New ASA minimums
 

Seriously people...somebody's gonna get killed soon if this goes for too long.

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Minimum Requirements:
500 hours total time*
50 hours multi-engine time
Recency of flight experience will be considered
Current FAA Class 1 Medical Certificate
Vision corrected to 20/20
Well groomed and able to maintain a professional appearance
FCC radio license
ATP Written preferred
Successfully pass a drug screen analysis
Legally authorized to work in the United States and have a valid passport
Undergo a criminal history records check through an FBI based fingerprint system
Extensive background and reference check
College preferred, minimum high school diploma or GED

Reduced Minimums for a select few with Advanced Jet Training:
400 hours total time
50 hours multi-engine time

Advanced Jet Training includes:
Level C/D Jet Simulator
Level 5/6 Jet FTD
FMS Training
Glass Cockpit
Crew Resource Management (CRM) Training
Accelerated Jet Ground School

Update on NEW MINIMUMS:

1. 20 TT simulator (actual flight time preferred)
2. pilot's license (or any document that says FAA and your name on it)
3. Education level- reading required (spelling preferred)
4. heart beat (optional)
5. must complete criminal background check (many crimes now permitted)

The public does not care. Every time there is a crash they tend to forget about it fairly quickly. The only group that does not forget is the NTSB and sometimes the FAA.

Update #3 on NEW MINIMUMS

1. Must be willing to pay 5000 for sic type in crj.
2. Current Drivers License
3. PC with internet access, and cell phone.
4. Green card (preferred)
5. Positive attitude (team player highly valued)
6. Ability to sleep in narrow isle way (preferred)
7. Must be able to lift 50lbs.
8. Knowledge of aviation lingo (preferred)

Duties to include:

Sit in right seat to satisfy Federal requirement.
Load/unload baggage
De-ice aircraft
Perform routine maintenance procedures
Fuel aircraft (when operationally required)
Wash/and clean galley
Dump and service lav
Ensure all federal regulations are complied with

Company will provide training on government assistance.
10 company shares of stock to be awarded upon 5 years service with company.

Minimum requirements are subject change with out notice, and are not restrictive. Six year bi-lateral contract required, fifteen thousand dollar early termination fee applies including failure of training on pilot record.

Please tell me what airline crashes that have happened due to having a 500 hour FO?

High time pilots make the same mistakes low time pilots do.(Taking off on wrong runway, landing on taxiway etc,etc...)

experience does count, but we're not going to see airliners falling out of the sky b/c there is someone with 500 hours in the right seat. We had guys fail out of training w/1500 hours at TSA and guys w/500 make it through...

yeah i agree....show me the last airline accident due to a low time fo? Most the people getting hired by asa and many others exceed these requirements anyways. With lowwer MINIMUMS...you get a larger hiring pool to choose from. simple.

oh and these are no where close to new by the way....proves you have been flying on these jets with low time pilots for a while now....OOOOOO NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I dont think a pilots ability is based on how many hours he has flown. It all has to do with the TRAINING he recieved! Almost all airforce(all military) guys(especialy fighter pilots) have very low times, but they are the best pilots in the world. because of the training they recieved.

Military pilots also get screened for aptitude, intelligence, education, health, fitness, and motivation before they attend training. It's also pretty competetive, ie there are more people who actually meet the mins than there are jobs available.

Civilian screening is just an FAA third class medical and a credit check. Civilian training is essentially all the same...if you pay a larger amount of money it doesn't get you much in the end but larger loan payments. Foriegn operators who put 200 hour pilots in 737's have a brutal screening and training process...the license written tests are graduate level, and I think there are FOURTEEN of them :eek: . needless to say it's pretty competetive also.

This is the new reality (for a long while at least)...we'd all better start getting used to it. Next month it will be a new airline reducing its mins, then another. We shouldn't be so surprised at this point if tomorrow someone drops their mins to 500/50. Things change; the market for hiring is changing, it's not 1999 anymore.

There was an american eagle atr crash in san juan in 2004. The FO flying had just completed IOE and it crashed on landing with him as the FP. I can't remember the exact date but it was sometime around July/august of 2004.

The argument there however is that the pilot was new the airplane. Who knows how many hours that pilot had when he was hired. Whether it was 500 or 1500 that pilot was still new to the ATR. I don't know the specifics of that incident, but there were probably still many other factors surrounding that circumstance. If in fact that was proved to be a direct result of flying hours (or lack thereof) then the low hours argument presents some valid points.

it is amazing to see how they are really scraping the bottom of the barrel these days. I wonder if, as the supply of pilot wannabees dwindles, the pay will begin to increase in order to attract people to this now so crappy industry of lowest bidder.

No need to argue with RickAir about military pilots, he's got a serious hard on for them.

However, they are the best. Military and civilian guys don't even compare.

I have heard that military pilots (fighterpilots), have some problems adapting to the 2 crew enviroment handling CRM... Any truth to it?

When I went through my 737 type rating, my partner was an A-10 guy. Initially had a few problems with CRM and with letting the PNF help him out, but after a couple of sims, he was able to adapt quite quickly although I had to interject occasionally to let me help him. I would say, he had a harder time adapting to actually flying the 737. He didn't understand why there were soo many flap settings and had a little problem adapting to the automation and lack of maneuverability.

I'll bet most of the guys complaining about lower minimums are guys who back in the day had to wait till they were 1200/200 before they could apply. I believe that any pilot should know there stuff before moving to a 121, but if some guy has 650/70 and is current and proficient, why shouldn't he be afforded the oppurtunity that he has been working towards? He has to meet the same standards as the 1500/500 guy sitting next to him.

