Can we stop?
 

Complaining and accept the low time pilot thing? This seems like it is a post every other day. Please move on. It is what it is. It has happened before, it is happening right now, and IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN!

Amen to that!!!

Yes, but only because you're a Lewis grad;)

What does that even mean.

I wouldn't mind it so much if seemingly everyone of the 300 hour wonders I've talked to didn't talk down to me because I spent 2 years instructing living off ridiculously low wages "blowing" my money on multi time and they went right into the right seat of a jet. Not saying all of them are this way, but most of them are.

TJS30
In aviation things change fast as you know. Talked to a ret. NWA capt who was hired at age 20, with about 250 hrs as a SO on 727. By the time he was 24 he was a capt on 727. In my opinion i am glad i don’t have to instruct for two year, i feel bad for those who had to. You do learn a lot, but seniority as we all know rules. Those 300hr wonder kids need to keep there mouth shut and try to watch and learn from the older guys

Well..you just started a brand new one to fight on!:D

All I was getting at is this: I know 777 pilots and 250 hour wonder pilots. However, at the end of the day when all is said and done, we are all on the same team. Some of us had to flight instruct for years, others didn't, as the times they are a changin'. We should all be supportive of eachother because our goals are all the same in the end! That is all.

Anybody who gets hired with low time has no business talking down to somebody with more experience - for that matter nobody has any business belittling anybody regardless of background, rank etc.

As for the whole low time argument, I've seen low timers who do an excellent job and I've seen low timers who do not. This is also true with higher timers.

If somebody is hired with low time, successfully completes training and most importantly has a good and safe attitude, I see nothing wrong with it. It is true that a lower time pilot does not have the same level of overall experience that somebody who has flown 1000+ hours in different weather and terrain does. However, after the first few months of flying these low timers will have gained significant experience - in a turbine 121 environment. True, they do not have the PIC experience of being a CFI however with a good learning attitude and good mentoring on the part of the captains they fly with, I believe that the CFI experience is not indispensable. When I say mentoring by the part of the captain, I do not mean basic instruction but more the captain sharing with the FO his/her decision making process, experience and sometimes asking the FO what he/she would do in this or that situation. A good FO, especially a low time FO should be constantly thinking about what he/she would do in a particular scenario.

Times have changed in the US and low time FOs are a reality. The rest of the world (especially Europe) has been putting low time pilots in the right seat for decades and it has worked safely (and no, they are not just gear monkeys). The difference between Europe and the US is the mentoring philosophy on the part of the Captains, the training and also the caliber of the raw product. I do believe that low time pilots should be held to a higher standard when hired i.e. have a certain degree of maturity, education and life experience and have gone through a structured flight training program. I do not believe that low time (or any other 121 pilots) should be hired as young kids straight out of high school with no college degree or equivalent life experience.

In my opinion, provided there is professionalism and a good attitude present in both seats of the cockpit, the well qualified and trained low time FO is perfectly safe.

Yes.. Please stop reminding us of how under experienced we are and how dangerous we could be to the industry. Let's just all move on so that airline management can put us 300 hr pilots in those seats for poverty wages, instead of raising the wages to attract more experienced (read.. safer...) pilots... :D :D ;)

Young kids straight out of high school don't belong in the cockpit?
Well...I'm not straight out of high school, I've been out a few years....am a college student and I'm a low timer....
Are you saying that I don't belong in the cockpit?
If I would do the CFI route for a few hundred hours....are you saying that my decision making skills are miraculously a lot better? Sure, because Mrs. Jones next to me helped me out in that department quite a lot.
The CFI ticket let's you build time and sure you learn a lot. But how much? How much do you learn that would be usefull flying in the airlines? Sure someone with a commercial ticket which all his 400 hours consisted of weekend buzzing shouldn't belong in the cockpit. But someone who comes from a professional flight school.....in which most of the hours are long x/c flights in some of the worst weathers....or how about 200 of those hours come from 135ops? Does that make a difference in being called "low time and in-experienced?"
So you needed 3000hours....Others needed a 0 less.
Becoming a figher pilot now versus becoming one during world war1.....
Do you think that was wrong also?
Would you rather have that young low time pilot sitting next to you or would you rather he finish college in aviation management or something and whoa! He's your boss now ;-) Now who's really getting screwed?

"Can we stop Complaining and accept the low time pilot thing?"

I don't see how. Get used to it. If you're a 300 hour guy it's going to be following you around for a while....

