. I just think there's a line somewhere that should be drawn on experience level for airline F/O's and 250 hours at an academy isn't it. A training program doesn't fill in all the gaps that having a certain level of experience does. Training programs are always to minimum standards to kick you out the door and save the company money.

So, go fly with that 250 hour F/O and let us know if you change YOUR mind.
 
B767Driver said:
Neither the 1000 hour pilot, nor the 250 hour pilot has any business in an airliner. In a controlled setting...such as in a simulator training environment...where tasks are objective based and evaluated...and repeated until proficiency is attained...successfully acheiving the completion standards is likely for either experience level.

As for data...there was a study a while back...I think the Hilton study...that found that inexperienced pilots made 3 times as many mistakes as experienced pilots....however, I don't recall what passed for "experienced" and "inexperienced" and I don't recall the medium of observation. I would be willing to guess that inexperienced pilots are many times more likely to wash out of a training program. I do know that once a pilot reaches several thousand hours without an accident or incident, he/she is not likely to be involved in one. A low timer with an accident/incident...is likely to be involved in more than one throughout the balance of his/her career. I know from experience as a commuter captain...that after flying with a low time guy...I was much much more tired at the end of the day than with flying with a high time guy. Low time guys seem to get task saturated and tunnel vision when the degree of difficulty rises...leading to reduced situational awareness and the ability to multi-task...and also a noticable reduction in precision flying.
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I'm not arguing against your point or nothing, but tell that to the retired American Airlines 747 pilot/ Ex Vietnam Fighter Pilot who crashed his Stearman and killed his brother (who was sitting in the front seat) at the airport I instruct at the day before Christmas after doing a series of low passes with yank and banks.

With that being said, I wouldn't dream of going to the airlines with 250TT. Looking back at it now, I didn't know crap until after I got my CFI around 350hrs. And even still, flying as an instructor has made me a much better pilot. My situational awareness is steadily improving.
 
One thing that is embarrassing to me...as I flip through the pages of any aviation magazine...is the ads that say "be an airline pilot in 12 months....700 hours" or something crazy like that.

To me, this denigrates all professional pilots who are true "pilots". When I was earning my time back in the mid to late 80's everyone of my friends spent 5 to 6 years instructing, flying freight, charter to get the 2500 hours or so to get on with a commuter. My accountant friend, who has 700 Cessna hours over 12 years, thinks he has the background to be an airline pilot.

But all of that aside, there is a maturation process to be honed with multi-engine instrument skills. At 1900TT/150ME, as a CFI, I thought I had refined those skills. Then I got the night freight job...and I really learned how to fly IFR. I mean really learned how to fly IFR...how to fly multi engine airplanes, how to manage fuel/vs/weight to maximize payload, etc.

Then I got the commuter job...and although my IFR skills were pretty good...now I learned how to fly people, how to fly with different captain/attitude/styles, how to work with a dispatch center, etc.

Then I got the major job...after about 5000 hours. I definitely thought I knew it all. However, now I'm sitting next to guys with 25,000 hours of flying time. This is where I learned leadership, how to be a captain, how to stay calm under pressure, believe it or not...how to trim the airplane! Yes after 5000 hours of flying...I learned how to properly trim the airplane in cruise to minimize drag. I also learned perspective. While guys think the industry is bad now...it was also bad in the 70's/early 80's. I flew with countless guys who were engineers for 15 years/co pilots for 7/captains for 5. Most of these guys enjoyed flying immensely and didn't seem like they ever complained about their careers like you hear now.

To me, these are all parts of the maturation process for a professional pilot. Can someone function well without due process? Sure. But I strongly believe the formative years are important in a young pilots career...and the best will be made with a concrete foundation.

The 500 hour RJ guy no doubt can function appropriately...but so does a trailer park until the tornado hits.
 
supercell86 said:
You think 300TT is low....as I said my instructor's friend.....20 years old....250TT, and he's an F/O on the CRJ for Mesa....he's also flying the CRJ-900 (he's based in PHX)...why I specifically mention that aircraft is just the simple fact that you have someone second in command with 250TT on a RJ that fits almost 100 people on it....I'm not gunna sit here and write about how scary that it or whatever....but it kinda gets my attention.....has he even been in IMC:confused:
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That sounds pretty insane...I know a guy that is in class now at Air Wisconsin with about 300 TT and 15 ME...he was CRJ typed though, if that makes a difference...what are other people's views on this? This seems like a growing trend in the industry. But in either case, the guy in the left seat should have been around long enough and know what they are doing...hopefully
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Sorry to bring this up late, but I think it needs to be said. I think supercell and flytothesky are one in the same. Look at the ...... after every sentence. The subject matter of every post is the same, too. I call bullocks.
 
KLB said:
I'm not arguing against your point or nothing, but tell that to the retired American Airlines 747 pilot/ Ex Vietnam Fighter Pilot who crashed his Stearman and killed his brother (who was sitting in the front seat) at the airport I instruct at the day before Christmas after doing a series of low passes with yank and banks.

