HSLD

Looks like Randy is on a roll

Babbitt Supports Pilot Mentoring | AVIATION WEEK

There was a report yesterday that Babbitt was going for the low hanging fruit of using CVR random reads to ensure sterile cockpit compliance. Instead of addressing the training and certification issues that surround the Colgan 3407 accident, he went for the tangent issue of non-essential comm. below 10K. I'm not advocating or making excuses for violating FARs, however there appears to be factors far more serious than violating sterile cockpit in the Colgan accident.

With today's advocacy of pilot mentoring, the FAA Administrator again ignores the FAA's responsibility of Airman Certification, Airline Training Department oversight, and Crew Scheduling. Standardization is a cornerstone to aviation safety and relying on mentoring will not address pilot competency in a uniform manner.

vagabond

Do we have the entire transcript of Babbitt's keynote speech? Does he address training? This article (Aviation Week) is rather short; surely his speech was more than a comment about rulemaking and pilot mentoring. I'm curious to know if he supports mentoring programs in conjunction with revised/enhanced training. If so, that is something commendable. Mentoring occurs in many other professional fields because it works. In law, we do it all the time, but we do not rely on it exclusively.

Having said all that, however, it is still important for each individual pilot to take responsibility for his/her job. Whether it is a planeload of passengers or boxes, your job is to move a large aluminum tin can safely from Point A to Point B. You should be aware of your own limitations. As I have said to every single one of my law students and young lawyers, I am looking for someone who knows when he doesn't know something. This is a very difficult trait to have.

HSLD

Just found the full transcript is here and he does mention certification and training (I stand corrected): Speech

Mentoring is a good thing, but as good as it is, my point is that it can't be relied on to standardize a safety system.

Jack Bauer

Video of the Babbit Speech. I thought the questions asked during the Q and A at the end were excellent even though Babbit kind of hopped around answering. Air Safety Forum 288236-1 : C-SPAN Video Library | Created by Cable. Offered as a Public Service.

Wheels up

Now Mr. ATA Babbitt wants to push off additional work (for NO pay) off on experienced airline pilots.

Well, he can pound sand up where the sun don't shine.

He needs to tell the commuter airlines that they need to hire adequately prepared and experienced pilots and pay them what they're worth.

Sorry Babbitt. NOT MY JOB. Go tell it to your fat cat airline CEO buddies.

USMCFLYR

I don't think mentoring and instructing are the same thing. For instance - passig on jewels of wisdom from "been there, done that" stories is part of mentoring. How would you compensate that? Professionals mentor in my opinion.

USMCFLYR

Wheels up

Yea, but that's not what Mr. Babbitt really means. Besides, aviation isn't a profession anymore. It's an hour rate JOB. That's what the FAA and airline execs really want. At my airline, management spends a lot of time trying to jip pilots out of a minute here and a minute there. When we are treated like professionals again, then we can talk about developing a "profession" again. Until then, I do my job and go home and the airline gets what they pay for and nothing more.

As of now, like every single other airline pilot I know, I highly DISCOURAGE any young person from taking up this job and highly discourage any military pilot from leaving service before retirement to come fly commercially.

I don't need lectures from Mr. Babbitt. He needs to fix his own house first.

kalyx522

lol, I was thinking exactly the same thing. the only "mentoring" I get from senior guys who've been in the business for years and years is something only the lines of "you need to get out now."

Merlyn

Well stated and I agree. Management misses no chance to denigrate our pilot group. I don't know anyone encouraging people to take up this job. I'm grateful every day that I retired from the military before flying commercially, if not for my Army pension benefits I would already be gone.

Jack Bauer

I agree. The airlines and ATA pushed back and forth for a "B scale" for years and finally got a perminent one that grew with the speed of a terminal cancer. Now that we have 50% of all passengers being flown under the B scale by a lot of relatively inexperienced regional pilots we are supposed to spend what precious time we have left to give advice to the group who moved a major airline upgrade to 10 to 15 years or more. The FAA and ATA got themselved into this mess.....whats the gist of that saying...."ATA/Management's inability to plan properly (which hurt my overall career) is not going to become "my" emergency. Remove RJ's and up the min hiring requirements and then we can talk.