RAA responds to Dan Carey
#11
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2007
Posts: 2,540
Strongly disagree. My sister is a TV news anchor who started in small markets for the first decade of her career. She literally made $16-19K a year for the first five, then was rolling in the dough from year 6 at a whopping $30,000. Why? Because she liked being able walk into a room and have everyone look at her saying she has the coolest job ever... Sound familiar?
Now, she's finally cracked into a top 25 market as a weekend anchor and nightside reporter making about $90,000. Took her 10+ years to make a decent wage and start making a serious dent in her debt.
She went to Syracuse, spent about $110,000 on her education, and does her job because a) she loves it, and b) she can't imagine doing anything else. Again... sound familiar?
We don't hear public outcry for the newsies out there making peanuts. I've struggled just as must as the next guy, but devils advocate - if you're gonna fix pilot pay, might as well fix journalism, education, first few years of medical, nursing, public transportation, social work, hospitality salaries, et al, as well.
Now, she's finally cracked into a top 25 market as a weekend anchor and nightside reporter making about $90,000. Took her 10+ years to make a decent wage and start making a serious dent in her debt.
She went to Syracuse, spent about $110,000 on her education, and does her job because a) she loves it, and b) she can't imagine doing anything else. Again... sound familiar?
We don't hear public outcry for the newsies out there making peanuts. I've struggled just as must as the next guy, but devils advocate - if you're gonna fix pilot pay, might as well fix journalism, education, first few years of medical, nursing, public transportation, social work, hospitality salaries, et al, as well.
Compare that to being a pilot, where the cost to get your commercial + three CFI tickets is pretty much a given.
#12
While your analogy to your sister contains a bit of truth, it's also true to say that it doesn't take a 6 figure undergraduate degree to excel in that field. In time one's list of contacts and demo reel will have a lot more value than a high priced education. Basically I'm saying she could've gotten a 4 year journalism degree from an in-state, public university and accomplished the same thing.
Compare that to being a pilot, where the cost to get your commercial + three CFI tickets is pretty much a given.
Compare that to being a pilot, where the cost to get your commercial + three CFI tickets is pretty much a given.
We all could have taken more cost effective paths to get to our desired destinations. But hindsight is always...as you know...something we all b!tch about.
#13
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2007
Posts: 2,540
Yeah, as she tells me, a lot of big markets "prefer" that you have the big ticket degrees - Syracuse, Northwestern, ASU - much the way many of our peers think ERAU is a guarantee to success.
We all could have taken more cost effective paths to get to our desired destinations. But hindsight is always...as you know...something we all b!tch about.
We all could have taken more cost effective paths to get to our desired destinations. But hindsight is always...as you know...something we all b!tch about.
#15
sippin' dat koolaid
Joined APC: Jun 2013
Position: gear slinger
Posts: 982
Strongly disagree. My sister is a TV news anchor who started in small markets for the first decade of her career. She literally made $16-19K a year for the first five, then was rolling in the dough from year 6 at a whopping $30,000. Why? Because she liked being able walk into a room and have everyone look at her saying she has the coolest job ever... Sound familiar?
Now, she's finally cracked into a top 25 market as a weekend anchor and nightside reporter making about $90,000. Took her 10+ years to make a decent wage and start making a serious dent in her debt.
She went to Syracuse, spent about $110,000 on her education, and does her job because a) she loves it, and b) she can't imagine doing anything else. Again... sound familiar?
We don't hear public outcry for the newsies out there making peanuts. I've struggled just as must as the next guy, but devils advocate - if you're gonna fix pilot pay, might as well fix journalism, education, first few years of medical, nursing, public transportation, social work, hospitality salaries, et al, as well.
Now, she's finally cracked into a top 25 market as a weekend anchor and nightside reporter making about $90,000. Took her 10+ years to make a decent wage and start making a serious dent in her debt.
She went to Syracuse, spent about $110,000 on her education, and does her job because a) she loves it, and b) she can't imagine doing anything else. Again... sound familiar?
We don't hear public outcry for the newsies out there making peanuts. I've struggled just as must as the next guy, but devils advocate - if you're gonna fix pilot pay, might as well fix journalism, education, first few years of medical, nursing, public transportation, social work, hospitality salaries, et al, as well.
No offense to journalists and news anchors, but they don't always directly affect public safety and a lot them do not even uphold a professional standard of truthful and unbiased reporting.
