You say this like it's a bad thing.

Being a mentor to these young, fresh-faced co-pilots will be a thankless, yet entirely worthwhile, endevour. The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

That is truly and completely priceless.

Well I would hope they did not have three. Under the British system a F/O has TWO stripes. Only a Senior F/O has three.;)

Alright, I’ll be serious for a second; well as serious as 19 exclamation marks warrants.

The underlying issue is you had a plane crash in Buffalo. Something needed to be done about these under qualified regional pilots hired at initially people said 800, then 600, then 500 then 400, then 300, then 250 (the min to get a commercial under Part 61) and when that wasn’t good enough it was rumored all of them were hired at 190 (the min for a commercial under Part 141).

An ATP would be the 'ticket', it requires 1500 hours. They’d now all have to earn that 1500 hours prior to getting an airline job like pilots used to back in the day, when there were no minimums.

All well and good but here are my 3 issues and why I will always ridicule the 1500 hours as arbitrary and nugatory:

FirstSecond LastlySO, be as arbitrary as you want on entry barriers but if you don't address the ATP issue, the experience issue and the FAA issue all of this is not safety oriented, it's just arbitrary and the lowest common denominator will continue to earn their ATPs and ATPs will continue to crash airplanes.

Now yall have a blessed day, especially those flying with Jughead because he is going to rock your world.


..

Well between around 1966-1968 ALL the US Majors hired with just a Comm/Instrument with most having less than 500 hrs tt. UAL would hire zero time people if they had a 4 year degree, and their military obligation complete. TWA's requirements were a bit tougher, the required a Private certificate.

If a pilot had over 1000 hrs without an airline job it was normally cause by either being too young under age 20, or too old over age 28-32, subject to the draft, or they wore glasses, or female.

How much experience do you think the present Administrator of the FAA had when he was hired at EAL? My guess would be around 200 hours.

Also, those MPL holders in the photo look so young because in the UK, it is less common for airline pilots to go to university.

One of the horrors of the MPL is that it many cases, it is a hidden form of Pay to Fly. The airline ¨pays¨ for some of the training, but you actually are ¨bonded¨ to the airlines, which means they deduct the amount that they paid from your pay every month, and until you pay it all back over the course of 5 years, you are owned by the airline. It varies by airline, I think the latest iteration of the Flybe program didn´t require the airline´s investment paid back unless the trainee left the airline before 36 months of employment.

Also, there is no risk to the airline, since if the trainee pays the money upfront, and the MPL is only specific to each airline. So if the airline changes their mind, the student ¨pilot¨ is stuck paying extra money out of their own pocket to try to get a real CPL.

I read an article awhile back supporting the MPL, one of their arguments was that ¨pilot training has been virtually unchanged for decades¨ and that a revamp was in order, however I don´t see what is wrong with the tried and true method.

Airmanship is all ready going the way of the dodo in commercial and airline flying, with the heavy reliance on autopilot and FMS to do all the "flying". This is WITH pilots who have all ready spent a chunk of time building great airmanship with dues paid in all the typical spots...CFI, banners, single pilot freight, etc....and it has to atrophy like mad when it rarely gets used.

I can only imagine how far down the toilet it will go when you introduce "pilots" who have NEVER built that airmanship. *** will they do when they're faced with another United 232 type situation? Hint: I bet it won't involve using kick-ass airmanship and CRM to save lives.

Out of curiousity, how many of you have every had the opportunity to actually work with or see one of these candidates (or any young European aviator) in action?

I recently had the opportunity to work with a german pilot while completing an initial CL604 type rating at Flight Safety. He was 23 years old and had 670 hrs total time. Of that 460 hours was in an Astra SPX, the other time spent flying in a C172 and Seminole. Out of all the people that I have "flown" with in a simulator, he was one of the sharpest and most skilled. Great procedural and situational awareness and a VERY high level of discipline, but also a good awareness of what his limitations were with his level of experience. Needless to say he passed his training and JAA type ride with no problems.

Are there some limits to putting low time/low experience pilots on the flight deck? Definitely. But as somebody who had his first flight in the right seat of a jet at 660 hrs, I can say that it can be done successfully and safely provided that appropriate considerations are taken, especially when considering candidates for upgrade.

Where you get into trouble is when you have a US model where low time pilots are hired into transport category aircraft with low time and then upgrade in a short time frame without building the requisite experience and leadership to be the PIC. The Colgan crash is a perfect example.

I would much rather see the FAA address the issue of low experience upgrades here in the US than impose a "minimum" requirement to get in the door. Something like "121 PIC's must have 3000TT, of which 1000 hours are completed in part 121 operations, and at least 18 months of line experience at the company at which they are upgrading..."

As someone who has sat in the right seat of a jet with 200 hours of jet time and a total of 200 hours I can tell you I was not prepared for Part 121 ops. As someone who has instructed numerous inexperienced folks out of pilot training who were the best and brightest the Air Force had to offer I can say they were not prepared for Part 121 ops as well. This policy is asking for trouble, will increase mishap rates, and will result in the Captain being a "single-seat" crewmember.

FTB,

MAJOR difference here. When you go to ticket mill USA to get your ATP you have to have the skills and required experience to take the test. We should all know what those minimums are 1500 TT, 500 X-C, 100 night time ETC ETC..

So NO you can not go from "knowing nothing" to being a bona fide ATP in two days. You can go from having all the required experience and skills which were learned over the course of several years of flying PIC and actually shooting approaches in real life airplanes that can kill you and bumping around in turbulence and having to deal with real life mechanical problems in real time which prepares you to go and take your ATP during a two day course.

FJ,

I haven't flown with one of "these" types and neither have you unless you are flying for a foreign 121 carrier in long haul operations.

NOPE these guys are under a different program they are NOT Ab Initio PILOTS they are MCPL (Multi Crew Pilots License) or MPL cadets who can NEVER fly as PIC of an airplane. They can not take off or land they are basically radio operators and check list readers. They can't "upgrade" as they aren't licensed pilots.