TonyWilliams

I don't know if the FAA has gotten involved, but in the world of irony, the CP who fired DD (TF) will possibly have his ATP revoked for not logging his professional helicopter flying and not being able to prove that he didn't exceed any duty limitations flying the CRJ.

SemperFly

Doesn't the burden of proof usually lie with the protester? Not to defend TF at all, but how is the burden of proof on him that he didn't and not the FAA to prove he did exceed flight time limits? Even if he does lose his ATP, he won't lose his job; they'll keep him in an office until he retires.

TonyWilliams

I have no idea how the agency does a lot of its things. But I agree, TF will be around as long as he wants, ATP or not.

H= 9 * (SQRT P)

First I would like to ask Tony point blank, if you knew then what you know now would you have been beating the anti-union drum during the union drive? I don’t mind telling you in advance that if your answer is still no then I cannot feel sorry for you. I believe life has a way of “compelling” people to open their eyes. If pride and an unwillingness to say these simple words “I was wrong, I gave too much credence to an idea, policy or way of thinking that was wrong….I now know there were serious flaws in my former way of thinking that in the end had implications not only in how I was ultimately mishandled but many others before and after me as well”, then it will be difficult for you to apply lessons learned and create better opportunities for your future. If on the other hand you see and acknowledge errors in the way you approached certain issues in the past and are willing to learn from those, you can begin the process of turning things around and not make those mistakes a second time.

For the record, from my knowledge of what went down, and having a similar experience myself, I think you did not get a fair shake on your upgrade. You in some way ****ed someone off enough to put yourself square in the gunsight....this was not about your capability or questions whether or not peoples families would be safe riding in the seats behind you. Admittedly your story is not the norm but in a strange twist of irony, you one of the companies bigggest cheerleaders (I was beginning to wonder if they could ever do any wrong in your eyes), got bit. Do you feel any "goodwill" from Skywest Airlines, your fellow Sapa reps, Jerry, Chip, your fellow anit union tomahawk throwers, etc now? Have any of them done anything to help you get your job back or change policy? I think you have a unique opportunity now to educate people on how things can go south in a hurry when you don’t have protective protocols in place. Perhaps you can change your path and Karma and gain powerful advocates for your career in the process. .

That said, I also was nearly fired in like manner to Tony. I was going from the right seat of the jet to the left seat of the EMB for all the same reasons as Tony. I had never had a training issue in my life. In fact my training in the EMB, although seemingly rushed and “light on details” that I would later be quizzed on seemed to be going well. The EMB program is really not designed for those coming off the jet but rather those already in the right seat of the EMB…they are radically different airplanes from switchology to feel/input. Having said that, me and my sim partner were happilly signed off on our last training sim and our instructor said we were so far ahead of the game we could have some fun in the sim (harrier takeoffs) and we ended two hours early. The next day I would meet a check airman who had racked up an unusually high failure rate with new hire pilots and upgrade candidates alike. There were half a dozen well known check airman just like him between the jet and EMB.

I won’t go into all the detail here but this checkride turned out being the most hostile training/testing experience of my life. It was clear from question one of the oral that this check airman had me in his sights. Why? I have no idea. I do know he had been married/divorced five times and he was not a happy person. I on the other hand was glad to be at Skywest and showed this enthusiasm from time to time. The way this check airman got into my face was unprofessional beyond belief. I have some other theories regarding this guy including mid life crisis combined with the companies zero professional oversight but wont map that out here.

Let me back up for just a second. This training was conducted down in California. Neither I nor my sim partner had been contacted by this checkairman about meeting time, etc in the days leading up to the checkride. We had left messages with his cell and in his room trying to find out where he would want us to meet, etc. The day of the checkride we get a call early in the morning to our hotel rooms to meet him upstairs in five minutes. We met. He told us that we were scheduled with him for the oral, sim check and aircraft checkride and that if we were thinking of calling in sick we would still have him later (apparently calling in sick then trying to get another check airman through scheduling conflict/logistics was a common strategy). He then told us to meet downstairs in ten minutes with our bags packed….we were going over to the sim early (nearly two hours). I believe in hindsight he was trying to create uncertainty and get me off balance from the get go.

Longer story short:

• The most obscure questions you have never heard of from the regs aimed at me during the oral. Simple systems questions aimed at my partner. Btw, if you are being targeted, during testing it will appear you can do nothing right and your sim partner can do nothing wrong. They will not fail both of you…this places them in more danger of being scrutinized. The guy that passes quickly slips away and isn’t going to mention how things seemed funny…all he wants is to celebrate his own victory and slip into obscurity after dodging the bullet.
• Pink slipped on oral but then quickly whisked to the sim.
• Scenario in sim is completely different from any scenario discussed in groundschool or sim training and you try to piece together everything you have read and prioritize…drawing on jet training has limited value with application to a turboprop in certain scenarios. At the end of the day I felt whether I turned right or turned left there was going to be a reason I made the wrong call according to this check airman.
• Pinked on the sim
• Put in limbo for three weeks awaiting what would happen next.
• Originally told by another check airman friend I should only be retrained on the area that ended in a bust.
• The entire first retraining session was windshears and strange scenarios that further threw things off balance.
• I lost fifteen pounds in three weeks trying to keep things together and be ready to perform with my “A” game. Got very little sleep during this time as well. The company kept me completely in the dark.
• Approaching my final “strike three” checkride I called in some favors to senior pilots and managers who were not part of the corruptness I was seeing elsewhere. These gentlemen confirmed parts of my suspicions on how things work.
• The night before the final check, I received a call from director of training stating the FAA would be there in the morning for the final ride.
• As luck would have it I knew the FAA guy that showed up and I believe the check airman administering my test made note of this and reduced the level of difficulty of this checkride to some degree. My checkairman non flying pilot did a great job helping me out (he had been notified and briefed on the situation by my high up friends and was apparently willing to fight to save my job).
• One bogus part of the checkride right off the bat, take off from LAX told to climb/maintain 3000 ft. and fly direct Santa Monica VOR, cleared for the approach to XX. Approaching the VOR my check airman/sim partner could see something was up and queried “ATC” about the 5000 foot MEA on the transition. No response. Essentially they were playing “lost comm.” whereupon I needed to climb to 5000 ft. After noting this I climbed to 5000. I flew the rest of that approach and the rest of the checkride flawlessly. The FAA guy even said he was impressed. The Check Airman administering the test said if I had not climbed to 5000 it would have been a bust. I would have been fired from my job of five years. That particular item I believe is BS and not a “straight forward” checkride. I believe had I not known the FAA guy and if my sim partner wasnt pulling for me, my career would have been radically different than it is today.
• My first six month check was flawless. The check airman for this check knew nothing of the prior fiasco. He actually said he was impressed with my performance and asked if I had considered being a check airman….he would be willing to recommend me if I so desired.
• A dozen checkrides after this with no problem.
• Im no longer with Skywest. No problems with training on three aircraft since then.

