TheBills

But what evidence do you have? Statistically hot rod wannabe is right. I have flown with some pretty bad pilots that have many hours. I personally think its a matter of whether you have the brains and logic to do the job or you dont, and that is easy to spot sometimes. Obviously nobody decided to point it out with colgan and renslows's training (being that he failed multiple checkrides), god bless him though. The ATP requirement wont change accident statistics.

767pilot

That is exactly what I was thinking. They just learned more about aviation in a day than you can learn in a four year institution

sqwkvfr

Simple.

The integrated program (zero to hero stuff) was set up in the regulations in order for European airlines to hire, train and move pilots quickly into the right seat. The time was that BA or other airlines would put an ad in the paper looking for pilots. Thousands of people would apply, and after several steps in screening and a rigorous set of assessments, the very few who were chosen were sent to one of that carrier's contract FTOs.

Ground school and flight training was given by mostly retired airline guys or former RAF fliers. Very top notch stuff. Standards and standardization were of the highest order. If a student showed up late for flights or wasn't cutting the mustard in any way, someone from his sponsor airline would be down to interview this cadet and explain that there were thousands of people who would do anything to take his place.

Cadets would rarely fall out of line....if they did, they were gone.

9-11-2001 put an end to the sponsorship programs at most airlines but the integrated program still lives on. The difference is that the assessments are now simply potential "customers" who show up, listen to a sales pitch, and pass what I believe to be increasingly token tests. It seems these days that the only entrance requirements are that the applicant qualify for the huge loan required to attend the course. The quality of students in EASA/JAA integrated programs has dramatically decreased.

Also, one very large FTO has a sort of money-back guarantee that lets the student have a portion of his money refunded should he/she not pass his/her CPL skills test. Should the student wash out AFTER passing the skills test, he/she is still on the hook for the entire amount....like I said earlier, almost $100K.

Guess how many students wash out before earning their CPL in a business that is seeing extreme budget pressure from their parent corporation (a private equity firm that purchased the company back when times were good and had hoped to take it public by now, thus tripling or more their investment, but are now stuck with this turkey for the foreseeable future.)? Also, as a result of these paying customers becoming more scarce, formerly intolerable acts or behavior are now largely ignored, and corrective actions taken by instructors are oftentimes met with disciplinary action for said instructors.

Remember those top-notch former RAF guys? Replaced with FAA instructors with limited IP authorizations, poor JAA training and absolutely NO standardization.

I think that this is a recipe for disaster....it hurts the industry, the students, and the airlines that hire these poor saps. The only thing that makes this whole system work is that the upgrade time at most EU airlines is very long and hopefully these kids will learn a little something before they find themselves in charge. However, there is an incident from a few years back with RyanAir where a captain either keeled over became incapacitated for some reason...and guess who that left in charge? That's right!, a 300 integrated program grad that didn't have a clue what to do.

I guess it really wasn't that simple.

Cycle Pilot

ValueJet crashed because of lack of crew coordination? What the heck are you talking about? Maybe you should take an aviation safety class, and study up on some past accidents.

Cycle Pilot

You are exactly right, my friend. There is a HUGE amount of good solid foundation flying experience gained from quality flight instructing. Command ability being one of those traits. It's very difficult to build that foundation when you're flipping switches in the right seat with somebody else making all the decisions in a very sterile setting such as an airliner.

TheBills

I disagree here. I think basically no matter what background you come from, when you get to the 121 world, everything you have learned goes out the window, except the basic flying skills. Just cause you have been around the pattern 900 times doesn't mean you are gonna be that much better off. Same goes for the 300 hour pilot. All of the decision making skills must be relearned to accommodate 121 style thinking no matter what your background. Not only that your going from 80kts to 170kts or 250kts, it just doesn't compare, it takes relearning. Of course we all are all gonna be bias in our thinking here, cause were pilots and we all believe we did it the right way. MAPD was a good program at one point, crap company, but good training.

detpilot

It's funny how everyone who berates the value of "Burning 1500 hours in the traffic pattern" didn't actually put in the time to do it. 1300 hours of piston time, of which about 8-900 was dual given, and I learn something on EVERY flight. If you think ANY instructor spent all of his time in the traffic pattern, think again. Try instrument cross countries to TEB, trying to keep a mooney pilot from killing you both, while not shock cooling his engine- to doing power off 180's and perfecting energy management- to perfecting your methods to teach a non-pilot the art of a soft field landing. I've gained so much from CFI'ing that I can look back almost every month in awe of how much I didn't know the previous month. Don't knock it till you've done it- I've done a couple of different types of "time building" jobs (Divers, right seat charters, NO PFT!), and I can honestly say that I've got the most from instructing. That's gotta be worth something...

As said previously- Does 1500 hours make a better pilot? Maybe. Does it make a more experienced one? You bet! Will a random group of 1500 hour atp's in general outperform a random group of 300 hour wonders in real world situations? I know who I'm putting my money on...

detpilot

With all due respect, WHAT decision making skills does a 300 hour pilot really have? You gain the ability to make decisions by making them. How much time, realistically, does a 300 hour pilot have without an instructor on board? How many times has he had to make a go-no go decision with NO ONE looking over his shoulder, with NO ONE having the ability to say- "Nope, you can't go."

I'm not knocking low time pilots, because I was (and still consider myself) one... but you must have been a hell of a lot better at 300 hours than I was.

Again- not trying to flame you, and I agree that you will have to relearn your decision making skills for 121. But to relearn them, you have to have something to build on. And, you have to have real world experiences to fall back on when your FOM doesn't have a page to cover the situation you're dealing with.

boeingt7

detpilot: I agree 100% with your post.
I remember someone else had posted an old saying, "to teach is to learn twice."
I also remember everyday either learning something new/different or emphasizing things that I had already knew when I taught students and I easily would say I have 10 times the amount of knowledge now as I did when I received a fresh commercial license.

SkiBum112

I'm curious detpilot, what 121 experience are you drawing from. How do we know you won't freeze up when you hit the line? I'm not knocking either route, I just feel you are hard stanced about a group of people you honestly know nothing about.