And where was I wrong?

Aviation is a small world Mr Avelo…it’s a small world.

Merry Christmas.

Ok.............. Good day

I, personally, would like to see a minimum requirement of 1,000PIC in a transport category jet to be hired…but, alas, the hiring team doesn’t ask my opinion.

You’re overlooking a lot of quality people who are flying at fracs. I fly with a lot of younger pilots who are really sharp. Hire the person, not the resume. Yeah, I know, HR loves their “profile”.

I’m pretty sure that most, if not all, jets used by fracs are transport category, so your point is moot.

”Hire the person, not the resume” might have worked back in the days of extended interviews, sim checks, etc…but in the day of 30 minute(or less) interviews with nothing but canned questions that anybody with access to google can find out well ahead of time…not so much. It’s frightening to see the quality of some new pilots coming in the door these days.

frightening where? Im in a junior base and most of the new hires are great, with only 1 being truly mediocre

I'll take a newhire over some of these geriatrics we have flying around who do things drop the gear 20 miles out.

I know right, like 240 knots under 10,000 feet! wtf is with these people???

I’ve seen more gear down flaps 15 at 6000’ from new hires than senior captains when I was an FO.

But I blame the training department more than them. They get programmed to do that in the sim world in a controlled environment where they are in a position where glidepath at roughly 1 dot to drop the gear and go flaps 15 makes sense. Or discouraged to use or not shown flaps 10 is usually more than enough to hold 170-180 knots while descending down on the path when flaps 5 can’t hold it so they drop the gear and flaps 15 it instead at 5000’.

There is this movement from certain cka that say if you go flaps 3 on the bus you have to put the gear down.

I know guys that have been flying jets for over a decade but based on company circumstances never got to the left seat. Should we keep him out because he worked at companies without movement?

I understand the concern for inexperienced people getting on though. Maybe we find a middle ground. Tougher training, stricter standards for new hires, fly a trip with a ckp before end of probation and shown the door if not up to it?

There's no perfect answer but arbitrarily placing a PIC requirement, college degree, or anything else is imperfect. At least this extends your "interview" to a full year of actually working and we can part ways if you're an idiot, duschebag, or post your paystub on social media.

This is a tired old argument. Just like the military vs not.

I’ve seen guys with 0 TPIC and 1501 total time fly an awesome jet, and I’ve seen guys with 10,000 hours 121 PIC do dumb sh!t. I’ve seen guys as a brand new PIC do dumb sh!t and I’ve seen brand new CA/FO save their partner from the mercy of FOQA and ASAP.

There isn’t really a quantifiable requirement you can put on paper that is 100% whether or not someone will be a good pilot or not. What does make or break them though is whether they are trainable, have a good attitude, and you don’t want to stab or report them after a 4 day trip.

Sounds like someone needs to RTFM. How do you teach if you don't know the material?

Cka positions are given of like prizes here.

Very true. The 787 Check Pilot cadre has many former management/union officials. Many have never flown the airplane and are made check pilots. Cross your fingers they let you know what you need to know. A while back we had some that had never used HF radios. It is a boys club.

so many are about to retire. It will get worse. What they need to do is implement the new contract provision where the student is trained by the line pilot. Odds are that Pilot will have tons more experience than the pilot that does simulator training and OE. This will also decrease the number of blocked for OE trips. For myself I would consider that job. I have no desire to teach in the simulator. I also refuse to kiss a$$ to get the job.

A minimum of 500 PIC hours should be required for any CKA position, with the exception being for new aircraft types. Given the number of 787 captains, it seems reasonable to find qualified CKAs.

What’s worse than check airman who can’t even hold the airframe, is the fact that they cherry pick the best trips before they hit PBS. Absolutely criminal.

Is it true that a specific post-merger hire, who previously held a position of influence and has since left position, is now a 777 Check Airman?

It's disgusting a cka who probably couldn't hold a certain trip as an fo is now doing captain IOE on said trip. Absolutely disgusting that apa just sits back and allows it because it also helps their good old boy system.

What's even worse is that there are fewer CKA positions because of the new contract and the FO instructors. Consequently, those with actual expertise are relegated to the less desirable work (sim training), while these new CKAs get the best perks of a job that is in decline.

i got debriefed on a LC for using flaps 10 because (its not in the AOM profile) lol CKP said gear down/15 is the correct way… So theres that

"where in the book is flaps 10 not approved to be used"

If you don't want me to use flaps 10, go ahead and make the stupid decision to ban its use in the book except for takeoff in the max. Until then, I will use flaps 10 when appropriate. Saves company fuel because the gear isn't hanging out for 20-30 miles creating all that drag( bet that would reverse the company decision real quick if they did try to outright ban the use of flaps 2 and 10).

Had a similar issue at my regional. Each CKP had their own interpretation of how to follow the book and some had machoism going on. Doing a fed ride with one of my students with the company approved CKP to act like a fed in the jump for their upgrade fed ride. Coming into the airport, winds were gusting around 40 knots. We had the performance to land using flaps 22 and thus chose that configuration for better Vfe margin and performance in case of windshear( also in my opinion, flaps 22 also resulted in less drastic changes in thrust settings). Land no issues, fed ride passed. The acting fed puts on his CKP hat on and goes, " You know the book says the preferred config is flaps 45 right?" We go, " yes sir" cause cooperate to graduate, etc but FFS it says preferred, not required or shall. We also had CKP that believed that if you couldn't maintain 15 knots from the adjusted approach speed to Vfe of flaps 45 you shouldn't be a pilot( where the machoism comes in). Sure should we be able to do it if we had to? Sure, but if the conditions to use 22 is possible, why not increase the margins?

