Sullenburger Steps up to the Plate for Pilots
 

Sullenburger apparently did what many desired:

He used the spotlight as an opportunity to increase public awareness of the declining incentives to be a professional pilot.

Below is a link I was directed to from an AOPA email.

Capt. Sully Worried About Airline Industry, CBS Evening News: Flight 1549 Pilot Exclusively Tells Katie Couric His Fear About Future Pilots - CBS News

Great article, Thanks for posting it.

Funny how the ATA had no comment.

It is the truth and we as a profession need to limit people's entry to this job. We can start by not allowing a MPL (Multi-pilot license) to be issued in this country.

But there's a "pilot shortage".

Whats a Multi Pilots license?

AB-Intio type of training, basically rhe final nail in the coffin for airline pilots, that along with Age 65 and cabotoge sp?

start at $37k?? huh, i wish...
good article, tho, thnx

Please excuse my ignorance, but how in the heck is prohibiting people from getting a muti-engine rating going to help the industry? I'm a little confused. How would a pilot gain experience to get on with an airline if they didn't have a multi-engine rating? Am I missing something?

Re-read the thread...

The goal of the ATA, Aircon, etc is this:

Have the largest pool of warm bodies available to sit on the sheepskin. Then you can offer the position at price so low that even if only 10% are willing to take the job you have filled the seats. This is not new, it has been going on for decades. They have just been getting better at it over time.

Current bag of tools in use:

- Create and maintain the perception that there is a pilot shortage

- Create and maintain the perception that pilots get paid a pile of money and work very few hours

- Raise the retirement age ( age 65 )

- Lower the barriers to entry ( MPL )


They are winning, have been winning, and nothing is going to stop or slow them down.

The MPL is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have had to face since flouridation.

Can't wait for all those vietnam era pilots to retire!:rolleyes:

Everyday that goes by, I get a little closer to concluding that military aviation will eventually be the only place that demands any kind of excellence, skill, or work. Any other type of professional flying is becoming a giant shortcut to mediocrity.

Great Artical... Sullly for DOT Secretary !!

Ya... I read the thread... hence the question. I did a Google search. Thanks.

How about head of the FAA? Woerthless will sell us out - again.

This post should be STICKY!!!!!

And when UAV's take over most of the combat ops ... but that's a topic for another thread.

Unmanned tactical aircraft can exist due to the progress in automation and remote technology versus the slower progress in aircraft performance.

It all seems like a race to me...Professional, skilled pilots can only convincingly justify their existence to the public when perceptions exist that automation and remote control technologies aren't sophisticated enough to safely and efficiently manage performance.

I haven't yet flown a day of 121 or 135...but it stings to read the following on a blog about why pilots don't get tipped:

"As a pilot myself, I find it amusing how everyone thinks we make big bucks. People always figure we have hundreds of lives in our hands, both in air and on the ground, but that isn't true. Airline planes have auto-pilot, so the people in the cockpit are really just there to make the passengers feel better. The big jets can fly without pilots, but who would get on a plane being operated by some guy in a dark control room at an undisclosed ground location? Of course, the salary of pilots isn't so bad when you consider the benfits they get. All pilots are compensated fairly for their work, just like everyone else with a job."

Y'all remember that?

It came from this blog:

StraightForward Media Blog Blog Archive Don’t forget to tip your airline pilot!

Originally discussed on APC through this thread:

http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/re...-get-tips.html

I only wish that the good captain's interview today was given more attention than it probably has been.

Ummmmm why?

Sorry, thats classified.
And... why not? It's perfectly true.

I could not agree more. Unfortunately, commercial aviation has lent itself to the notion that, with enough time and money, any rating can be obtained by anyone. I'm not for creating some sort of club of elitists, but rather a corps of professionals who have met demanding, uncompromising standards that not everyone can meet. The Air Force has probably washed out thousands of pilots over the years for landing a T-38 10 knots fast or a couple hundred feet long - and God Bless that. There is no do over, no re-test, and no amount of money can get a guy his wings. I would love to see the FAA take a similar approach to standards. Instead of flooding the market with cheap goods, ala Wal-Mart, our government would be wise to see the return of the American pilot as the gold standard of aviation. Our licenses are a joke to the European and Middle Eastern carriers.

It's good to see that someone who would know what they're talking about can add to my comment. I have to point out that my comment is the perception of a time-building chotch that has neither flown 121 nor been in the military. Time will tell if I'm going to be in a position to back that comment up...that is to say, I'm either going to make it to the service as a pilot and put my money where my mouth is or I'm going to continue to step on my lingham on the forums.

I probably missed it somewhere, but whats the point of the MPL? Whats wrong with getting your commercial multi with an instrument rating, then going to training for the type and all that? You still have to learn the same stuff, you still have to know how to handle an engine out situation.

What you're missing is that the MPL does not mean multi-engine license.

It means multi-pilot license...

It is essentially accelerated training in the sense that it trains new pilots from the ground up only in those skills necessary to operate as part of a two-pilot crew. I don't have much exposure to the entirety of the concept, but I am under the impression that the most basic training is abbreviated enough that a MPL pilot graduate is incompetent and legally unable to fly as a rated solo pilot without further training.

It's feared to be one more step toward making the airline pilot profession into true brain-dead bus driving. I believe the consensus around the hangar is that such training programs will produce a pilot who is drastically inferior in skills, experience, and overall safety.

At the very least it will provide corporate management greater justification to slash incentives...to be honest, having gone through the run-of-the mill GA/college training, I couldn't respect that riff raff.

You say you are not for creating an elitist club yet that's what you're implying. Tons of civilian pilots wash out from their flight schools and even more run out of money, something most military aviators never have to worry about (and I'm totally OK with it).

