CRJail

Why you're talking s#it 'bout Mesa???

Oh wait, never mind...

Leroy Smith

Be advised- it's a quiet day in the crash pad and pontification is imminent.
Ive been reading the other thread on 3407, and this is bleed over. You've
been warned.

Then what would have??

Easy answer. He needed to let go of the yoke.

The only thing she could have done would be punch him in the nose to get
him to do it. That is only a slight bit of hyperbole. There is literally nothing
else she could have done to save this flight, other than wrestle with him
and overpower him to get the nose down. Maybe a few more CFI hours
along the way would have given her the real PITA student that would have
forced that level of assertiveness.

The argument keeps coming up here that experience doesnt matter. Only
training does. BS. Flying is not natural for human beings. Training teaches
in the abstract, and provides a basic platform for true learning. Doing (or
even better teaching) provides the opportunity for truly coherent learning.
And to be "sort of" comfortable with the unnatural act of flight.

I have known, since my first day in a 121 sim, that the old way of
teaching stall recovery was BS. It is nice if you can maintain altitude (and
in a few cases might be necessary to try). But all the times I did stalls,
demonstrated stalls, tried to get others to understand stalls, and saw all
the ways slow flight, stalls and spins could be screwed up TAUGHT me that
unless my power to weight is a bit better than 1 to 1, pitch attitude, vis a
vis AOA is all that there is.

The end.
Period.
Full stop.

I must reduce angle of attack.
And I only need to miss the ground by 1 inch.

And I KNOW this, at a visceral and subconscious level. I know this
because of my experience. And I knew this in spite of my otherwise very
good and very sensible 121 training.

My training, SOPs, profiles, etc have given me a great framework to
operate in on a daily basis. They significantly reduce the risk of every
operation I perform. And I try to do things by the numbers every time,
occaisonaly to the exasperation of my FOs, FAs, company and even the
passengers. But my experience leaves me confident in the reasons that I
do this. Because my experience informs my appreciation of WHY I do it.
My experience makes me try very hard to practice good CRM, and my
teaching experience gives me the strong foundation to do it. My
experience lets me appreciate all that I dont know, all that can go wrong,
all the things that can go sideways for any reason at any time. My
experience makes me apprehensive about every flight. And makes me
confident that if it does go badly I will be able to downshift as necessary
and fly the plane. That if the fancy 121 ways of doing things arent working
I can operate on a primal level of flying to get me back within the comfort
zone of doing things the 121 way.

If a pilot has not done much flying outside the neat and tidy world of 121,
what do they have to fall back on when conditions do not conform to the
121 framework? How is there any argument that 1500 hrs or an ATP is a
bad thing for an airline pilot? Financial issues or the reality of building time
are another matter. I very much understand the reality of it and
sympathize with anyone struggling to do it. But flying airplanes with
passengers is a no small thing, and an arbitrary 1500 hours of doing
something in an airplane before being given the responsibility does not
seem too much.

Here endeth the rant.

Setpropeller

The problem is that we complain and complain and complain but do nothing about the situation and yet we expect things to miraculously change, that's the definition of Insanity my friends. It's modern day slavery they are trying to make things as difficult as possible so that you either quit or go insane. This profession has been destroyed at the regional level. There is no adequate compensation which is ok as long as there is quality of life (multiple days off, commutable lines, productive trips). Now we gave in to more concessions and our quality of life is been taken away. Yet there's plenty of mediocre 2nd and 3rd class pilots getting hire by the regionals cause this companies need to fill the seats. Here's the F*&K part about this, the FAA implemented all this changes (1500hrs, 117 rules) all to help place experience and well rested pilots in the cockpit. I wonder what they'll do when a plane slam into the ground cause by pilot error. Always have a backup plan.

Fourpaw

Hope it is okay to side track from all the drama....

I got a call back from Endeavor for an interview in a couple weeks. Any tips for their interview process? The gentlemen on the phone made it sound fairly basic.

Also how commutable are their trips. I would be flying out of Iah up to whatever base I get.

This will be my first 121 experience, so I'm just trying to get an idea of what to expect.

Thanks!

SmitteyB

I would take a look at whatever gouge you can find online...aviationinterviews.com, etc. Be yourself, courteous, and gracious for the opportunity. Demonstrate knowledge about the company and aircraft. Know that we are wholly owned by DL.

As far as commutability, it is dependent on seniority. As a reservist you can expect to most likely be on a 5 on, 2 off schedule from 0500-1900. There is an early release of 1800 on your final day and earlier is possible (not likely) if you call them after 1200. The longer you are here and the more people we are able to hire will obviously improve your QOL tremendously.

At the end of the day this really isn't a terrible place to work. We were lucky enough to save some pretty nice soft pay provisions from bankruptcy and with the retention payments the pay is second to none...for the first 4 years.

If you don't mind - did the retention payments make you more interested in Endeavor or is the money a non-issue?

WIPilot

I agree with everything posted here. All of the folks we have doing interviews are really great guys. They want to hire you. Just read the gouges and prepare like you would for any job and you will do fine.

Commutability is a hard thing to answer because with every regional you are on reserve at first....which is not conducive to commutability. Even when you can hold a line everyone's idea of what commutability is is different.

If you can think of any other questions let us know!

slowyourroll

Its funny. On the 200, at my level, commutability is better on reserve. The trips are such garbage I'd rather lose the 10 hours of pay and not be commuting on 6-8 of my days off. But again, thats just my experience.

Saabs

I like being bottom of the barrel, I can't ever get worse

Going to colgan was a good career move, us bottom of the barrel folk did just fine

Boss Hoggin

How long is the upgrade?

TalkTurkey

We went from 50 sweaters to 66 t-shirts.