With that being said, I wouldn't dream of going to the airlines with 250TT. Looking back at it now, I didn't know crap until after I got my CFI around 350hrs. And even still, flying as an instructor has made me a much better pilot. My situational awareness is steadily improving.
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Flying a small airplane is so much different than a jet. Just because someone flies a high performance jet doesn't mean they are capable "off the shelf" in a little airplane. I fly a Warrior about 8 hours/year...and I'm very much aware of the fact that I'm not an expert Warrior pilot. In fact, I have one of the CFI's at the airport fly with me once per year for dual instruction in the airplane. They are simply an expert in the type...I'm not.
 
CapnJim, that is an extremely WEAK argument, and yet it keeps getting brought up. Everyone (beyond 5000 hrs) on here knows the "Well there is not data showing low time pilots are dangerous" argument is wrong. I don't need data showing poking a fork in my eye is dangerous to believe it.

Why not give 11 year olds a drivers licenses? Then someone could say 11 year olds are safe because 40 year olds have accidents too.

The responsibility to provide safety data should be on the person saying that it is safe. Not on the general public to prove it is NOT safe. You want us to believe you, show US proof that they are safe. And do NOT use the "military/foreign pilots at 200 hrs" garbage. Civilian/USA stats only. Apples and apples.

One reason you will not find valid data for your argument is that the "low timers" had their posterior saved from death/violation because of the guy in the other seat. You know....the guy with more experience.


Read this:
https://extranet.nasdac.faa.gov/pls/portal/STAGE.ASRS_BRIEF_REPORT?RPT_NBR=658727&AC_VAR=TRUE&RPRT_VAR=TRUE&ANMLY_VAR=TRUE&SYN_VAR=TRUE&NARR_VAR=TRUE&NARR_SRCH='low%20time'
 
Just to throw fuel on the fire, the ONLY person in my newhire class that washed out was the 3000 TT pilot who had been flying Citations and King Airs. Does that prove anything? Nope... not at all.
 
NJA_Capt said:
The responsibility to provide safety data should be on the person saying that it is safe. Not on the general public to prove it is NOT safe.
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The problem is, when you're dealing with such a miniscule sample of incidents, how do you draw any conclusions? How many commercial airline flights resulted in a fatality in the US last year?

You just can't draw conclusions with such a small sample. And thank God for that, because we definitely do not want a large enough sample to start to draw conclusions from!
 
Check it out guys.

On Saturday I start my first flight instructor job. In fact today I'm leaving to get to this job (which is on the east coast). To be very frank, I don't belong in the right seat of a 152 with a student that doesn't have a clue what's happening in the left. Sure, I'm qualified to do the job, I've even got more certificates than I need! And I think my training was top notch and that I'm about as well prepared to take this leap as I could be.

But it's still a leap.

There is going to be a steep learning curve for a while, and many people have told me that no matter what I do I'm going to make a mess of my first student trying to figure out how to instruct. But you know what? I'm hungry to learn how to do this gig right.

Fast forward a few years. The same thing is going to happen when I get to a regional. There is going to be a steep learning curve, and it's going to be a leap going from the kind of flying I've done to the kind of flying I'm about to do.

What seems to matter more than the number of hours you have is your willingness to learn. Yes, I agree fully that the more hours you have, the more experience you have and the better prepared you are to handle uncommon situations simply because you've been there before. But if you don't hit the ground running and you're not willing to try to soak in and learn everything you possibly can when you get to the next level you're dangerous, simply put.

Now before someone types off some heated reply, re-read this and think to yourself about when you really became an effective instructor. I know that nobody poped out of their initial ride and thought to themselves "Well, I know it all now, it's downhill from here." I can't imagine that feeling ever changes no matter what step you take up in this industry.

Also, I'm not a huge fan of low time pilots in RJ's. I think everybody should have to instructor for 1,000 hours before they move on. I say that sitting at 320 hours with my flight instructor certificates and thinking to myself, "I don't know how I'm going to handle students in a Cessna 152, how could anybody expect me to be able to fly a 50 seat jet around?" But what I REALLY don't like is low time pilots that think they know everything. At the same time, I'm not all for high time pilots with zero time in type and zero time in an aircraft that moves 5 times faster than their previous aircraft thinking that they are any better suited to handle any situation that is thrown at them. You've gotta be ready and willing to learn at every step in the game, and experience is no insulator for that.

Again, not trying to bag on anybody here, just reminding everyone that we've got to have our eyes and ears open no matter what step up we take or somebody is going to get hurt. I (personally) think that is the biggest safety problem we face as we move up. Maybe I'll have a different opinion in 5,000 hours.
 
NJA_Capt said:
CapnJim, that is an extremely WEAK argument, and yet it keeps getting brought up. Everyone (beyond 5000 hrs) on here knows the "Well there is not data showing low time pilots are dangerous" argument is wrong. I don't need data showing poking a fork in my eye is dangerous to believe it.

