NJA_Capt said:
CapnJim,
So instead of just presenting some simple data to prove your point, you would rather spend time finding misquotations and deflecting attention away from the details?
Lets try this again.
There are two schools of thought:
1)High timers who think low timers shouldn't be hired
2)Low timers who think they are just as qualified
Group number one is the larger of the two groups and constitutes the conventional or old school mindset. There is plenty of evidence supporting the conventional opinion. The only way any of us are going to change our collective reasoning is by presenting FACTS. So if you don't want to waste your time, then don't expect us to change our mind.
So in essence, yes you do have provide some facts. Otherwise, all we have is your opinion. And that as such is not factual.
And one final time:
The burden of proof is not on the old school to prove anything. If you want the old school thinking to go away, the Low Timers are going to have to provide proof. So far, no-one has done so. But they are more than willing to complain about it and point fingers.
To everyone else:
As a new CFI we think we know it all,
Then we get a single pilot 135 job and realize we didn't know anything as a CFI.
Then we get a job in the flight levels and wonder how we survived as a 135 pilot.
Deflecting? Hardly. I was pointing out how your "old school" opinion, which is no more supported by any facts than mine, seems dependent on emotional appeal and misquotation.
I find the idea that "old-school" thought has it's own virtue just because it's old repellent, as I am sure many on this board will. It smacks of the Old South, the good-old-boy system, and intolerance. You decry my lack of facts, and then declare your group the larger and more correct of the two without a shred of evidence! Hypocrisy- how old school can you get? I am of the philosophy that no theory is sacred, and that "conventional wisdom" is a dangerous concept used to maintain the status-quo long after it's ideas have grown cold. The truth of any matter has to be continually questioned and reaffirmed or truth itself is lost; that is the essence of science and development. One nice thing about the old-school mindset, however: if all it takes is facts to pull it down, its structure is revealed to be the flimsy thing it always was. Facts now!
If the low-timers are truly more dangerous than the old guys, then that fact should manifest itself in some form or there's no basis to say they're more dangerous, is there? Statistics fit the bill here. To start, I will compare the volume of incidents and accidents reported by the NTSB over a period of time corresponding to the approximate start of low-time hiring, for four mainlines and four regionals. For the 4 year period spanning January 16, 2002 to January 16, 2006 we yield following:
Continental: 7 incidents
American Airlines: 28 incidents
Delta: 16
Southwest: 13
ASA: 3
American Eagle: 10
Expressjet: 1
Mesa: 11
Of 96 incidents, only 32 were from the regional carriers. On the surface, that would mean the old-timers are 3 times as dangerous than the young guys! This, of course, is not so. Not all of these reported incidents were due to factors within the flight crew’s control. Examining each case one by one, and deleting those whose probable cause is other than flight crew, we get:
Continental: 2
American: 4
Delta: 6
Southwest: 6
Expressjet: 1
American Eagle: 2
ASA: 0
Mesa: 1
4 to 18, advantage: regionals. The old guys now seem about 450% more dangerous. But what about the number of scheduled departures? Surely, if the mainline carriers have 4 1/2 times as many departures, that would account for a higher number of incidents/accidents? A search of the FAA's airline statistics database gives us total departures for the 4 year period:
Continental: 1,225,569
American Airlines: 2,989,120
Delta: 2,792,869
Southwest: 3,964,195
ExpressJet: 1,081,302
American Eagle: 1,836,173
ASA: 842,641
Mesa: 1,314,000*
*FAA stats for Mesa are unavailable. I used instead an average of daily departures reported by various Mesa-related websites.
Not 4 1/2 times as many. Here's the math for the number-of-departures to pilot-fault-incidents:
Continental: 1.63 to the -6th incidents per flight
American Airlines: 1.33 to the -6th incidents per flight
Delta: 2.14 to the -6th incidents per flight
Southwest: 1.51 to the -6th incidents per flight
Expressjet: 0.92 to the -6th incidents per flight
American Eagle: 1.08 to the -6th incidents per flight
ASA: 0
Mesa: 0.76 to the -6th incidents per flight
Airline-for-airline, flight-for-flight, over four years, the regionals are safer. Low time FO's being "Bailed out" by their captains could not possibly account for such numbers.
So much for conventional wisdom.
. I think everyone will agree with that statement, however it's not what bob is referring to here...
