PiperDriver

I agree with that

agree

FL410

"Ultimately the U.S. may have to adopt new, quicker training models for pilots, Mr. Darby says, and airlines may have to start paying for early schooling for pilots and raise starting salaries for pilots, currently as low as $24,000 a year."


I think the above amount is an understatement. Some airlines don't even have their pilots reach that in a year. They need to write more on the regional envirnment to let the public know that is going on... I believe that the public will open their eyes on the lack of some pilots expirience and will choose other airlines to fly.

Honestly if an airline wants the best pilots they need to bring the pay up. If the airline brings the first year pay up $10 more an hours. There will be people (quality people) beating down the door to go there. That is a whole other debate...... Oh yeah and management would never go for it....

texaspilot76

"Several studies have found a U-shaped curve: Accident rates tend to be higher for less-experienced pilots, and for older pilots as well. Older pilots, the thinking goes, may have become complacent."

Too bad Congress didn't see this data before passing age 65. Thanks for 5 more years at a regional, you old coots.

KingAirPIC

This is not always the case. There are FOs out there, especially at the majors and big cargo, that have been captains and have huge amounts of experience from other jobs. I'm sure there are quite a few FOs, even at the regional level, who have more experience than their captains (military etc.). I'm not saying I'm one of them but I don't like the idea of only the FOs learning from the Captains. We all have different backgrounds and different skills we have pulled from experience. We should all have the mind set of looking out for each other.

Yes, I know most new regional FOs don't have much experience these days. I'm just saying all FOs don't come from the same tree.

DAL4EVER

I agree. The problem as previously stated is that prior to the past few years most regional FO's were hired with at least 1,500 hours and usually 500 multi. They may have flown in bad weather, had mechanicals, made tough calls. That builds experience and critical decision making. With FO's getting hired with less than 500 hours or even 250 hours TT if they come from a bridge program, they get the mechanics of being able to pass training, but not the leadership and decision making experience.

The problem now is that you have the blind leading the blind. You have 2000 hour TT captains being paired with 250 hour TT FO's. Maybe the Captain was hired with 1200 TT from Florida never having seen a winter. Now he's upgraded and experiencing his first winter with an FO who may have never seen a cloud. This is where people are worried. I am. The experience level can no longer be expected to be in the left seat. Working for a major, nearly every Captain I fly with has at least 20 years with the company. This is nearly the age of a new hire FO at a regional.

Also, many young FO's I see through jumpseating, etc., also lack the maturity of a professional. They don't want to hear "how to do it" from the guy in the left seat. That's a shame because that's how you get the experience from which you will make your command decisions some day.

KingAirPIC

Are FOs really as bad as everyone is saying? Or are we taking the minorities problems and pinning it on the group? I'm hearing lots of FO bashing lately and I don't understand why people are seeing the FO as an unruly child that needs to be disciplined and supervised by the captain. I am all for learning from Captains and more experienced pilots. There are a lot of pilots out there that are smarter than me and I happy to learn from them. But being a first officer myself I feel like I am a second rate citizen sometimes and that I have prove that I can even keep the blue side up.
I don't remember this culture in the corporate world where we considered the first officer as a second in command or a Deputy Captain if you will. Doesn't it seem like we are going back to the days when Captain was God and the 'copilot' was there to do whatever he said without question? If I remember correctly that didn't work out so well.

PiperDriver

What can we say ??

PiperDriver

I think they do not like us, young pilots and trainee pilots, because we are much younger than them. We accomplished in very short time what they have to do in life time. For example a new trainee now from the first class can fly a Cessna 172 with class cockpit; on the other hand some of them still flying some of the older DC series or 37-200 were the never seen a glass cockpit unless they are commuting or something like this. Also they don’t like seeing someone who is younger than there kids, flying left seat while they want to stay on there right seat so they can do couple turns a week or hold the perfect line.

ERJ135

I wrote a letter to the editor about some of the complaints. My biggest complaint was the mentioned "Younger" less experienced pilots. Younger does not mean less experienced, all the time.

PiperDriver

Thank you