Our approach profile at the regional was set up to intercept the GS at the FAF which was not real world realistic. At least our profile isn't that rigid( only recommended to go gear down flaps 15 at 1 dot or NLT 2000').......

no. I agree. I just couldn’t believe it. Flaps 2.

Yeah I was mostly responding to that CKP through your reply. Why my question of where it is in the book being in quotes would have been my internal response to that CKP and relation of my regional with similar story in relation of interpretation of the book. That CKP took the "preferred" configuration to be flaps 45 as a requirement and the only way to stay compliant with the book.

Not that you were disagreeing with me.

I am sure I will eventually get debriefed on using VS to prevent false RA's or because I don't need to dive it down when only need to lose 500-1000' because they also emphasize use of VNAV or level change only.

During Covid they were cold calling, someone left me two messages. That's sketchy lol.

That's unworkable when they in a recent year had 741 applicants with 1000 hrs TPIC (some perhaps Caravan which didn't meet the intent of the requirement which really was SEL fighter or TPIC MEL) and hired 2211 pilots that year. Take out non transport category TPIC time, fighter time, figure out DL/UA/SW etc, etc were all getting the same candidates, and your requirement would have limited AA to 100-200 pilots that year?

Bingo. The ability to only fly in a canned situation is troubling. LIfe isn't like that. How about a partial speedbrake extension to smoothly, and gradually, get rid of the excess energy. Why bother with that when you can use full speed brakes and solve the slight above desirable energy state RIGHT NOW! ??

I love these 'rules'. I'd always tell guys to ask them where the it's written in writing? There's SOP's and techniques. Both have value but trying to make a personal preference a SOP isn't in the book.

AA has the weakest CKA requirements. 500 hrs as CA. F100 CA? You can now be a 777 CKA for the entire world. Get 100 hrs in type and you're a CKA. So IOE plus one month = CKA. Ugh. Never been outside the U.S.? That's okay...you've been a Captain for 500 hrs. :-( Most U.S. airlines require time in type (if available), usually 500 but some required 1000 hrs. Some required 500 or 1000 hrs in type.

Time in type helps. Doing other flying helps. It's like the pilots that think the world comes to an end if you exceed 250 kts below 10,000'. The world doesn't become flat if you do. Being afraid of the edge of the energy box is a poor knowledge base to have if you're teaching others.

Or at least have time in type. Plenty of 737 CA's have w/b experience. Upgrade to CKA on a plane they have FO experience on? IMO nothing wrong with that. Nothing beats having MD-80 CKA, who've only flown it domestically, become 777 CKA.

RSVM also says to not exceed 1000 FPM within 1000' of level off with traffic nearby. But if you mention VS at altitude they get cross-eyed - "but that removes your stall protection." Uh, dropping to 500 FPM has you concerned about stall protection?

Shoot, we had a RA to descend and the guy was more than 2400' above us. Diving from FL430 to FL340. Beats me how high above us he was when the RA was triggered. Controller afterwards - "sorry. I never expected him to descend 8000' in a minute."

Long time thorn in their side got the cold call. He, and others, were surprised - "they called XYZ fo see if he wanted to be a CKA!?!?"

I don’t buy that tall tale for a split second.

What's the "tall tale"? The number of candidates with 1000 hrs TPIC? Recruiting used to provide that data at training or job fairs. Screen shot is Nov 2022 so fall 2022 data?? "Current applicants" - 5,893 "How do they Rack n Stack?" 1,456 'Competitive Applicants' (500 hrs TPIC) and 'Highly Competitive Applicants' (1000 hrs TPIC) was 741.

On the left side of the PowerPoint they had the ethnicity/race breakdown and on the right side they had the Mil/Civ and male/female breakdowns of the 3 categories - 'current', 'competitive' and 'highly competitive'.

Of all the candidates MIL was 18%, 27% of 'competitive' and 31% of 'highly competitive.' It was just a snapshot of the hiring pool in mid/late 2022.

2022-2023 the U.S airlines hired 25,324 pilots. The typical busy year was just shy of 5,000/yr. That's why the bottom dropped out of the minimum requirements and 1500-1800 TT CFI's were getting job offers.

Realistic timeframe
 

What’s the current/realistic timeframe from interview to class start date?

2-3 months.

Logbook
 

Prepping logbooks and getting everything cleaned up for the in person interviews. Everything is nice and simple for the most part but wanting to tab it out to make things simple for them. Has anyone else done this and what did you tab out? Obvious milestones, check ride passes, fails, ATP reqs, did you tab reqs comepleted for each individual rating or just ATP? Thanks for the help.

Current Competitive AA Minimums
 

What are we seeing for lowest amount of time people are getting interviews and CJOs with in early 2026? Do most all still have TPIC? Getting ready to upgrade at a LCC. No TPIC yet but AA is the goal!

yes they want certain events to be tabbed. They should h e given you instructions on what they want tabbed if you have your interview scheduled already.

Interested...

Had a meet and greet at NGPA. Noticed the lady at check in drew a star on my resume. That must be a good thing right? I know American does interviews at conventions but that didn’t happen for me, even though I hoped it would haha…they told me to upgrade and volunteer, that’s what they like to see. Did anyone get CJOs at NGPA?