If they had more experience at the time of the accident then 1500 hours why then are we suggesting that low experience is the problem? I could understand it if the captain had 1600 hours and the FO had 300 but that is not the case at all.

They both had plenty of flight time. The problem is not flight experience but low wages, a hard life and a discounted future.

Skyhigh

 

Bingo. Most learning stops once you get into a glass turbojet...you may learn about ramp and metering frequencies and some cute new tricks to program the FMS but that's about it. You need to acquire some basic flying skills, aviation situational awareness, and aeronautical judgement before you get to that point.

 

Exactly what I think.

 

AOPA's Bruce Landsberg had an article on this in November AOPA magazine. He is opposed to the 1,500 hour rule because it had little to do with the Colgan crash and it does not address adequately the reasons which actually were central to the accident- low wages, training issues, long hours, etc. I'll see if I can find a link to it. The pilots in the Buffalo crash had enough flight time it would seem. They just did a bunch of incorrect procedures in a row and stalled the airplane.

Here is the article I refer to- Bruce Landsberg article

 

These are the two things I like the best with your post. Specifically the bold-ed. Paying for two to three hundred hours in a Falcon20 or B1900 isn't going to get you any more experience than building time as a CFI or banner pilot or diver driver. Get some time in a regime where YOU have to make the decision and then move on if you so desire. I spent 1600 hours as a CFI, then another 400 in single pilot IFR. I learned a lot as a CFI, then learned how to manage myself as a pilot with the SP IFR time. Looking at weather, dealing with TFR's and trying to keep pax comfortable was a much bigger learning experience while actually flying acting as PIC rather than being a "supervising" PIC as an instructor. I'm not knocking CFI'ing by any means. It taught me how to handle situations in the cockpit where the person next to you is unsure of what they are doing, and how to step in and handle a situation that could get real bad, real quick. But paying for an opportunity to fly in the right seat of any airplane will not net you any gain in experience that you could have gotten somewhere else.

As for the PFJ route, I fell victim to something very similar. I don't fault the guy who edged me out of my job, nor the boss of the company. It was simple economics really. But essentially I lost my job, and a LR-JET type rating class because of insurance costs and employee costs. So I can defiantly see how PFJ/PFT can push a person who had a paying job out on the streets.

 

Yes, 1500 hours is arbitrary, but the number as it stands right now is too low. You shouldn't be able to go from nothing to an airline pilot in 6 months. You can't do that in any other highly skilled/trained/regarded position. It takes 4 years to get a Bachelors degree...

1500 hours creates a barrier to entry to this profession. Thats a good thing.

Barriers to entry will increase pay, work rules, and safety. We need to be making it harder to become an airline pilot, not easier. Do you think its really necessary to go through the amount of training and testing that doctors and lawyers do to practice their professions? No, probably not. But they've established these barriers to entry which makes them worthwhile careers. We need it too. Additionally, making it 1500 hours washes out all those pilots who can't cut it. Sure they might have had 1500+ hours when they crashed, but had they been required to go out and get 1500 before they got their airline job, things would've been different. The only pilots who can get 1500 before an airline job are those who have a lot of real skill, ability, drive, and luck. Those are traits that carry on with you when you're flying an airliner. You don't have to have those to buy your job at 250 hours.


Its not selfish to say that we should fight a fight to make this profession better with the benefit of making it safer for the public at the same time.

 

One thousand hours of airline experience has to be better than a thousand hours of touch and goes in a Cessna 152 in regards to beneficial flight experience for an airline career.

Besides that we have proof that low time pilots are not negatively effecting safety in that most regionals are populated with a good percentage of pilots who were hired during the last boom with next to nothing in regards to experienced and they are not exactly causing a rash of accidents.

Skyhigh

 

Does anyone know when this is supposed to take effect?

Skyhigh

 

It seems to me that all a barrier to entry is going to do is to force new pilots to go to pilot mills and overpriced university programs because they will get a loophole and the airlines will be staffed by the same people who have never been given a chance to even rent a plane as PIC.

Skyhigh

 

Not completely incorrect, but basic assumption is flawed. A thousand hours of airline experience is FAR INFERIOR to a thousand hours flying a C-152 for learning, developing, and practicing basic airmanship. THAT is what was lacking in Colgan (and in other pilots according to former co-workers now redistributed back to the regionals).

It may be a jet, but you still have to have basic skills ingrained - you don't get that in a -121 environment, and you need to have it before you get there.