Would a Union have saved Tony’s job? Maybe, maybe not. At the very least he would have had a resource with whom to consult on what was happening during his bust. He could have possibly brought an ALPA guy in to monitor what was happening. To spend years of time and tens of thousands of dollars betting on this career and not do everything in your power to fight for union representation is ASININE! Who cares if the ALPA president makes 250K?! Not a good reason to abandon the most powerful national pilots union with the greatest resources. When it comes right down to it you need someone who is not being paid by the company, that is not looking out for their own personal perks because of their comfy relationship with the company, to fight for you. Just two bits from someone who has been there. A lot more to the story regarding what happened when I tried to go up the chain of command and prevent this from happening to others and get a check airman who had a long list of unprofessional conduct removed. Ill save that for another day.

de727ups

Great post. Thanks for that.

H= 9 * (SQRT P)

A final note. Certain people feel that by pledging their loyalty to a person, process or company they will somehow buy goodwill that will magically keep them out of trouble. I believe to some degree Tony formally was like this. There are many over on the Sapa board right now like this. There you are required to post with your real name causing truth and real opinions (unless you are a "company man") to be greatly reduced for fear of who is reading or who will be reading when someone passes comments on to managers as has happened from time to time in the past. Some of these suckups come to the rescue of questionable characters with power/authority, people such as this check airman that failed Tony (those who are not afraid to speak up would say this check airman has an inconsistant and spotty reputation, others who are close friends or have other motives will back him to the bitter end). They do this publicly where the person in question can see their devotion hoping it will buy them some immunity or keep them out of harms way with respect to said rogue checkairman. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

There will always be butt kissers. I know the check airman that failed Tony and he is a Jekyll/Hyde type as is the case with several "bad" check airman that have no business in their respective positions and should have been removed long ago. TonyF is another good example of this type of person...throwing the ax around far too easily unchecked. It sort of caught up with TonyF but most go unchecked with no checks and balances or oversights (oversight availble with a union I might add). I went to sim once with the check airman who "administered" Tony William's his last Skywest checkride and although he didn’t mess with me I saw him call the guy with me a liar regarding methodology to his face. Totally out of line and unjustified based upon what I observed and knew about this guy. Just be aware that each person at skywest is looking out for number one. The guys that try to stick their necks out over there to help themselves and those around them seem to fight an impossible battle. Good luck to those people who have principal and are still trying to improve things for all.

SmoothOnTop

TW,

I'm sorry about what happened to you.
I too don't understand why you weren't retrained following the oral bust.
I looks/sounds like a raw deal.
Many pilots have had the 121 door slam in their face only to open up greater aviation opportunities in the 91 world.

Other aspiring pilots/captains:
On your hotel overnights, read your company operations manual, read the op specs and practice your memory items and limitations. Occasionally, re-read your ATP written prep material. It may not be as fun as chasing the F/As around, but it will save your tail during orals and make you a better* pilot.

If an examiner asks a bullcrap question, call them on it.

If they ask a question that's not in your instant recall, tell them where you would look that info up.

* Subjective, for what it's worth...

TonyWilliams

Very interesting post. Just like I've said all along, and you seem to agree... a union may or may not actually fight the good fight; they may or may not be successful in that fight. Even at that, at least one union shop has this same Up/Out policy.

Unions generally make war tools more available, certainly, than no union. I favor a union at SkyWest, I wrote that in my bio before being voted in to SAPA (which was before the ALPA vote). I had previously been a union "shop steward"; have you?

But if I reject ALPA, I'm anti-union? If I don't like Ford trucks, am I a truck hater? Are the USAPA guys anti union because they rejected ALPA? Is APA not a real union because is not ALPA? Seriously, an arguement for a different thread that I don't really care to partake in.

But, I won't gloss over reality. I liked working at SkyWest. I also really liked my girlfriend. Until I found her car parked over over at some guy's house one night. That's the kind of kick in the nuts it felt like to be fired.

Since there's no change in my view of a pilot union at SkyWest, I can't answer your question. As you stated yourself, any union may or may not have saved my job. A good union would give it one heck of a try.

You don't have to feel sorry for me, beleive me. Congratulations on getting to retake your oral/sim; hopefully you gained that 15 pounds back. The only significant difference that I can see in our stories are those two issues.

Thanks for sharing.