and it all comes out... you wanted to work at pinnacle but they didn't hire you... i knew there was a reason for all your talk.. "I heard it from a checkairman" please man, you have been exposed for the fool you are.. good day!

 

haha never heard that one, what a random incident

 

This bickering is very entertaining. It appears that we have a problem with perception (bias). Lets take a lesson in Logic.

Pilot A was trained in the military.
Pilot B was trained in the civilian world.
Therefore Pilot A is superior to Pilot B.

This perception is reality for many pilots.

The fact is, military training is intense and time restricted. It requires a strong work ethic and total devotion from the applicant.

The civilain world allows the applicant to progress thorugh the aviation certification program at their own pace.

Due to these differences, many pilots believe that a military pilot is better than a civilian pilot. Just a perception(bias).

I have had the opportunity to fly with all types. Men, women, black, white, hispanic, ect...... One thing I have found is that background, ethnicity, race, ect..... do not define the pilots skills nor do they define a professional. In many peoples perception(bias) these factors do.

Experince is invaluable, but without the "professional attitude" experience is means nothing. This applies to military and civilian alike.

All my meaningless babble above is only something I hope will allow you two to come to an understanding.

Flaps50, dont forget that when you first jumped into the military program, you had little if any flight time. If you were a rare breed, you may have entered the program with some time but I am going to make an assuption that you didn't.(I can hear my fathers words echoing "your making an a$$ out of you and me). You were trained quickly with few hours and put into a high perfromance airplane with low time, lets say 200 hours. You were to carry around troops, million dollar cargo, weapons, ect..... You were put into a relatively important position with low time. See the connection.
Lets also not forget the hull losses at Big purple. If we carried people, we would be out of business a long time ago.

Airsupport, I can undertand you getting upset. Nobody likes it when someone rains on you parade. The facts are that Pinnacle has had its errors in the past, and passenger airlines are targets. If you ask me, I am pretty proud of the safety record given the fact that Pinnalce puts low time pilots into the right seat and trains them to fly 1000 hours a year, sometimes 6-7 legs a day with a 8 hour reduced rest overnight(slow van gets you 5 hours in the bed). The fact that these pilots have only made the few mistakes they have is a testiment to the superior training or metoring that is being passed down by the Pinnalce Capts, LCA's, Sim instructors, ect....

I hope you both can come to an agreement that in a perfect world, all pilots would have tons of experience and would never make mistakes and would be fine upstanding citizens. Well, this is not a perfect world. The economy drives the airline and smaller profits drive airlines to take drastic measures. Many main line pilots are being raped by their companies(pay cuts, pension cancelations, dwindiling work rules, ect...) These problems are not lthe creations of low time pilots.

I am tired of typing and I imagine anybody who made it this far is saying this guy has to much time on his hands. Actually, I sitting with my preganant wife, and she is watching a pregnancy show.

And just to give some good info, the recent Pinnalce incident occured with an experienced Capt., and an FO with around 2200 hours.

 

wake up? you seem to be the one away from reality.........man you really need to look at the way you say things and not make up so much...............

I do not know for sure if Pinnacle hires 200 hour pilots (I think the requirement for commercial multi engine instrument pilot is much more than 200 hours at least it was last I saw it) and if they have hired low time pilots (with way more than 200 hours) it may be because these pilots have been trained in a program that includes the aircraft type and it is a valuated program from a highly respected intitution. Those pilots are usually recomended by those places and are usually very talented. I have flown with high time pilots that did not know their stuff very well to put it nicely and I have known many young pilots with relative low time that have been very professional in their way of relating to aviation. The worst example of a pilot that I have flown with was one with over 30000 hours. How he managed to stay alive during all those hours is for me impossible to understand. I know one thing for sure and that is that Pinnacle as all other regionals needs pilots that can upgrade fast to Captain and Pinnacle have among the highest requirements for Captains 3500 TT or 3000 if 500 in type at the company so they would love to hire any decent pilot with the highest experience possible. Saying that they hire low time pilots and ignore pilots with a lot of experience is not the reality of things. Captains is what the Regionals need the most and when they hire a low time pilot they know that it will take 2 to 4 years for that pilot to qualify in TT for a Captain position and during those years a lot of Captains moves on to other jobs so hiring low time pilots is not the best for the Regionals at all.

