Go Back  Airline Pilot Central Forums > Career Builder > Career Questions
How many pilots stagnate getting to 1,500 hrs >

How many pilots stagnate getting to 1,500 hrs

Notices
Career Questions Career advice, interview prep and gouges, job fairs, etc.

How many pilots stagnate getting to 1,500 hrs

Old 05-11-2018, 01:46 PM
  #11  
Gets Weekends Off
 
galaxy flyer's Avatar
 
Joined APC: May 2010
Position: Baja Vermont
Posts: 5,168
Default

Originally Posted by SonicFlyer View Post
The 1500 hour rule is an arbitrary and political-protectionist barrier to entry that is unnecessary and has nothing to do with safety.


If people are willing to get their CFI and/or move throughout the country or be on the road for months at a time, then yes building those 1500 hours can happen in under 2 years.
Not arbitrary in the least; the ATP has had the same flight experience requirements for, at least, 60 years. The 135 IFR Flight experience for that long, too. Having an ATP to be a PILOT flying AIRLINE passengers isn’t arbitrary, either.

GF
galaxy flyer is offline  
Old 05-11-2018, 02:05 PM
  #12  
Perennial Reserve
 
Excargodog's Avatar
 
Joined APC: Jan 2018
Posts: 11,406
Default

Originally Posted by rickair7777 View Post
Yes, they are migrating to diesel (jet A) engines), they burn about half the fuel and it's cheaper too. There will also be battery-powered trainers soon enough.



But airplanes will not be getting much cheaper, and you can thank lawyers and stupid juries of our "peers" for that. A new ASEL that costs $300k probably actually costs half that, the rest of it is for "liability reserve", which the mfg puts in the bank to pay the inevitable lawsuits and settlements. I suspect that light GA airplanes probably have the highest liability reserve of any manufactured product.


Also... from a liability perspective, if the airplane is going to be IFR certified the manufacturer is pretty much going to go full glass with all the bells and whistles, simply to reduce the odds of crashes.
Agree with all that, but that doesn't mean that we don't need to change all those things. We need to get the public back into flying to a greater extent in general aviation. Current CFIs won't gain many hours if the only ones they are teaching are future CFIs. That - as a model - is as unsustainable as any Ponzi scheme.
Excargodog is offline  
Old 05-11-2018, 09:07 PM
  #13  
Gets Weekends Off
 
SonicFlyer's Avatar
 
Joined APC: Apr 2017
Posts: 3,573
Default

Originally Posted by galaxy flyer View Post
Not arbitrary in the least; the ATP has had the same flight experience requirements for, at least, 60 years. The 135 IFR Flight experience for that long, too. Having an ATP to be a PILOT flying AIRLINE passengers isn’t arbitrary, either.

GF
Incorrect.... the 1500 hour rule was implemented after Colgan but had nothing to do with the Colgan crash.
SonicFlyer is offline  
Old 05-12-2018, 04:04 AM
  #14  
Gets Weekends Off
 
Joined APC: Mar 2017
Posts: 128
Default

Originally Posted by SonicFlyer View Post
Incorrect.... the 1500 hour rule was implemented after Colgan but had nothing to do with the Colgan crash.

Sir, with all due respect, the '1500 hour rule' is a misnomer that should have been called the 'ATP rule'.
Colgan or not, I rather have an ATP rated pilot in the pointy end of the missile.
takingmessages is offline  
Old 05-12-2018, 06:44 AM
  #15  
Gets Weekends Off
 
Joined APC: Dec 2015
Posts: 123
Default

Originally Posted by JohnBurke View Post
Ridiculous.

When I began flying and as my career progressed, the notion of making it to a commuter or regional with much less than 2,500 hours was a pipe dream. EVERYBODY has to put in their dues. Later, along came the crop of 250 hour wonders who began to think it was perfectly natural to run to an airline with a wet-ink commercial certificate. It became a matter of entitlement. Today there are those who cry because it takes an extra year or so, and they need at least 1,500 hours to get to regional jobs that pay first year first officers what captains used to make. Captains with years on the job.

People today don't have a freaking clue just how good they've got it, and yet whine and cry about needing 1,500 hours. Truly amazing. And disgusting.

It took me 15 years to get my first turbine job, and very very few will have to go through what many of us did to get that far. Today the silver spoon barely leaves the lips before its back in again and the curtain climbing career hopper is off to the races, convinced of himself that he's suffered aplenty while putting in his dues.

Stagnating because one must gain a little experience? Hardly. It's very difficult to feel any sympathy at all for those who feel the struggle too hard to get to 1,500 hours. It's barely scratching the surface.



That's rather capricious and non-sequitur. Glass cockpits don't "reduce the odds of crashes," and glass cockpits don't reduce "liability," or alter a manufacturers legal duty.


I guess I’m curious as to your perspective on the “pilot shortage?” Clearly airlines are feeling some kind of burden — is this because they got used to pulling in 250 FO’s or is this because people decided flying for an airline wasn’t worth the investment in the higher-than-average cost of education, followed by years of experience-building? Or do you see it as something else?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
MarkVI is offline  
Old 05-12-2018, 07:04 AM
  #16  
The NeverEnding Story
 
BoilerUP's Avatar
 
Joined APC: Sep 2005
Posts: 7,474
Default

Originally Posted by MarkVI
Clearly airlines are feeling some kind of burden — is this because they got used to pulling in 250 FO’s or is this because people decided flying for an airline wasn’t worth the investment in the higher-than-average cost of education, followed by years of experience-building?
Yes.

Requiring an ATP or R-ATP for 121 first officers did create a barrier of entry that restricted the supply of brand new, entry-level first officers available to regional airlines.

