News Story on ABC
 

http://abcnews.go.com/search?searcht...0airline&type=

Another great story from the media....

Click "Inexperience in the Cockpit"

If they only knew what our training was like, here at Eagle, your not getting anywhere near a jet/prop unless you make it through our ground school, then you get the sims. The media are a bunch of idiots!!

Spoken like a low timer.

Ya, training is tough if you don't have much experience. It doesn't stop there either, good thing you have years of learning ahead of you the right seat.

yawn.......

They never talked about deficiencies in training in this clip.

I found this piece to be better than some. At least it was, for the most part, factually correct. There was a little bit of spin, but far from the usual.

Seriously...Passing an SIC ride in a barbie jet doesnt mean you have experience. It just means you get to throw on the backpack and follow your captain around.

And do the preflight. In the winter. In Chicago.

It's sensationalism, but correct. As long as I've been in the industry new hire commuter/regional pilots have always had less experience compared to their legacy counterparts in terms of flight time.

Is this really news?

No, but they sure made it out to be.

There was no comment about poor compensation and QOL in the post-9/11 environment leading to a lack of "better qualified" people wanting airline jobs, only that there was a "pilot shortage" leading to 500 hour pilots.

There was no correlation between the experience of medical internists or residents and attending doctors to regional pilots and mainline/legacy/major pilots.

Factually correct story, but lacking in scope and perspective.

I like the old clips they use of planes taxiing-TWA was in there:cool:

If i'm not mistaken, on a side note, when airlines were looking for pilots in the 60's and 70's, most of those guys were just found off the street and put in through training, correct?

It's good to see that ABC has alot of recent footage of the aircraft today...i think i saw a few TWA aircraft in that segment.

I think they should have pointed a finger at how many ppl actually get hired with less than 500 and possibly less than 9 months since their first flight....Seriously I have to say I wish more time was spent on a story of this nature. I have to agree that it is quite possible for a slacker or 2 to make it through the training dept at MOST of the regionals today.

It was in the 60's, for a few years. But airline safety statistics were horrible compared with what we have today.

As I recall in 2007, there were ZERO fatalities on ANY US carrier. Compare it to any other form of transportation where thousands of people die every year. But I don't need to tell you guys that.

Finally, a descent piece of journalism from the media, BRAVO!

low time = inexperience and will lead to an accident. Blah blah blah....quit b*tchin' or just retire!!!!!

Hiring is just as cyclic as the rest of the aviation industry. Back in '98(ish) people were getting hired into jets right out of college with 250hrs.

Of course that was also the days of "pay for training".

This is nothing new.

Passing the PC doesn't equal experience, but there is something to be said for being able to do it. The SIC and PIC PC's include the same things and the same standards with few exceptions. My point is that the company may lower the bar to send people TO training but thus far, they have not done so to get people THROUGH training.

Furthermore...Anyone who is totally surprised at both the level of experience applying for and being accepted into the cockpit is simply not awake to the ways of this industry. I credit the media for attempting to make people aware that this is what has become of the industry due to many factors, but one of them being compensation, or lackthereof. They need to know that when they demand that flying be dirt cheap despite record fuel costs and airlines cut almost everything to the bone to deliver that this level of pilot experience in the flightdeck is what they should expect. On other hand, I don't like the way the media is attempting to get people up in arms as if there was a recent spike in regional airline accidents. In fact 2007, was a record year for airline safety.

Certainly not lacking bias though, gotta give 'em that! :p

Did you notice how they stated that none of the last 5 accidents were attributed to experience.....while showing footage of charred wreckage.

"If i'm not mistaken, on a side note, when airlines were looking for pilots in the 60's and 70's, most of those guys were just found off the street and put in through training"

Yes, you're mistaken. I was there in the 70's and it wasn't like that. Maybe in the early 60's, but still, they went to the F/E seat and didn't train in sims. They trained in the real thing, to proficieny, thus proving they were somewhat competent to do the job.

bwhahahaa ROFL!!! :D



one more thing......abc can get this piece and sit on it.... just trying to scare the general public as usual.... i think that in the US we have very good experienced pilots that are safe and competent... all you have to do to understand this is to visit any flight school doing international training for countries like mexico and china.... 100's of 21-25 yr olds who get their commercial instrument and multi in the usa and go straight back to their county of orgin to fly 737's....now thats scary!!!

We have some of the best maintained and safest aircraft as well as some of the best most efficient training in the world, hence the 2007 safety record. The FAA is there for one reason only, to protect the airlines. They could care less about GA to be honest.

