Originally Posted by
Knotcher
more confident and aware of my capabilities? Yes.
More bravado and complacency? No..and that probably applies to the vast majority despite what you insist.
Again, you think the absence of crashes and accidents means new captains are not making mistake mistakes. My (confidential) CQ briefings say otherwise… they are just not publicized, but go ahead and bury your head in the sand. It’s only the extreme safety built into the system that covers up things and prevents the holes in the cheese from lining up.
In a different post, you recommended someone as their instructor while at CQ about NHCAs. I did since I was curious about it. The overwhelming notion is that a NHCA CAs are doing a good job in training and CQ events. Mainly because the NHCAs are aware that they lack experience so they compensate for it in other areas. From FAs to fellow pilots, the younger CAs are thought of in a positive manner.
For the third or fourth time, no one is saying that any pilot, whether experienced or inexperienced, are above making mistakes. It can happen to anyone, but the threat of having experience is that it leads to complacency. This is objectively true and supported by the NTSB and FAA. Experience has its place and an experienced crew is preferred over an inexperienced crew. All I’m saying is that the sky isn’t falling or with the NHCAs despite what the older folks on property think.
Are there mistakes? Sure, but older folks are also making mistakes. From personal experience, anytime it got hairy or dicey it was with a senior captain. This data point is over 3 different airlines. Look at the regionals. The regional carriers operate in and out of our hubs with very inexperienced flight crews and… you guessed it… first time CAs. Different plane, same operation.
The extreme safety mechanism that exists today catch all sorts of holes in the Swiss cheese regardless of experience level. That’s the point of said mechanism. The point of all this is that there’s no such things as a perfect flight. There are such things as safe flights. The mechanism exists to catch all the holes so that it doesn’t turn into an unsafe flight.
This isn’t me bashing older and experienced folks. Far from it. I’m just saying that those experience folks get complacent at times and the NHCAs aren’t falling out of the sky. Both parties are shielded by the safety mechanism in place and both can make a mistake at anytime.
Unless you can expand on some of the points you stated, I don’t know if there’s much else to talk about. Keeping something vague isn’t going help your case and bashing the NHCAs won’t help either. We all make mistakes, let’s learn from it and keep it moving.