cschmidt88

SaltyDog, I understand EglCL65's frustration. I have worked at multiple airlines and for the last 4 years I have been sitting left seat to a lot of "accelerated training school" pilots. I will start off by saying that there are still a great number of intelligent, qualified, and most of all professional pilots out there of all hours. I learned early on that hours are no measure of a pilot; do you have 1000 hours or 1 hour a thousand times? What is your experience really worth? What is/was your training really worth? How many people are professional enough to study their memory items and profiles/flows every time they go to work? SaltyDog, I believe the question isn't whether EglCL65 has the skill or patients to teach but rather what are the quality of his 'students'? Your foreign military students were there for a purpose, your training and professionalism has molded you and a great many others like you into a person who is proud of who/what he is. Someone who has nothing vested in this career and goes from 0 hours to left seat in an RJ with 250 hours or less in under 6 months has just that... 6 monts invested. What about the college kids who feel "entitled" to a jet job? One of the biggest frustrations that I have delt with are the kids who walk thru the terminal carrying a backpack, listening to an ipod, wearing sunglasses inside at night... and saying "why do I need to study/pay attention? That is what the CA is for." In order for CRM to exist there is one critical factor that must be present... the crew.
Now there are a great many new and young professionals out there today... but I feel for those of us who have watched our profession be degraded (in many different ways) by those who lack the professionalism to stand up and act like that: A Professional. The regionals are no longer "airlines"... rather they have been transformed into training academys with live pax onboard and larger aircraft. Those students who would have normally washed out in military/university environments have the ability to jump into the job these days... and from there it is their Captains job to attempt to mentor them and help mold them into the future of our profession. But again the biggest problem I have seen and the question that I leave you with is this: How do you teach one who is not willing to learn?

ghilis101

i dont think any pilot goes to work saying, "i hope i dont learn anything today." we are always learning regardless of our experience levels. sometimes its easy to get frustrated when you watch someone screw up something that in your mind is extremely easy. i think everyone remembers screwing up an approach into somewhere. ive had to, on a number of occassions, correct captains for trying to line up on the wrong runway. similarly, ive almost tried to kill our crew going into airports with parallel runways i blew through final. did we WANT to make this mistakes? of course not. did we learn from these mistakes and are we going to do a much better job next time? you bet your sweet bottom we will! And thats the learning process.

New students on IOE are not in the best position to instantly become rockstar pilots. they need to learn, and usually thats by watching a good competent captain, and getting VALUABLE instruction, like when to start decending, techniques for getting down, slowing down, configuring, and VISUAL approaches. FO's will not come out of the sim ready to make your eyes water with their impressive performance if they dont have previous 121 time.

Be patient with your students and if youre losing patience, I recommend you call your crew scheduling and ask to not do any IOE for at least a month because youre probably burned out.


1000th post woohoo im a loser!

SaltyDog

cschmidt88,
I see the frustration also, but also the frustration of a new crew member as well. I see both sides to this thorny equation. <g> The school house beats it into all our heads set procedures, mostly the ones rarely encountered in routine line flying except we fly ILS/LOC/VOR/NDB/GPS/approaches until the nose is bleeding. Visuals?? Our company gives a new crewmember exactly one (1) Line Oriented Flight Training (LOFT) simulator. Learn visuals in the field. It cost too much to train them in a simulator. On our sims the wx is rarely better than 200 and 1/2. Repetition puts a new crews head inside. Not saying it is right, but that is what we have trained. Since all our companies are similiar WRT the FAA approval process, etc. and the business is similiar, the training is similiar. I did not interpret the posting as one of crews not willing to learn and responded accordingly. We agree on many points, but to answer your question directly, if a person truly does not want to learn, they will not make it after the first recurrent if they make it that far. I will quit teaching said individual, tell them to change careers before they kill me (cause it boils down to that) and leave written documentation indicating factually the errors the crewmember made. I truly believe that it is more often a challenge in our position to find the light that makes the 'new one' see if they are looking. After 18 years of instructing in addition to flying the line of mil/airline 121, flying 135, etc., people may be fatigued, overloaded, confused and it may be mistaken for someone not willing to learn. Additionally, when I fly with a new F/O, given a certain setup, I can pick out which OE instructor gave him/her the technique (not always positive either) Whole other topic, but reason standardization is vital. This business requires teamwork and those who do not want to learn will not survive. Nature of our profession.

On Autopilot

EglCl65, I thought you were one of the interviewers at Eagle. Are you still doing that?

HercDriver130

all good responses to an operational OE CA, but I have to echo the sentiment salty and the guys... find the spark needed to teach these guys. My first question would be is there a similarity in the backgrounds of these guys, no dig here, but it can be quite a jump from a twin barron to any of the RJs. It is one thing I will say the military USE to do right as I have no idea whether they still do extensive training in the aircraft now, but when I went thru Herc school as a Copilot you did 5 sims and 4...5 hours flights spliting time before your checkride. Plently of EPs, instrument work and visual approach work. Later when I flew at AE it was all in the sim except your PC check which was in the aircraft (ATR) and you at least got a feel for the aircraft before your OE even if it was a checkride. I know cost constraints dont allow for this type of training anymore but it would be nice.

I blame the system, certainly there are some that are just not ready REGARDLESS of their background or experience. THAT said also it is still formal training and if they are not cutting the mustard you are doing no one a favor by letting it go on with the thought it will get better... it might not.

ghilis101

military definitly has the advantage here, nobody else can afford to take you out any more and do a bunch of patterns in a multi million dollar airplane burning thousands of pounds per hour.

however when i went thru skywest training, before IOE they take you out in an empty CRJ part 91 with another FO or Capt upgrade and you do a few touch and goes and a single engine approach (one eng at idle) etc... I thought this was actually the best part of the training there. hoewever it still doesnt teach you about getting slammed into a busy airport, flying 180 til the marker, getting cleared for the visual 15 miles out, etc.

i dont think theres a problem with training, i think you just have to let experience and the learning process take its course

HercDriver130

What he said.....

TXTECHKA

I don't think there is a problem with training either......just with hiring.

BigPropz

i do it both. My real problem is that there is a school that makes all gods gift to flying pilots. Not all of them are like them but god these last for i had were. I told them how to do it and used the ILS to back it up or even the GPS (FPA) to back it up also. But in there head they think that they are the best at what they do and doesn't take any advice that i give. I know there are 1,000 difrent ways to fly the plane. And i tell them find your was just as long as it is safe its good. You dont bust any regs and the plane is re-useable im happy

bassslayer

There are pretty much tow mentalities out there. You have the laid back captains who are willing to help new guys out, then you have the "I'm not a check airman, nor am I being paid to be one" guys. When I first got off IOE visuals were probably the toughest thing for me. I'm pretty comfortable now. The best advice I can give, is to just have confidence in what you are doing. Configure the airplane a little earlier until you get comfortable with how quickly you can slow/descend.