I wonder which one would be more embarrassing. People of Walmart, or People of DFW B gates.

 

People from all walks of life function under stress just fine. Police officers, 911 dispatchers, ER doctors and nurses, guys in the military who never flew an airplane. I am aware of a Navy seal at Piedmont.. Do you think a .mil pilot handles stress better than he does?

Daily?

Military pilots don't even fly daily. Most come out of the .mil after a decade with 2-3,000 hours. A comparable RJ pilot would have 10,000+ of 121... you know.. the exact job they are applying for.

 

Not Dera, but I think that different companies also have different preferences based on the stats of the prior hiring.
Take Southwest for example - those guys love corporate/charter pilots. Something like 50 XoJet guys were recently hired there, guys from my last gig (charter) were hired there.
Then take United - on paper they count 135 and 121 the same, in practice huge preference is given to 121 for stable approach to flying vs the 135 goal oriented cowboy attitude.
Regionals started investing into the RW military guys, but, to the best of my knowledge, the majors are holding off for now due to the guys being an unknown quality for now - not enough data for stats.

 

Daily as in military pilots as a whole do things like this daily. I’m certain that people perform under all kinds of stress, I wasn’t arguing that at all, just saying that military guys have proven themselves capable of it and I’m sure countless 121 guys too.

 

You're saying a military tanker guy flying a 737 is exposed to that every day?

Oh come on.

 

If you read my old post I said some guys do experience that as given in the boat landing example. Obviously not every pilot everyday, but across all the branches with the various platforms, yeah some pretty crazy scenarios happen. Not trying to keep this going, thanks to all for answers to OP.

I’m not a 737 guy so I don’t know what they are exposed to daily haha

 

Dera,

No tanker guy flys 737s. Our formation flights are usually more relaxed than our pointy nosed friends, but hardly as easy as 121 world. As a 121 guy I’ve never been asked (and given) to give away so much gas that I’m below bingo for the only airfield I can land at. I’ve never been so low on gas over a hostile country that I can’t make it home without a successful air refueling. I’ve never lost an engine over the arctic while flying a jet home with a cracked main landing gear on a one time flight waiver. Finally no RJ driver has ever been told to loiter for hours within the engagement envelope of a hostile nation’s (we were bombing they) SAM batteries because their gas is needed and the CFAC is willing to gamble their lives that the hostile nation won’t take the shot.
RJ guys do benefit from experience in the 121 world. My new hire classmates from that world did great and have nothing to apologize for, but the FAA would never let a 121 pilot be deliberately put in scenarios that are routine in military operations. A pilot from an exclusive 121 background may or may not be able to handle the things military pilots have been through, but they haven’t proved it.

 

Yeah the tanker comment was left there by mistake, I edited that post a few times before I hit submit.

I don't see how those experiences help you in 121 world. Actually it's the opposite. I don't think accepting sub-bingo fuel shows good decision making. That's what really matters in the 121 world, not how much pressure you can fly under.

One of the big reasons why airlines prefer military pilots is, that the hiring pilots are mostly military, and they appreciate those treats even though they don't really help you much in your day to day operation.
And yes, partly because some of the CFI "bros" are pretty awful pilots and people.

 

Here's a different perspective for the 121 guys out there who don't understand why mil guys should receive preferential treatment:
-Mil guys, and gals spend years in multiple levels of training, so I'd say we've been vetted on numerous occasions, from Officer Candidate School on up to Division leader check rides. There are ample steps in that process for people to fail, show their lack of integrity and poor judgement, the military thus is a great vetting platform- it creates a known entity that the majors don't have to guess on.
- The stress has been mentioned before- but there are so many other aspects of a mission besides flying that hones people into a more well rounded aviator. Yes, being able to compartmentalize a stressful situation as mil aviators have to do, WILL make you a better 121 pilot. Have civilian only pilots been in stressful situations- of course they have, probably different circumstances than mil guys, but their experiences hone who they are as well.
-Safety- we were forced into a culture of constant learning when it came to aviation and ground safety. We became students to it and have read and or discussed many aviation related mishaps. Not once in Envoy's mediocre training have we discussed anything meaningful in regards to aviation safety- in the mil, the constant learning and "being a student of the game" was part of everyday life.
-I had a Capt once mention how much he "put in his dues etc" during the bankruptcy drama and how many times he had slept on the ORD crewroom floor- LOL- I Kindly reminded him that we all put in our dues at some point before coming to Envoy, but I wasn't sympathetic to his crew room stories....
As 121 pilots, we all came from somewhere, us former mil folks were paying dues even though we weren't in the regionals, shocking I know. Military backgrounds don't make us any better pilots than the guys who were CFI's either- it's just a matter of what pathway you wanna take to the majors....

 

...and still, the only checkride failures we had in our class were military guys.
Yet these guys will be at majors before anyone else with clean records. No. It has nothing to do with what you said. It's just a blind preference.
Funny how the only guys who crumbled under pressure were the military guys. Good people, but not great pilots. And not working well under stress.
Perhaps it was because actually a huge part of military aviators have never experienced the stuff you described. The stories we hear from them are nothing like what you are telling.