FlyJSH

First, from one who served well behind the lines, thank you for going in harm's way.

My only question is ...

Were you a better pilot at 1200 hours than you were at 200?

subrat

Your 100% right. Its about quality of hours not quantity. Any monkey can build hours and pass a ATP checkride "especially if you find a santa DPE". The only reason everyone is so happy about the new bill is because they assume they are going to get a pay raise. Right now flight instructors are making less then min wage. How are new pilots going to learn a good flying foundation if all the best instructors are off trying to find another career? The bill is supposed to be about saftey. How about fixing the screwd up regional airlines hiring practices?? Hiring someone without a sim ride even with thousands of hours is just dangerous! All you have to do is read a jep chart/plate and answer the right questions correctly. The military should also raise their mins since its so dangerous to have anyone with less then 500hrs fly advanced aircraft.

FYI- I am currently 18 hours away from my ATP rating so I could care less about the bill. I just feel bad for my fellow Instructors. "Most of them are on food stamps."

subrat

Sounds like your happy with your pay. Keep up the good work!

bcrosier

This is pure nonsense.

To equate military training with the average "graduate" of a pilot mill is probably the greatest insult to military aviators I've ever read (and I'm not a military guy, and I do think there are some drawbacks to coming from a pure military background). As someone else said, all you need for a pilot mill is a well funded checkbook and a pulse - the last time I checked the military had slightly more stringent requirements to get in the door, let alone earn your wings.

Yes pilots with thousands of hours make mistakes. Pilots with fewer hours make more mistakes and simply don't have as many resources to draw on. You are correct in your poorly worded assertion that years of experience alone does not a true professional aviator make - it does require all of the things you list: a dedication to operating every single flight safely, using good CRM, and a professional attitude. However, you can have all of those things fresh out of a pilot mill but you DO NOT have the experience expected (and I believe necessary) to be flying paying passengers on an airline.

Again, you cannot equate the experience required for military directly to airlines. The entire paradigm is different - in your case while you are flying a multi-million dollar aircraft, but you are not doing so with paying passengers - a big difference. Even the transport guys aren't flying the general public for a fee. They are flying other military personnel, who I think we can agree have inherently signed up for a slightly different program than Grandma headed to visit the grandkids.

You obviously have an axe to grind with the amount of time you are allowed to credit by the FAA. Not being a rotorcraft pilot I'm not really qualified to comment on whether this is reasonable or not, though I'd tend to agree that you should be able to count a lot more than you are. That said, I don't think that requirement has changed recently, so I'd think you knew the rules when you started.

As to why many foreign pilots train here, it's not simply that our training is the best in the world, it's that also that it's one of the cheapest in the world (have you priced GA flying in Europe lately?), and regulations which permit GA flying (and training) to be accomplished most easily. We do have some good training, we have some mediocre training, and we have some poor training. Don't kid yourself that it's all created equal.

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at with the comment "where else are you going to train but on the ground with multiple failures." Certainly when you get to the airline level you are (usually) going to be doing that sort of training in a simulator. However, simply putting a 500 hour pilot in a Boeing sim and cranking them through multiple engine and systems failures does not translate to real world experience. I'll guarantee that most sim techs can outfly you or me in the sim in a variety of conditions. Do you want to ride in the back on your next flight with the sim tech at the controls in a high density terminal, with a contaminated runway, icing conditions, holding, diversions, ect?

And no, those foreign pilots who train here don't go back home to become CFI's. Neither do they upgrade in two years to captain on a jet operated by one airline (with one set of qualifications), with the name of another airline (with different qualifications) painted on the side. If you want to have an intelligent discussion on the pros and cons of their model that's fine - but don't throw out the strawman garbage you're currently spewing.

And while I have great respect for the sacrifices you've made and very much appreciate your service to our country...

Give ME a break on the rest of this drivel.

point432

i agree that i don't want to continue teaching for any longer than i have to. i'm short on a couple of things as far as ATP mins go. i hope that they will mainly focus on 121 for this and not 135 operators. 500 point to point is easier for us instructors than 50nm. i won't take advantage of my students, but i encourage them and thell them that it will benefit them in the long run. (especially night) plus...i hope that multi isn't too ridiculous, b/c i don't have that either. i can see the light at the end of the tunnel for 135mins at the current moment and can't wait to fly a caravan or some other crappy twin. most 135's that operate citations or lear's seemingly already have their standards and i feel that they are just as hard to obtain as an ATP. they all want the most multi for the least dollar and don't want to take chances on people with 1000-1500hrs and low or no multi.

BE24pilot

So whats the deal on crew rest. Is there anything in there about new rest requirements or commuting?

bcrosier

Well no, it's not just about quality, though I definitely do believe that there are differences in the quality of time you build.

It's about at least three things - quantity of hours, the quality of those hours, and the longevity over which they were acquired (I think most people gloss over this one). Simply starting at zero and racking up a bunch of flight time (even if it's "quality time,") in a short chronological period of time does not equate to a healthy dose of experience.

Experience is also gained by true seasoning - having time to see, hear and experience both first hand and through others. Then having the opportunity to ruminate on these experiences - the what ifs, what could I/they have done differently, the looking out the window and thinking "glad I'm not flying today," then thinking "but what if I was."

Well, that's not where I'm coming from.

I would question if the instructors who are leaving for other careers were really the best instructors. Pray tell, how did us poor ignorant slobs from yesteryear ever get edumacted? There certainly couldn't have been any decent instructors at all when you needed 3000 hours to get into the right seat of a turboprop. It's a damn miracle we were able to stop drooling on ourselves long enough to put down the stone tools and drag our knuckles out past the airport fence!

Now I'm really confused - I thought anyone could pass an ATP checkride on a given day, now a sim check is the answer to all? Which is it? I do agree that a sim check is a good idea, but let's not kid ourselves on this one.

*** Strawman alert *** Are you really equating military training to the average pilot mill? Really?

I feel bad for anyone who had delusions that being in the seat of a Part 121 jet with less than ATP minimums represented what is "normal" in this abnormal industry. Sorry guys, it's the past few years that have been off in bizzarro land. Like I said before, I don't know whether people (not you in particular) didn't ask questions, didn't listen to the answers, or were just delusional about the normal (painful) path it takes to get into (and frequently stay in) this industry.

Please don't misunderstand me - I'm really not coming from the perspective of "I suffered, so everyone else should too." Quite the contrary, I'd like to see MANY radical changes to improve (restore) the entire industry, including livable compensation for CFI's and viable career progression options for those entering the profession(such as lowering the mins for Part 1135 PIC and eliminating all PFT scams). I just don't understand how anyone who has spent more than fifteen minutes researching what the normal career progression for pilots is can be too surprised that the times they are a changin' (to steal a line).

Airhoss

HRW,

If your career aspirations were to fly commercial fixed wing why did you choose the Army and why a rotor wing? If you wanted to be flying heavy jets for living maybe you should have chosen a different service. I turned down USMC PLC/A specifically because most of the guys at the time were getting helo's and while I've got nothing against them it simply wasn't what I wanted to be stuck in for the rest of my career.

It's just like if I wanted to become a commercial helo pilot now. All of my fixed wing time wouldn't mean squat to a prosepctive employer nor should it. I'd basically have to start over.

FlyJSH

We have one of those converted Fly Unsafely guys. He has a little trouble with visual approaches, decent profiles, any precip heavier than light drizzle, adjusting to the real world (Vfa at 35 miles out in the conga line), and holding.

But his steep turns are to DIE for!

FlyJSH

Ha HA! Grog like funny words. Make Grog laugh!