Aviation Expert slams regional pilots
 

Low Pay One of Many Difficulties Facing Regional Pilots - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News - FOXNews.com

"Yurman added that regional pilots, on the whole, also are not as experienced or talented as large-carrior pilots. Companies like Delta and American Airlines seek pilots with military training, he said, leaving regional carriers to settle for people who are not the "cream of the crop.""


You can reach Yurman at
[email protected]


If his email address says he is an expert, he must be. I will just take my talentless butt back to school. Maybe I can use my substandard skills as an aviation expert.

Didn't one of those airlines cfit into cali and snap an a300 tail off?

I love it how most of the "Aviation Experts" on CNN are frggen Private Pilots...awesome...

and overrun in LIT and hit a tree on final at BDL......

I bet he'd be surprised how many miltary pilots are at the regionals.

Why is it they think military training makes you the "cream of the crop"? It's a different type of training/flying. You can't train experience. The military guys I've flown/jumpseated with felt the same way for the most part and seem to feel the ones that do think they were better than everyone else because of having mil training are a little high strung. Different atmospheres. Might as well throw in cropdusters and UAV pilots while we're at it.

Hey Aviation Expert-

Find an audience that cares.

Go to the ntsb 3407 animation clock 22:16:34.

Comment about the roll axis effectiveness of the rudder at high AOA as the video plays from that point.

Pause the playback at 22:16:47 and ask for a sign of hands from the audience as to how many believe that the q400 can successfully recover from the split S.

Push play, have fun...

I always wondered when I couldn't make it at McDonald's and they suggested I try a career as a regional airline pilot. Oh well, I fit in well with the other non creamy-crop guys.

I started out as a civilian trained pilot and then went through a military program. I can tell you the two are worlds apart in quality and instructional tools. You also get to experience many things you will only ever talk about in a civilian program. This is not a knock on civilian pilots. Its simply a statement that the military training is light years ahead of most civilian programs. I had one friend in flight school who had 4000 hours and had been a Captain at a regional. He was astounded at the difference in the training and the things he learned and experienced the civilian programs never give you a shot at. Are there bad military pilots yes. Are there great civilian pilots yes. The training however in general is light years ahead in the military.

Here's your expert:

Al Yurman Aviation Expert

That is the most false thing I have ever read. You must have went to one crap "civilian" program.

Wholly Owned Crap, Batman!

The animation looks like the left seat pilot was having a seziure.

On the FDR, the left seat pilot pushed the right rudder pedal with over 150 lbs force!

Training is training. Either the material makes sense to a student, or it doesn't. One of my furloughed friends makes a great point, "If you put a banana chip on the gear lever when you need it down, a monkey can put it down for you, but the monkey doesn't understand how the gear works". I don't care if you do your training at NASA or Joe Bob's barnstormer school, if you can correllate your knowledge, you're better off than the Astronaut who rote learned his material.

I'd say he has a fairly impressive resume...

Very true it's not often I get to learn about air combat but then again the EMB doesn't switch to guns very easily.

In all seriousness training only takes you so far. Sheer flight time in various weather conditions, geographical climates, different density airports, etc. build the experience. I have no doubt the initial military training is top notch however I feel the sheer amount of hours and real world flying in multiple locations with differing weather conditions allows for a more confident person in the cockpit. Take two guys one an ex mil guy with 10,000hrs in a 737 or a non-mil guy with 10,000hrs in that aircraft and try and tell them apart.

Trying flying with a tac air guy in the snow and ice for the first time. At least he looked at me and said he never flew in that kind of weather and had no idea.

I am really getting bored of this "military pilots are better airline pilots" crap that has been so prevalent since Sully ditched it in the river. If i was the low self esteem kind of guy i would feel really crappy about myself now.

Agreed.....little more than a private pilot I'd say.
Plenty of people will certainly not agree with some of his points though.
I'd listen to him about things having to do with mishap investigation; but his views on *experience* are his opinion....nothing else.

USMCFLYR

Only 4,000 hours though... not as experienced as a lot of folks I have flown with, he might get hired at Mesa or GoJet. His comments were myopic and blanket statements that seek to tarnish the reputation of regional pilots, pretty elementary things to say if you ask me.... Then again, coming from Fox News, I wouldn't be surprised if they mis-quoted him on purpose.

