"Veteran ERAU pilot" embarrasses herself onTV
05-22-2018, 04:05 PM
#141
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Oct 2009
Position: CFI/II/MEI
Posts: 481
Here's my theory of what happened behind the scenes:
20/20 wanted to do this at an actual airline or FSI, Airline/FSI wouldn't do it for fear of negative publicity or would charge $$$. ERAU figured, we'll get some free publicity for our 'excellent' program.
ERAU found a token faculty member that kind of looks like Tammi Jo that had been out of the cockpit for decade or two, and put her up to playing Tammi Jo for the day. As someone who clearly doesn't do this on a regular basis, she screwed up some basic stuff.
Also, the emergency descent itself was probably boring, and 20/20 probably wanted to see some other "what if" scenarios. They spliced all of the dramatic/exciting bits of an hour+ in the sim into this 30-40 second 'emergency' portion of their 3 minute news story. The end product is terrible and cringeworthy, but with all of the cuts in the footage, it is impossible to know what the unedited looks like at all.
ERAU looks like a laughing stock, but they got some free publicity out of it. Highschool juniors and seniors will still line up to pay $250,000 to learn to fly a plane. ERAU gets its money and that's all that matters to them.
Embarassment to the industry? Maybe. It's such a chaotic $h***show that it will probably scare help scare the general public away from supporting any single pilot initiatives that factions within the industry would like to see. That's a good thing for us at least. Honestly, the last thing we really want is for the general public to see an engine failure and emergency descent and think "that was easy, I bet the autopilot could just do it".
20/20 wanted to do this at an actual airline or FSI, Airline/FSI wouldn't do it for fear of negative publicity or would charge $$$. ERAU figured, we'll get some free publicity for our 'excellent' program.
ERAU found a token faculty member that kind of looks like Tammi Jo that had been out of the cockpit for decade or two, and put her up to playing Tammi Jo for the day. As someone who clearly doesn't do this on a regular basis, she screwed up some basic stuff.
Also, the emergency descent itself was probably boring, and 20/20 probably wanted to see some other "what if" scenarios. They spliced all of the dramatic/exciting bits of an hour+ in the sim into this 30-40 second 'emergency' portion of their 3 minute news story. The end product is terrible and cringeworthy, but with all of the cuts in the footage, it is impossible to know what the unedited looks like at all.
ERAU looks like a laughing stock, but they got some free publicity out of it. Highschool juniors and seniors will still line up to pay $250,000 to learn to fly a plane. ERAU gets its money and that's all that matters to them.
Embarassment to the industry? Maybe. It's such a chaotic $h***show that it will probably scare help scare the general public away from supporting any single pilot initiatives that factions within the industry would like to see. That's a good thing for us at least. Honestly, the last thing we really want is for the general public to see an engine failure and emergency descent and think "that was easy, I bet the autopilot could just do it".
05-22-2018, 07:06 PM
#143
Prime Minister/Moderator
Joined APC: Jan 2006
Position: Engines Turn Or People Swim
Posts: 40,056
05-23-2018, 08:29 AM
#144
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Dec 2008
Position: Left,Right, Left, Right,Right,Left, Right, Left
Posts: 3,150
05-23-2018, 08:43 AM
#145
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Dec 2008
Position: Left,Right, Left, Right,Right,Left, Right, Left
Posts: 3,150
05-26-2018, 03:14 PM
#148
Airborne bus driver
Joined APC: Apr 2014
Position: my seat smells funny
Posts: 222
I've been given a runaway trim, did fine and I don't think I was given it because I was a girl (5' 11" and 125, so pretty skinny.) However, I do know one of the first female pilots ever hired by a Major and they gave her a manual reversion with an incapacitated Captain. She pulled it off, she's a groovy lady.
But I will ask again, why do we see so few TJ's and so many faux Amelia Earhart's and Global Gals? I know plenty of gals like me not asking for any extra help or favors; but we keep getting folks like them and now that Fatima chick that ended up contacting countless media outlets with a half true (at best) sob story; big surprise, she's at Delta and a poster child
Please guys, don't lump us all into the same category; some of us just want to fly and happen to have different plumbing.
I'll get off my soapbox now
RadialGal
05-26-2018, 03:58 PM
#149
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jan 2008
Posts: 1,383
I've been given a runaway trim, did fine and I don't think I was given it because I was a girl (5' 11" and 125, so pretty skinny.) However, I do know one of the first female pilots ever hired by a Major and they gave her a manual reversion with an incapacitated Captain. She pulled it off, she's a groovy lady.
But I will ask again, why do we see so few TJ's and so many faux Amelia Earhart's and Global Gals? I know plenty of gals like me not asking for any extra help or favors; but we keep getting folks like them and now that Fatima chick that ended up contacting countless media outlets with a half true (at best) sob story; big surprise, she's at Delta and a poster child
Please guys, don't lump us all into the same category; some of us just want to fly and happen to have different plumbing.
I'll get off my soapbox now
RadialGal
But I will ask again, why do we see so few TJ's and so many faux Amelia Earhart's and Global Gals? I know plenty of gals like me not asking for any extra help or favors; but we keep getting folks like them and now that Fatima chick that ended up contacting countless media outlets with a half true (at best) sob story; big surprise, she's at Delta and a poster child
Please guys, don't lump us all into the same category; some of us just want to fly and happen to have different plumbing.
I'll get off my soapbox now
RadialGal
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