That, IMO, has less of an impact on "starts" of new aspiring professional pilots than the following:

1. career progression stagnation due to 121 mandatory retirement age change from 60 to 65 beginning Dec 2007,
2. Great Recession,
3. legacy airlines' whipsaw of regional carriers in mid-late 00s centered around rock-bottom costs,
4. legacy airline bankruptcy proceedings which decimated major airline compensation/retirement

Those four factors in concert made the cost/benefit for many aspiring pilots unappealing. Why would somebody incur $80k+ in debt for a college degree and flight training, only to slave for 4-5 years at a regional airline making $21-40k/yr while commuting or living in an expensive large metro area, then upgrade and only make $65-75k with no significant growth OR attrition at legacy carriers to create the "big sucking sound" pulling pilots upwards? And when you do finally "make it", you likely won't crack six figures until year 3-4, all the while pilots are getting older, having families, and trying to live their lives?

The juice just wasn't worth the squeeze for a while if you weren't already involved and invested.

Today, the situation is quite a bit different. Dec 2012 kicked off the delayed retirement wave which has yet to fully manifest itself, so with attrition from pilots going upward hurting retention and the entry barrier of holding an ATP hurting recruitment, regional airlines have been squeezed due to staffing. To cap this off, most regionals are operating under fixed fee-for-departure capacity lift agreements with their legacy partners which basically means opportunity to pass along increased crew costs (necessary to recruit qualified pilots and retain existing pilots) to their partners is nearly nonexistent, impacting profitability and possibly the ability to remain a going concern.

This regional airline economic reality is arguably the fault of the very legacy airlines who squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezed their regional lift a decade (or less) ago as far as they could to minimize costs.

The high cost of low overhead is coming home to roost - leading legacy airlines to increasingly in-source via smaller narrowbody growth as total regional aircraft in service decrease. And this is a good trend that we ALL should hope continues.
BoilerUP is offline  
Old 05-12-2018, 07:13 AM
  #17  
Gets Weekends Off
 
galaxy flyer's Avatar
 
Joined APC: May 2010
Position: Baja Vermont
Posts: 5,168
Default

BoilerUP,

I’d agree with the stagnation story UNTIL I met many corporate jet guys who learned to fly during the last 15-20 years, got jobs (admittedly in the NYC area) flying bizjets and never looked back. They were making pretty big money and working while others were beotching about stagnation. Yes, if you were hired at a regional, all excited to be a wet commercial with 251 hours flying a jet, stagnation meant you didn’t get the 767 seat you thought you deserved. Others worked on their careers, improved their resumes, and did well.

GF
galaxy flyer is offline  
Old 05-12-2018, 07:20 AM
  #18  
The NeverEnding Story
 
BoilerUP's Avatar
 
Joined APC: Sep 2005
Posts: 7,474
Default

Originally Posted by galaxy flyer View Post
BoilerUP,

I’d agree with the stagnation story UNTIL I met many corporate jet guys who learned to fly during the last 15-20 years, got jobs (admittedly in the NYC area) flying bizjets and never looked back. They were making pretty big money and working while others were beotching about stagnation. Yes, if you were hired at a regional, all excited to be a wet commercial with 251 hours flying a jet, stagnation meant you didn’t get the 767 seat you thought you deserved. Others worked on their careers, improved their resumes, and did well.

GF
I left my regional in November 2007 for a 91 job flying a Citation.

Dec 2007 Age 65 happens, Sept 2008 Lehman Bros happens, Great Recession starts and nearly all airlines stagnate.

Many, MANY 91 operations shut down over the next 2-4 years while Netjets furloughs hundreds.

I was promoted to CP in March 2008 at the age of 24 and was fortunate my company had long contracts, so we took delivery of a new plane in 2009 from the factory and hit block hour records in 2009, 2010 and 2011. I wasn't getting wealthy, but I was flying a brand-new jet as PIC while being a 'kid'. In the 2012-2013 range, I interviewed for two different large-cabin 91 operators and wasn't hired by either, as I "only flew a CJ"...but that experience helped me get hired by a major cargo carrier in 2014.

Did I stagnate? No...but I know lots and lots and lots of others that did, flying 121 regional and major and legacy and cargo and plenty of others that went through the job loss merry-go-round of 91/91K/135.
BoilerUP is offline  
Old 05-12-2018, 07:27 AM
  #19  
Gets Weekends Off
 
tomgoodman's Avatar
 
Joined APC: Feb 2006
Position: 767A (Ret)
Posts: 6,248
Default

Originally Posted by SonicFlyer View Post
Incorrect.... the 1500 hour rule was implemented after Colgan but had nothing to do with the Colgan crash.
Sure it did. Placating Congress and the public is one of our Industry’s most important tasks. There’s no business like show business.
tomgoodman is offline  
Old 05-12-2018, 08:06 AM
  #20  
Gets Weekends Off
 
SonicFlyer's Avatar
 
Joined APC: Apr 2017
Posts: 3,573
Default

Originally Posted by takingmessages View Post
Sir, with all due respect, the '1500 hour rule' is a misnomer that should have been called the 'ATP rule'.
Colgan or not, I rather have an ATP rated pilot in the pointy end of the missile.
There already was an ATP rated pilot sitting up front.
SonicFlyer is offline  
Related Topics
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
SpecialTracking
United
158
06-21-2019 03:59 PM
cactiboss
American
114
12-11-2015 07:54 PM
Route66
American
6
04-08-2015 06:38 AM
SF340guy
Union Talk
92
06-12-2011 06:30 PM
JungleBus
Major
121
12-20-2008 04:13 PM

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On


Thread Tools
Search this Thread
Your Privacy Choices