Originally Posted by Keizer Soze

As a former "135 guy" who has not only passed the training, but effing killed it here in the Spirit training program, I thank you for not including all of us in your comments.

I personally went through initial training and type ratings at Flight Safety and SIMCOM. In both cases I would see pilots walking around with their Bermuda shorts and Hawaiian shirts with sunglasses hanging from a strap around their neck, not carrying any manuals, kicking back with their feet up, and doing everything they could to skate through training. On the other hand, there were pilots there that were dressed appropriately, who hit the books every night at the hotel while their families were at home wondering why their parent was not coming home, paying attention to the instructors, utilizing GFS and SIM time to its fullest, taking notes, and working hard to make the best of their training event and give their 135 operators the best value for their money.

So, I would say that the distinction with our failure rates at Spirit when hiring and training "135 guys" is not necessarily that they were "135 guys" but that some people, whether training under Part 61, 141, 142, 135, 125, or 121, just don't take training as seriously as maybe they should. Some skate and some don't.

Ps. When I was in charge of hiring at my 135 company, I hired furloughed and retired airline pilots, corporate pilots, flight instructors, and brand new off the street pilots. I had equally as many training busts with furloughed airline pilots as a group as I did with the other groups. Our in house training program was unintentionally almost exactly the same footprint as Spirits training program. In my opinion, a pilots success in any training program is more related to their ability to work hard in training, their attitude, and their willingness to learn than it is to where they got their previous training.