How many crashes have happened because a crew was fatigued? OR do they just call that "pilot error" and therefore there has "never" been any?

Tell you what.. you put your family on the RJ with the 1500CA and the 500FO.. I'll wait for the next one.

Guess you'll be passing up a lot of flights...

For those who think regionals shouldn't hire at 500 total, what should the airlines do right now? Who should they hire to fill the right seat? And what should the magic arbitrary number be where someone has proven that they are capable to fly right seat in a jet?

You must either be a total company man, or naive..

here is an idea: PAY MORE!

If you wana play.. you HAVE TO PAY!

Anyone heard of the word EXPERIENCE?
Yeah the company can train most smart individuals to sit right seat with low time. They can land the plane, etc., but this turns the aircraft into single pilot operation. Even worse the captain has to watch the FO and ensure he/she does nothing wrong. Creating more of a Burdon in some cases than flying the plane by themselves. Can you say fatigue?

I agree well said

Ha, that's funny. Back in the day (a Wednesday btw) people had to fly elsewhere before getting an airline job. 1200/200 would have been considered low time just a couple years ago. I think that the FAA should require the same minimums for 121 operation as they do for 135 guys.

Don't you?

What makes them any different?

The airlines train to a specific standard. Training takes onto account a minimum knowledge of aircraft systems and aircraft maneuvers. Hence a 500 hr pilot may appear to be as qualified as a 20,000 hr pilot in the sim. Throw them out on the line in weather, or send em to Mexico etc, and you will see the difference. Its called experience.

Another issue is these cookie-cutter, herd them through like cattle type of flight schools (pan-am and atp) which don't produce very highly skilled pilots. There is no way someone flying around vfr in an archer under strickly controlled supervision can learn to fully think for themselves. We've had two such instructors work at the school where I have taught for the past couple of years and both have damaged airplane (one was totaled), no one has been hurt (thankfully) but we no longer will employ an instructor if he attended such a school. In my experience they are dangerous and don't have the experience to exercise sound judgement and were never shown it either. The problem will be when that guy then becomes a captain of an airliner with a 300 hour atp graduate in the right seat, who is going to be supervising then? That's probably about the time they take off on the wrong runway....

Still didn't answer my question. What should the regionals do then right now, seeing as some can't even fill classes w/500 hour pilots or less. I'm not saying experience isn't important, b/c it is. However, if 500 to 1000 hours is as qualified as there is right now, what other choice is there.

If the airlines keep lowering the minimums, where is the motivation for new pilots to become instructors and freight pilots to get the kind of experience that should be required to be in the care of peoples' lives. If the minimums were 1500 or 2000 I bet there would the cfi's and freight dogs would be a lot more motivated to hurry up and get what is necessary to be an airline pilot instead of trying to find ways around these experience building positions (again atp), why would they learn more if they could go at 500 hours?

The industry swings this way...right now its 500 min, eventually it will be back to 2000 to get hired. Some of the captains I've flown with who were hired 7 or 8 years ago (late 90s I believe), were hired with six or seven hundred total. But then some of the newer captains that I've flown with that were hired 4 years ago or so were at or above 2000. It will go down, and it will go back up.

the military puts 300 hour pilots in the right seat of 707's, kc-10's, c-17's, and sends guys out by themselves in f16's and a10's with the same low time.

its all about the training. if these advanced jet courses get you ready to fly an RJ, then maybe its not so bad. experience is always important but so is training.

I agree...

experience isn't worth anything without good training to build on, that was my point with the pan am and atp cfi from the earlier post

Someone once said that any pilot applying to a 121 airline should have an ATP to be considered for the job. If the pay were comensurate with that requirement, (and I believe it should be), I would happily forgo an RJ job now and keep instructing and then freightdawg it or whatever until I got an ATP. As it is, I will likely take an hourly paycut to go to my first 121 job.

The thing is, all this hiring means movement at the airlines which leads to the precious PIC turbine time. For me, that is the biggest motivator, not flying a jet just for sake of saying so, especially when Ill make $19/hr to do it vs $22 that I get now to teach. But the market drives the mins as well as the pay. I think most people will agree that its not that difficult to train a Commercial, Multi-rated pilot to fly an RJ. Be that as it may, experience is golden IMHO especially when it comes to flying. But thats why the dude in the left seat is pilot in command and the dude in the right seat is his/her 'assistant'. That said, I have reached 600hrs not too long ago and about 55 multi. You can bet I will be applying now and if a 121 company decides that they like me, then the rest is history!

exactly why I am going to the regionals too, go to the regionals to get to the majors as quick as possible with the best training.

I don't get it.. How did that not answer your question?

Do you think if RJ FO's were paid $35,000/yr to start, and $50K year two... that they'd still have a hard time finding people with more than 1200/200? Doubt it.

they could do what chataqua is doing and give $2500 signing bonuses for erj/crj qualified guys. thats a start

Again, like I said.. if you want to play, you have to pay.

Are you serious? Can you say ummmmm no!

So by fatigue u mean reading magazines and listening to ipods? Or by fatigue do you mean letting the autopilot fly?

If the captain has to "babysit" the FO so much, then its the 1. Airlines 2. Captains fault for lettting that FO still be employed there. If he/she is so unqualified for the position...replace him/her.

There is a captain and an FO for a reason. Its a crew environment.

I for one know of an instance where a CFI went to a regional (thousands of hours and older) thinking he knew everything. He got there....he couldnt hack it in IOE...so they gave him the boot. Simple. When these low time guys start causing some MAJOR problems....then there should be change...until then....let it be

PS...i am not a low time guy