Why not give 11 year olds a drivers licenses? Then someone could say 11 year olds are safe because 40 year olds have accidents too.

The responsibility to provide safety data should be on the person saying that it is safe. Not on the general public to prove it is NOT safe. You want us to believe you, show US proof that they are safe. And do NOT use the "military/foreign pilots at 200 hrs" garbage. Civilian/USA stats only. Apples and apples.

One reason you will not find valid data for your argument is that the "low timers" had their posterior saved from death/violation because of the guy in the other seat. You know....the guy with more experience.


Read this:
https://extranet.nasdac.faa.gov/pls/portal/STAGE.ASRS_BRIEF_REPORT?RPT_NBR=658727&AC_VAR=TRUE&RPRT_VAR=TRUE&ANMLY_VAR=TRUE&SYN_VAR=TRUE&NARR_VAR=TRUE&NARR_SRCH='low%20time'
Click to expand...

Lemmie get this straight NJA, my argument is "WEAK" because your anecdotal evidence says it it?
And you're saying you're right and I'm wrong until I can come up with glowing reports about low time guys being safe? Reports only get filed when things go wrong, not when they go perfectly if you havent noticed. Apples to apples? After you compared a low-time commercially-rated pilot to an 11 year old? A fork in the eye? Are you kidding? And one ASAP report about some FO getting blasted for messing up a PRM approach proves exactly squat. The benchmark for what is safe and what is not safe is our FAA guidelines. If the low times were so dangerous, don't you think the Feds would have stepped up to the plate by now? If my argument is weak, I wouldn't set a feather on yours.

I'm not saying that 250 pilots are the greatest thing since sliced bread or anything, I'm just saying they're not the 'danger to the skies' guys like you make them out to be. Yes, of course a 1500/500 pilot is going to be better, safer, and more capapble in emergency. If I were PIC, would I rather have the more experienced guy? Of course I would. I'm not arguing against that. What I am arguing against is that the low time guys are unsafe. Clearly, they are not. You could declare almost anything you like to be unsafe, and when someone says "well, I really don't see any evidence that you're right..." you could come right back with "That's WEAK! Show me the evidence that I'm wrong!!!" and then storm off in an 8-cylinder huff.

Personally, I'm with John H. I'd like to see guys get hired with the kind of time that I had. But I'm also obvective enough to realize that that opinion is not based in statistical fact.
 
John Herreshoff said:
On Saturday I start my first flight instructor job. In fact today I'm leaving to get to this job (which is on the east coast). To be very frank, I don't belong in the right seat of a 152 with a student that doesn't have a clue what's happening in the left. Sure, I'm qualified to do the job, I've even got more certificates than I need! And I think my training was top notch and that I'm about as well prepared to take this leap as I could be.
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I can help you solve that problem. Come down here and help me get my instrument rating. So there.

Heh heh heh. I'll be your guinea pig.:)
 
tonyw said:
You just can't draw conclusions with such a small sample.
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By the same token, we can't claim it is a perfectly sound practice when most inadequacies in these low timers are either caught and corrected by the Captains or not reported.

Try out a couple of these, and remember for every one that is reported there are probably 20 that aren't. Very scary.

http://www.nasdac.faa.gov/portal/page?_pageid=33,34316&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL


Select: ASRS Database Query Tool

Type "low time" in the Narrative Search block, select Air Carrier and a date range and submit. Don't use too many years for the search, it is quite slow and there are A LOT of reports. One year at a time works better.
 
John Herreshoff said:
Jersey, call me if Airnet sends you up that way.
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Will do. Surprisingly, I haven't been sent up there in quite a while. Been in MEM the past week, going to BHM this next week for a couple days, and LCK after that, and going to St Paul the following week. I'm gonna freeze my A$$ off.:(
 
CapnJim said:
Yes, of course a 1500/500 pilot is going to be better, safer, and more capable in emergency. If I were PIC, would I rather have the more experienced guy? Of course I would.
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So where's the problem????

What I am arguing against is that the low time guys are unsafe. Clearly, they are not. That's WEAK! Show me the evidence that I'm wrong!!!"
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CapnJim, Sorry that's not the way the scientific world works. Right or wrong, that's the way it is. Whether it is a new drug or a new scientific theory, the burden of proof is on the one going against popular convention. We don't just take them at their word and start popping pills and re-writing history books. Your side of this equation is against the status quo of 100 years of conventional aviation wisdom. Before any senior guys welcome low timers with open arms, your side of this equation is going to have to come up with a better response than "we haven't killed anyone yet."




Here's another, like it any better?
AVIATION SAFETY REPORTING SYSTEM
#618373
Part 121 Air Carrier, Night VMC
I FEEL INTIMIDATED WHEN FLYING IN NY AIRSPACE, I AM A RELATIVELY LOW TIME JET CAPT WITH LIMITED EXPERIENCE, I DO NOT ROUTINELY FLY IN AND OUT OF THIS AIRSPACE, AND I BECAME OVERWHELMED VERY QUICKLY
 
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