#18
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jul 2013
Posts: 10,533
You're drawing an incorrect conclusion. The experience requirement came about because both pilots lacked basic airmanship skills. The Captain swung gear at a pay to play operator until he met basic hiring minimums for the airline. He also had a long list of checkride failures. Both pilots inappropriately reacted to a stall. The Captain didn't add full power while fighting the pusher and the first officer, for whatever reason, retracted the flaps without being prompted and didn't correct the inadequate power application.
The theory behind the hour minimum is it required a pilot to either flight instruct or fly around for a cargo operation long enough to gain valuable experience in both the VFR and IFR systems flying a variety of aircraft in all weather conditions. Is a set minimum of hours adequate? No. There shouldn't be cutouts for specific schools where you learned. Credit should be given, however, for type of experience outside of school, as that is where most of the learning is done.
The theory behind the hour minimum is it required a pilot to either flight instruct or fly around for a cargo operation long enough to gain valuable experience in both the VFR and IFR systems flying a variety of aircraft in all weather conditions. Is a set minimum of hours adequate? No. There shouldn't be cutouts for specific schools where you learned. Credit should be given, however, for type of experience outside of school, as that is where most of the learning is done.
#19
Banned
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Sep 2016
Posts: 375
You're drawing an incorrect conclusion. The experience requirement came about because both pilots lacked basic airmanship skills. The Captain swung gear at a pay to play operator until he met basic hiring minimums for the airline. He also had a long list of checkride failures. Both pilots inappropriately reacted to a stall. The Captain didn't add full power while fighting the pusher and the first officer, for whatever reason, retracted the flaps without being prompted and didn't correct the inadequate power application.
#20
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2007
Posts: 2,540
I had a different path to the flight deck than most. I did some single pilot aerial survey in a 172, nearly 2,000 hours of various VFR shenanigans in Alaska, and then 850 hours single pilot, hand flown IFR in a Navajo in the Rockies. I'll spare you all the war stories, but I'd like to think I learned a few things.
I'll never forget one of my first times in "mountainous" terrain in 121 ops, flying the Dash 8 with a checkairman in the left seat into ROA, clear day, visual approach. I could tell this guy was really nervous handing the controls over to a "green" FO in that environment. Sure, I was new to the airplane, but the tried and true combinations of pitch, power, airspeed, and eyeball, airplane, runway will get the job done whenever you can actually apply them.
I was never an instructor, but I'd like to think the art of teaching a student while keeping the both of you alive has some practical application to CRM in a flight deck. I'll let those with more experience in that arena opine.
So here's the thing: I would say it's absolutely true that the more experience one has in a variety of situations, the better off one will be. But one of the problems that we're facing is there are fewer of those experience building jobs to go around, which has implications both to what kind of experience people have when they strap into a 121 aircraft, AND how many people can be in the pipeline at any given time to fill those positions. There are only so many aerial survey, night freight, jet charter, etc, etc, jobs to go around, while the need at the 121 carriers will continue to grow unabated.
I'm all for having very high barriers to entry in this profession for both safety and economic reasons, and for that reason I hope the ATP rule doesn't change for a long time. But I'm pretty sure that it's going to change at some point.
What does it change to? Well that's the million dollar question.
I'll never forget one of my first times in "mountainous" terrain in 121 ops, flying the Dash 8 with a checkairman in the left seat into ROA, clear day, visual approach. I could tell this guy was really nervous handing the controls over to a "green" FO in that environment. Sure, I was new to the airplane, but the tried and true combinations of pitch, power, airspeed, and eyeball, airplane, runway will get the job done whenever you can actually apply them.
I was never an instructor, but I'd like to think the art of teaching a student while keeping the both of you alive has some practical application to CRM in a flight deck. I'll let those with more experience in that arena opine.
So here's the thing: I would say it's absolutely true that the more experience one has in a variety of situations, the better off one will be. But one of the problems that we're facing is there are fewer of those experience building jobs to go around, which has implications both to what kind of experience people have when they strap into a 121 aircraft, AND how many people can be in the pipeline at any given time to fill those positions. There are only so many aerial survey, night freight, jet charter, etc, etc, jobs to go around, while the need at the 121 carriers will continue to grow unabated.
I'm all for having very high barriers to entry in this profession for both safety and economic reasons, and for that reason I hope the ATP rule doesn't change for a long time. But I'm pretty sure that it's going to change at some point.
What does it change to? Well that's the million dollar question.
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