Originally Posted by CrimsonEclipse (Post 1846017)

Biggest crock of crap that I've seen in months.

Originally Posted by bedrock (Post 1846107)

I hear what JohnBurke is saying, but how many professional industries rely on experienced, professional employees by having them simply meander from job to job, hoping for and conniving ways to get that experience? Does Mercedes-Benz hire mechanics and assemblyline workers this way? Are medical professionals educated and groomed this way? Does the US military find pilots this way?

Originally Posted by bedrock (Post 1846107)

I think these symposiums are right when they say more structure needs to exist in the training pipeline for this career. We have to change the way we think in the US about "dues earning" and "rugged individualism"; this doesn't wash in an increasingly high-tech globally competitive society. In fact, i don't think any first world country has as bad of a directionless education system as the US. I don't know of anywhere else where students are told to just get a degree and then wind up working somewhere totally out of their field.

Originally Posted by bedrock (Post 1846107)

I don't think any first world country has as bad of a directionless education system as the US. I don't know of anywhere else where students are told to just get a degree and then wind up working somewhere totally out of their field.

Originally Posted by JohnBurke (Post 1846118)

Perhaps you simply haven't been there and done that, and therefore, wouldn't know.

Otherwise, you might attempt to contribute to the conversation, if you're able.



I don't know where Mercedez-Benz gets it's mechanics. Where to most auto workers come from? Off the street with little or no training. It doesn't take an extensive education to put the seat in a car all day every day for 20 years. Medical professionals are groomed this way; the medical professional obtains his or her training and his own expense, then seeks work, putting in long hours of residency, and ongoing training for many years to come. Does the military find it's pilots this way? Yes. Pilots compete for the opportunity, and then the taxpayer buys their actual training.

Airlines aren't expected to do that, and the airlines don't work the same way that the military does.



Who owes a prospective pilot candidate anything? If you want to learn to fly, it's all on you.

It has nothing to do with paying your dues. It has to do with entitlement. Nobody is entitled to a career as a pilot. No one is obligated to pump students to an instructor until he's done using the school and moves on with his career.

A student wants to have a career, who owes him or her a dime, or a student, or an hour?

Some airlines around the world pay for all the training for their students. Some students get in far over their head: a typical chinese contract for a chinese student is a 99 year term; the student owes 99 years of his life upon completing training. If the airline doesn't use him as a pilot, he still owes the years, whether it's sweeping hangars or scrubbing toilets. Other airlines have ab initio programs. In the USA, there is no shortage of available, qualified aviator applicants for major airline positions. The regionals struggle more, as they aren't willing to pay much. Never the less, there are ample pilots and there's no need for ab initio training, nor a likelihood to see it develop as a standard practice domestically.

Those who feel the world owes them a living, who feel they're entitled, those are the type that want a pipeline provided to them. When the sun rises, however, in the light of day, the hard cold truth is that nobody owes them anything. Dues? No. Lifting themselves up by their own bootstraps and making their way like an adult? Yes, you bet.

Originally Posted by bedrock (Post 1846161)

OK, you didn't understand anything I stated and instead jumped on a libertarian soap box. Mercedes (at least in Germany) does not hire mechanics off the street, they go through organized and structured training and apprenticeships, the assembly line workers are constantly trained and moved up with experience. Under the "free mkt" (it can't exist, esp. in the airlines for safety reasons), we had 250 hr wet commercial pilots in the right seat of airliners--basically learning on the job at 450 kts with people in the back. There is no way that should happen. Pilots need time to gain experience and more importantly to be PIC. Now, we have the govt. saying 1500 hrs is required, but there is no structured way to achieve it, why should aviation be run like a pirate ship. Right now, the best and most capable aren't necessarily the one's becoming airline pilots, it is the one's with the money. It is a chaotic approach, which is needlessly wasteful.