I like how they showed clips of SWA jets while talking about 'inexperience.' :D

Have you ever seen a news-personality that was not in desperate need of a reality-check? They're jokers feeding on Americans fears...and a classic case of the blind leading the blind!

I'm really really glad they went easy on us as far as flight time required to fly for the airlines, 1500 for majors vs 500 for regionals. In reality it looks much worse than that, probably more like 5000 vs 500. I liked how they also mentioned that experience has nothing to do with the past crashes, then what was the point of the story, to scare the public??

It's not even worth watching network news anymore. The point of this story, as with any other, was to "sell" the news and get the ratings. They've got it down to a science - fear and mass-hysteria sell great!

In fact, most major airlines require regional pilots to have just one-third of the experience they demand from national pilots.

Uh.....so the "national pilots" require 1000 hours?????

Military pilots have relatively few flight hours and they fly nukes around.

Granted, some regionals have better training than others, but in the end its about quality more than quantity of experience. And basically I think alot comes down to each person individually- maybe thats a product of culture at each airline to promote excellence.

In any case, there's a captain there to make the tough decisions, the FO only really needs to be able to fly the plane and thats what the training teaches. Eventually with enough exposure the low-time FOs will learn how to think like a captain.

That is an excellent point, but trying to speak sense into many of these APC-dwellers is futile!

Yeah, I liked that too. Also, I liked where they talked about "You may book it on a major carrier but get a local airline instead (while they show a Saab and then a SWA 73 going by. Yup. Local.)". I did find the "Local Airline" comment funny too. What about the airlines that cover two thirds of the country? Is that local?

This is nothing new and unfortunately our industry is too complex to explain to the layman. I don't have a big problem with it as long as people recognize their own limitations, so that I don't have somebody sitting in the right seat talking about how they can do something when they really aren't able to. Be honest, nobody will think less of you.

"Military pilots have relatively few flight hours and they fly nukes around"

Apples and Oranges. I had a chat about this with my last F/O, who was ex-F15 and instructed in the AF. He says 3 million to select and train an AF pilot to fly around in the right seat of a tanker. Military selects and trains to a much higher standard.

"the FO only really needs to be able to fly the plane and thats what the training teaches"

I expect more than that out of an F/O. Once you get in the left seat, you'll see what I mean....

de727 is right as well - I expect myself to be able to Captain the Aircraft if something ever happened to the Boss next to me...if you don't think you are up to that task, you shouldn't be up there!

I am a Station Agent here in BNA and just last week I had 2 pax that had read an article talking about how TSA's mins were down to 250 and wanted to know how many hours the FO had on their flight to STL. So of course when they found out their FO was on IOE with roughly 280 hrs they had to be convinced it was safe to fly, and guess what...they made it there and back alive.

I love the media... they do alot to make my job easier ;)

Ya, take Basic Indoc, Systems, and Sims, multiply the difficulty by 1.5 and do it for 13 months (If you're lucky enough to be one of the 5% of applicants that even get in)...then you get to actually start school for the airframe you'll actually go to war in, and repeat the above for another 6 months to become a "low time pilot carrying nukes.":rolleyes:

This is the original story and it blames 3 of the 5 on pilot error.
http://kstp.com/article/stories/S331920.shtml?cat=1&v=1

Military selects and trains to a much higher standard.

That is my point- the fact that a pilot has few hours doesnt necessarily indicate ability or inabilty to do a job. Flying an RJ is not as difficult as war fighting so naturally the training is less intense, but the concept still applies.

"the FO only really needs to be able to fly the plane and thats what the training teaches"

I expect more than that out of an F/O. Once you get in the left seat, you'll see what I mean....[/quote]

My feeling is that if as an FO I am expected to be able to perform all the Captain's duties and make "Captain"-type decisions as if he/she wasn't there then I want Captain pay.

Im pretty sure in your FM theres a part that states the Captains duties and responsibilities and those of the FO. In mine it says that the FOs job is "to assist the Captain..." not be the Captain. That happens over time. Yes it's the FOs responsibilty to develop into a Captain, but thats different than showing up to training ready to sit left seat.

"regionals have much different standards for pilots"


requirements yes, standards no.

And not to mention the fact that moving "up" with experience is the way it's done in almost any technical career field. NASCAR drivers, for instance, don't start in Cup cars. They race some local mess to break in, try to get a ride in the Nationwide Series or whatever they call it now, and then try to end up in the Cup race. Heck, even at McBurgerdy's you start sweeping, then move up to fries, then finally get to cook a burger. What do they think the option to gaining work experience is?!? In utero training? The baby pops out with ATP, 5000TT, PIC, turbine? :eek: