Originally Posted by
lolwut
Plus, for all of us career wise, this finally creates a barrier to entry to the profession that will hopefully put supply/demand on our side and drive up wages.
I see this from time to time and have to disagree. No pilot group will allow their company to drive up wages to attract new hires. They won't have a problem attracting new hires.
Which goes to the next point:
Originally Posted by
lolwut
Doctors and lawyers aren't all paid a lot because thats what they're all worth... many are paid that much because the AMA and Bar Associations have made it hard to become one. They control the supply. This is a supply control for pilots.
This isn't always a good thing. I spent a few days in a hospital with my son, rarely found an American doctor or nurse that understood or could communicate clearly what the issue was. I fear the day when you have to go overseas to find pilots who meet a logbook requirement. That said, 1500 isn't hard to meet anymore.
So put the hour minimums wherever they want, still wouldn't have prevented 3407, they both exceeded 1500 hours. As far as I can tell, 100% of the Part 121 crashes have been with pilots with 1500+ hours and an ATP acting as the PIC. Given the ATP can be done rather quickly in a PA44 for not much money, the requirement for an ATP is a big eh to me.
Until we clean up training and standardize it like it should be nothing is truly getting fixed. 1500 hour minimum? Go for it, don't care, won't feel any safer just because the FO had 1500 hours when they were hired and given the current shape of the pilot market and the current trend to park 50 seaters (albeit to grow larger but yet scope limited fleets) I don't think it's going to make much of a difference.
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As to this petition, NO. I wouldn't want a pilot who didn't want to be a CFI. That's a red flag to me.