Yes, being a CFI makes you a better pilot. And no, "seniority is not everything", if that comes at the expense of putting a well qualified individual into the right seat. 300 hours doesn't cut it.

We love to complain! Hell, I bet a the most senior guy at SWA, or UPS, or CAL, or any big boy airlines has something to complain about.................were humans, and we are living in the age of "Entitlement" ME, ME, ME. The only complaint I have is that I have 15 days off in a row thanks to trip trading and I dont knowvwhat flavors of Gelato I am going to inhale when I get to Italy on my Free Vacation pass, thanks to CAL, Life isnt all bad, and neither is the job, take the good with the bad, and do the best you can, just because I complain, doesn't mean I don't appreciate what I have, or what I do.........

yes it is ...

Want to solve the problem or just complain about it?

The easiest solution is to petition the FAA to require more hours to get an ATP. 3000? 4000? Who knows? This will force "young" pilots to spend more time in the right seat learning from the Old Heads before they are ready to command the airplane by themselves.

Well said, however, I am willing to bet the airlines would fight a petition like that.

Just requiring an ATP to fly Part 121 would be sufficient in my book.

There is quite a bit be learned operating in the real system... no "professional flight school" is going to provide training that susbstitutes for that. Remember, the "high-end" (ie high priced) flight schools sell you a load of BS in order to justify that $90K student loan.
A private pilot with 1000 hours is usually better than a "professional flight school" graduate with 300. The 1000 hour cfi is even better, someone who has 1000 hours and a 135 checkout on advanced equipment is better still.

No one will argue that the US military has the best flight training program in the world (in part due to their ability to boot out those who don't excel). But the big airlines still require even US military pilots to have 1000+ hours.

There are lot's of folks out there who have more perspective on this than you do...when you have 2000 hours you'll know what I'm talking about.

There is no substitute for experience. You learn things on your own that no one can show you. You will have some sticky situations come up in "real world" flying that can't be shown to you at a pilot factory. 500 hrs is better than 300, 1000 is better than 500 and 2000 is better than a 1000. The point is that you learn everytime you fly. When you have a thousand hours, you will probably look back at how rough your skills were at 300. Teaching, cargo, part 91 corporate, charter; all of these will offer diverse experience that is impossible to recreate in the training environment. Its also fun to fly this type of stuff. I flew a 310 and a malibu for a local doctor while I was in college and he had vacation houses in mexico, belize and roatan, honduras. Flying to those places was a blast as well excellent experience (non-radar, bad weather, no nexrad, only metars and tafs, and poor comms). The quick finish flight school environment is too restrictive to allow you to gain the valueable experience making tough decisions that are necessary to safely operate an aircraft in an all weather environment as the pilot in command.

Aren't these 300 hour wonder kids shooting themselves in the foot when it comes time get that ATP? Seems you would be a little short on the PIC requirements... Besides, if you get hired at XYZ airlines when you are 19 or 20, you're stuck riding shotgun until you're at least 23 ANYWAY. Or are there ways around those requirements?

I agree
 

Thanks for that one!:)

The thing that isn't realized by these LTPs (Low time pilots) is that the airlines are getting away with not paying real wages to these guys/gals for years to come. If the rules changed to prevent this low experience level these pilots would economically benefit for years as a regional FO just from a year or so of being an instructor or building time some otherway.

Getting that RJ job at 300 hours is shortsighted overall by pilots; managment knows what they are doing and we have our blinders on.

Good luck making real money in this profession in the future! I was looking at NWA pay scales and a 747-400 captain makes 15 bucks an hour less than in 1991 when I started looking into flying.

FAA waivers!
 

Can you believe that the FAA waivers the PIC requirements for these kids! I've seen a letter from the FAA waiving the PIC time for a regional it's on my desk at home because it is so unbeliveable! The FAA is bought and paid for!:mad:

Aww...now ya'll have something new to bash about :D

So, we get called LTP's now, euh?:rolleyes:

C'mon NOW! What would Flightinfo and AirlinePilotCentral be without all the "Mesa Sucks", Low time cocky PFTers bashing, and how ASA still has no contract threads...it would be pretty boring. ;)

This is APC...not flightinfo :D

apples and oranges.

300 hr pro flight school student vs. 300hr part 61 is a better comparison.

HaHa on both sites right now and had to fix that...

you wouldn't know. iow, you must have went to one of those secular schools