Your right, I try not to take this forum to seriously. After all, there are more pleasant and satisfying things to do with your time. It can be fun at times I have to admit.

 

Quote: "If you've got 400 hours or so of experience and 11,000 hours of FE time, you're a 400 hour pilot, and shouldn't express frustration at an inability to progress in that position."

While true, it's just rediculous the way that sounds. No credit, even partial, toward flight time while pilots all over the world are logging block time while sleeping in the back, performing bodily functions and chatting with passengers and cabin crew.

When a certain 727 for a major airline was lined up for the wrong airport, it was the FE who pointed it out to the captain. Unfortunately for that FE, and many like him, that flight experience and a multitude of others like it, never happened.

 

You could have stopped at "true."

A flight engineer is not a pilot. What pilots log is irrelevant; regulations cover that, and a pilot is entitled to log pilot time.

A 25,000 hour engineer who is not a pilot and who has not been engaging in pilot activities is not a pilot, period. Make that engineer a pilot, give him or her 400 hours as pilot, and you have a 400 hour pilot. Pure and simple.

A scrub nurse may have attended hundreds of surgeries. That doesn't make him or her a surgeon.

A legal clerk may have spent thousands of hours clerking, but that doesn't make him or her a trial lawyer.

Imagine that. A crew member doing his or her job. I know a flight medic with no FAA certification at all that prevented an air ambulance captain from flying them into the ground one night during a black hole approach. That didn't make him a pilot, either. It did mean he got to live to go do it again.

You make a great tragedy of the FE who isn't a pilot. If the FE wanted to be a pilot, he should have made the sacrifices necessary to have a piloting career. I did. Perhaps you did. Tens of thousands of others did.

When I hear someone say "I wish I could do what you do," my response is "you can." Nobody hands out aviation careers on a silver platter. They tend to be hard earned. I'm a flight engineer myself...one of many FAA certificates. However, one ought to walk before one runs, and if an engineer wants to log a few hours of pilot time and use that to springboard from the FE seat into a career as pilot, he or she really needs to sock up the experience necessary to qualify for the job...and that's more than a few hours tripping around the pattern at the local grass airstrip.

 

John

You might come off the high horse for a moment. After the FEIA strike of 1962, a lot of those F/Es went ahead got CPLs, came on the Line as F/Os and flew thru their careers. They had an adjusted DOH and were pretty senior at EAL. I flew as a S/O with maybe a dozen of them. Most were pretty good, too. When AA bought Trans Carib, the TCA navigators became pilots at AA, after traing and getting their CPL.

I had a pilot on C-5s who had been a mechanic, loadmaster, engineer and pilot on them. Now at DL.
GF

 

High horse? You mean the part where one tells a flight engineer that a flight engineer isn't a pilot?

A flight engineer isn't a pilot.

You mean the part where a pilot tells a flight engineer that a flight engineer isn't a pilot?

I'm also a flight engineer. Is one on a high horse when speaking as a flight engineer? How about as a pilot? How about as a mechanic? I'm one of those, too. High horse might be someone who had no clue about those things, looking down, speaking opinion. But not someone who has been there, done that, continues to do that, and who is speaking in fact.

The fact is that insofar as the FAA is concerned, a flight engineer is not a pilot. The FAA very generously provides some credit for flight engineer experience toward the ATP, but if one wishes to log pilot time, one must be a pilot, acting as a pilot. Not as an engineer.

I've known pilots who rushed into an airline seat too quickly, and couldn't upgrade for lack of experience (no PIC time). In some cases they had to take a leave of absence or quit to go get the experience they needed. The FE is often in the same boat. A dying breed and a vanishing cockpit position, the FE finds himself well into a career and nowhere to go. The FE can find work as a pilot, but only if he or she has pilot experience. A 25,000 hour FE with 400 hours of flying as pilot is not a 25,400 hour pilot. He is a 400 hour pilot with a lot of non-pilot experience.

Among pilots this plays out, too. One can be an experienced pilot, but lacking a type rating, or time in type, one may not be hirable for a given position. This should come as no surprise. One must be qualified for the job.

Experience as a flight engineer is not qualification for the job of pilot. Experience as a crop duster isn't qualification to be a fighter pilot. Experience as an airline pilot isn't qualification to be a crop duster. A successful career flying corporate doesn't mean one can expect a role as an aerobatic airshow pilot.

I've been a captain on 3 crewmember cockpits. I understand an appreciate the vital role of the FE. I appreciate it as I've been and am a FE. Nobody knows the aircraft systems as well as the FE. Nobody knows the procedures as well as the FE. Never the less, a FE is not a pilot. If an individual wishes to have a career a pilot, that individual isn't advancing himself as a pilot by spending years as a flight engineer. He is gaining valuable experience, but a 25,000 hour FE with 400 hours of flight time is a 400 hour pilot, period, end of story.

 

Aviation; It is not a stable and equitable career or path to financial independence but a way of life, so is drug addiction.

Perfection, I think we have nailed it. I wanted a job, a valued and respected career that provided an ample return on my investment so that I could support a happy family life and aviation is not it.


Skyhigh

 

It didn't work out for you, but it has for many others. Be a man, get over it, and stop complaining like a schoolgirl.

 

You've told us ad nauseum what you wanted. You wanted to be James Bond. You wanted to live like a king. You wanted it all, so you got out of aviation after 20 years of abject failure and are preaching to the masses about the tragedy of your own failing and your perception of the wisdom of your decision.

How's it working out for you, your majesty (or shall we call you Mister Bond)?

 

For you. Seriously Sky, the message has been read a thousand times and I believe you have piled the B.S. about as high as it can go. Your a "one trick" pony, we get it. Do you?

 

Wow! I guess I stirred up a nest of hornets. Been away from the board for a while, out flying a C-150 around in circles. I found that I can count 100 hours of my sim time, so that gets me closer to the majic number. I'm not sure what good its going to do me. Once I get my ATP, I'm still going to be short of the experience requirements almost all jobs require, but I'll be that much closer.

My attitude has evolved a bit. I'm no longer disgusted with the whole industry, just my crappy corner view of it.

I had a tremendous opportunity, took advantage of it and got to fly the DC-8 and 767 for about 400 hours. You all are correct in that as a former PFE, I don't get to count anything over 500 hours of that time toward my pilot experience. I don't expect to. I'm not a 400 hour pilot, I'm a 900 + pilot, just trying to find a way to get someone beside myself to pay for some of that time. I'll keep plugging away at it, while I'm working on the gas pipeline.

My disgust is now focused on the airline (mis) management that furloughed me, then added 70 more above me before adding a merger and ISL on top of that.

I was encouraged by a friend who told me, "Don't let those *******ers win," but I gotta tell you, I kind of like being home.