Even more never even get a chance to interview at a major airline or do it decades after their military counterparts. I know that’s a fact of life and I accept it but to claim that soon only military trained pilots will get “real” pilot training is an overkill. You're obviously very pro-military biased on this subject and that’s why you feel that way.


Really? I bet you are against the ab-initio training and the multi-crew license, aren’t you? Yet many pilots in Europe and in the Middle East were part of the ab-initio training, so which license is a joke again?

Our licenses are a joke abroad. Have you ever seen the requirements for an ATP outside the U.S. The book work is daunting compared to ours. It doesn't mean their pilots are better its just that they have gone through a better vetting process than ours is.

BTW, I'm all for creating an elitist society of aviators that are sought after for employment in this country. That means our standard of living, etc., will rise.

The best way to describe it is by taking a look at China’s aviation. Private pilot training and civil aviation is pretty much non-existent over there. Literally, there’s only a handful private airplanes in the country of 1.3 billion people. That’s very unlikely to change anytime soon.

Yet, their airlines are growing very fast and their military does not have enough retiring pilots to fulfill the needs of the passenger and the cargo airlines.

Multi crew pilot license is a way to by-pass single engine flight training as such flying barely exists there anyways. So basically they go straight from private pilot training to highly advanced airplanes. Their training is actually much longer in those types of airplanes than in let’s say the US but of course they have very little single engine experience.

Also, once they start “flying” for their respective airlines they spend literally years in the “jumpseat” working the radios and learning by observing the captain and the copilot. Several years of this 'observing experience' combined with hundreds of additional hours in simulators will finally get them advanced to the copilot seat. It is a ‘quicker’ way to train their pilots but it’s hardly cheaper for the airlines.

I’m not defending either system just stating that their only options were basically to keep hiring foreign pilots or to speed up the training of their ‘native’ pilots by using the multi crew license.

After all, very few countries in the world have as many civilian trained pilots as the US does.

Someone told me that on one foreign practical they still test for knowledge of celestial nav...not sure if that's true but the rumor alone makes the point.

OK, no problem there - stuck.

Yes I have. In fact, some 10 years ago I went through the expensive process of converting my ATP to an ICAO license myself. …and as a European I’ll say that I totally disagree with you, our licenses are NOT a joke abroad.

You’re right that the book work while converting was daunting but often I also felt like I was being fed some useless information. Who cares about celestial navigation and learning how to calculate sunsets and sunrises anywhere on earth when the flying itself is prohibitively expensive?

In my view the American style training consists of many more actual flying hours while the European trained pilots have more ground school “chair” hours.

In the end both systems work just fine, however to say that our (US) licenses are not as good as the European licenses simply because we don’t have to learn as much garbage as our European counterparts is simply wrong.

In the end, I bet what helped Sully the most was not the countless hours he spent in the class room but the actual flying experience or maybe even his prior glider experience.

That’s my ¼ ¢ or ½ €¢ if you prefer. ;)

Don't you dare call my experience and qualifications "mediocre" or "cheap goods" because I don't have some XXXXXX military pedigree.

I will concede the fact that military pilots receive superior training, but that does not mean they are superior pilots. Being a professional pilot is first and foremost a mindset. You understand you have an enormous responsibility, and you prepare yourself and maintain a level of knowledge and experience that demonstrates that professionalism.

I served in the armed forces on the ground, and have done all my flying on the civilian side. I've circled the globe in heavies more times that I care to remember. I flown for regionals, freight airlines, majors and corporate operators. I've flown pistons, turboprops and jets. I've seen military pilots who couldn't fly their way out of a brown paper bag and crusty old civilian skippers who made Chuck Yeager look like a hack. I've also seen the exact opposite.

Good pilots come from both backgrounds. So do bad ones. That's the way it is. To think otherwise is foolish. If you're a fool, you have no business in this profession.

View from the wrong side of the tracks
 

I for one am glad I live in a country where anyone can become a professional pilot if they display and demonstrate the desire and aptitude required.
The idea of placing needless b.s. in the path for those to come in hopes of raising one's security and financial status really rubs me the wrong way. If you feel that way, take a look at aviation around the world. You basically have to be a fortunate son or daughter, or have some major nepotism going on to get into professional, or even fun flying if you live overseas. The U.S. has the most freedom, yes, even now, for an individual who wants to enter aviation. It should stay that way. Sorry if it means there's a supply and demand problem. If you think that the feds putting up some new iron curtain of standards and knowledge is going to help though, you're wrong. The Airlines would only recruit candidates from zillions of interested applicants, train them to their required standards, and still keep the supply up to keep cost and (your) pay down.
Find another answer rather than limiting the freedoms of those who come after you.

As someone who've seen it on both sides of the pond I agree 100%

I know at least when I get back to Norway and take the ATP(L) over there, it will be about 14 exams in one week, and an exam on morse code before I can get it

I would have liked to have seen the aircraft's autopilot system handle a dual-engine failure. Anyone who thinks that an UAV/Fully Automated Passenger Aircraft could have handled Flight #1549 better then the skill and experience of the flight crew that day needs to have a sit down with one of the passengers who walked away with their lives that day.

This concensus doesn't only hold in hangars. It holds in cockpits too.
Calling people with different attitudes elitists just goes on top of the general opinion that every high school drop out with some cash should have the opportunity to warm the sheepskin. The job is paid accordingly.

OPE....? or was it OEP...? PEO...? NO... Purity Of Essence!!!:D

It is not whether we were raised as military or civilian pilots, the reality is that our current abilities are the sum of our respective experiences! Right place, right time is the only real factor in this industry that affects hiring and upgrade. Apart from the random TMATT question during the interview, there is no place to expound on your experiences. All the airlines care about is that you "meet the minimum". Some may say that they target those above the minimum and have the right references/experience, but we all know that it can often be otherwise.