I am almost sure that If you only have around 300 hours with almost no multi time took your licence in a "regular" flight school that was not a University and have not been recomended by an institution that has given you training in CL65 you will have a hard time getting an invitation for interview. Pinnacle and other regionals are not lowering their minimums because they do not want to pay good salaries. They are all lowering the mins because there are almost no experience pilots left to find out there.

 

I wake up in the morning and p*ss excellence.

 

Can you state anything that is a FACT? Or is every you got HEAR SAY? " I heard, I heard, I heard". Either your #1. Very gulliable. #2. A woman. #3. A gossip.

 

Flaps50- Be careful where you throw the rocks. Your carrier has one of the worst safety records, if not the worst safety record of any carrier in the country. It's become no surprise to look on the news and see a purple tail off a runway with smoke coming from it. I shudder every time I watch you guys put down an MD-10 or 11... 3....2....1... IMPACT.


...it's amazing the exaggerated stories you guys believe about Pinnacle. The Level 5 penetration story was one of the worst case scenarios you could imagine. It was an MSP-ORF flight. Weather(thunderstorms) closed off their routing, so they diverted. Weather then closed in on their alternate and shut it down... Plan C... again fubar'd by developing storms. They finally were almost out of fuel and were prepping for ditching. They went through a thunderstorm (I dont know if it was level 5 or not, just a thunderstorm- the plane took some hail damage) to get to an airport they could land at. There's your story.


Sure there are some yo-yo's over there at my former employer- there are at every carrier.

 

When I first started reading Flaps 50 rant, I just thought he was an ignorant person. But now I see, he has an alterior motive. The facts are 2007 Pinnacle is vastly different than 1990s Pinnacle, as with Mesaba. Every company has rocky points in their history including Pinnacle, Mesaba and Big Purple.

I have worked for four airlines, CommutAir, ExpressJet, Pinnacle, and United. And my wife has worked for two. Every airline is the same. A lot of gossip and stories that would make your head spin. I have several close friends that fly for Mesaba, and I really believe that it is a "Great" place to work. But those same guys have told me just as many crazy stories about XJ as I have heard at at C5, 9E, XJT, and UA.

It seems some places have ingrown hatred towards others. My peeps at Mesaba say that overall Mesaba pilots have a lot of respect toward Pinnacle pilots. And I know for a fact that 9E pilots do respect their XJ breathern. We consider each other part of one family. Flaps 50 you are in your own boat, by yourself...shooting holes in the bottom.

When I was at ExpressJet the mentally (with younger pilots) was to hate CommutAir and CHQ for stealing our flying, and that we were special because we flew for only one airline and did not fly props. The cool older captains were quick to remind these guys that ExpressJet started by flying Props and stole other peoples flying to get where they were. Now ExpressJet is bidding for everyones flying, and even landed some Delta work. Still a lot of XJT pilots "hate" CommutAir and CHQ none the less, and rip them for no reason all over this forum. Exactly the same thing you are doing with 9E.

Your hatred toward 9E has cause you to have selective hearing of 9E's negatives. And you need to make the deep past, exactly that, deep past.

As for your continued "low time" hiring argument about 9E...that just shows complete ignorance. The facts are ExpressJet has ALWAYS been hiring lower time pilots than 9E, and no one rips them for that. Mesaba currently is hiring anyone that can breathe (even if they bring their own oxygen bottle). Should we look down upon this? No way. Supply and demand dictates this. This does not make ExpressJet and Mesaba worse than 9E because they hire lower time pilots.

The average hours in the last couple of classes at 9E has been around 1500TT, a much higher average than ExpressJet and Mesaba. When I was at ExpressJet, they had classes that did not have anyone over 1000 hours, and yes even though their mins say 600 TT, they have several people hired at much lower than 600 hours flying for them; doing a great job.

The biggest problem with this forum is people (like Flaps 50) who just type with angst, not calm, openminded, subjective, accurate information intended to help "everyone" in this wonderful industry.

 

And also, Flaps 50, almost all of Pinnacles supposed poor training department is former Fed Ex Captains. So your calling out Pinnacle's training is just as good as calling out your own airlines.

 

Sorry to butt in to this great argument but do any of you guys think this will stop mgmt from lowering the upgrade times?