Does that include those tac air guys who fly up in Alaska, any of the northern states, Canada. Korea or Japan in the winter, or those fun dets to Norway?

Since we usually fly in flights of multiple aircraft - we do tend to try and AVOID the weather. I don't have much experience in ice at all. Luckily I have avoided most of it throughout my career. I know that if I get that flying job in the civvie world that flying into different kinds of weather more often will be a change - but I feel confident that I'll be able to handle it.

USMCFLYR

As an Airline Pilot and an Aerial Applicator if my father in law needs help. lumping cropdusters in with with the rest of us is a joke. The new airplanes are not just barnstormers. We use the latest in navigation that is tied to the farmers fields with Trimble Sat Locs allowing chemical to be applied where it is needed not just a blanket cover of a field. You need to have the skill to pilot a high performance aircraft low to the ground well manuevering. Applicating is not RNAV LNAV USA Today.

Air Canada 621, Air Florida 90, Tenerife Disaster, previously mentioned American Airlines 1420, previously mentioned American Airlines 587, Continential 1713(pic had 130 in type)(this is the reason CVR tapes are no longer made public), Delta 723, Delta 1141, FedEx 647, National 193, NWA 255, Southwest 1248, Southwest 1455, TWA 841, TWA 541, UAL 173.

Take a look at those. To say that regional pilots aren't as taleneted is absurd. I've flown with some damn fine regional pilots. I'll compare safety records any day but lets not compare accident per mile flown but accident per take off/approach.

[quote=ToiletDuck;610070]but then again the EMB doesn't switch to guns very easily.

Wait a minute? Isn't that what the handle under the trap door beneath the FO's left foot does? If not then I pulled that pointlessly everytime a bogey showed up on the TCAS when we were 6/Above.

I guess we are just not the "cream of the crop".... hahaha what a joke... We learn from the mainline guys and they learn from us. Accidents are just that... accidents... both worlds are just as prone to them. AA flies a plane into the mountains at Cali due to lack of situational awareness and Comair takes off the wrong runway and crashes. Both teach a good lesson for both mainline and regional pilots about situational awareness at ALL TIMES. This was just an unfortunate accident and we should just morn for the families and learn from the accident so that it will not happen again.

My point being, which you've helped point out, is that aviators work across a vast rang of types of flying. I fly with our crop duster all the time who has 25k hours and he flies IFR very rarely and can't tell you the specifications of different airspaces yet he can handle an aircraft extremely well. So is he a great pilot or a bad pilot? I have a few thousand hours now flying in and out of large airports and flying in various weather conditions but I don't have any experience flying 10ft off the ground under powerlines. Which one of us is the "bad" pilot? I don't know anyone that's proficient in everything and that's what this guy makes mil pilots sound like. Mil guys excel at mil things not everything.

I think the guy is a putz.

As for the mil vs civ thing. Well everyone has their opinion. Me included. You could hash this out for pages... but to me... the biggest difference in military flight school and some guy going to an FBO or a mill like ATP's, is that you are expected to master an item by a certian point in the syllabus... end of story ... if you dont.. or cant... you are in trouble...couple extra rides probably but there is NOT a whole lot of leeway. in the civ world... you just go and do it again....and again..and again...until the guys money runs out or eventually he does get it. To me that is the biggest difference.... 2 years ago I was in a local fbo and there was a kid in there with 37 hours and he still hadnt soled yet..... that would not happen in a mil training program,,, and the aircraft the mil stud is flying is much more complex than the 172 that kid was flying. At the 200-250 hours mark I would put my money on the mil guy 85% of the time.... and franky by probably 1000 hours the gap is closed considerably .....there are ALWAYS exceptions..... both ways. Its just two different ways to skin a cat.

So if you're not F-teen driver your not the cream of the crop. I got news for this so called expert. At SWA we have to spoon feed the military guys compared to regional guys. The military guys come in and most struggle through IOE.

As good as most military pilots are, it must be an interesting transition for a single seat F-Driver into the world of CRM.

(Yes I am fully aware the majority of military pilots operate in multi crew aircraft)

mil vs. civ who cares as long as they have skills.

It appears he has had quite the career, judging by his military/NTSB background, ao im not surprised he says that the cream of the crop comes from there?? Its pretty biased on his part in my opinion. I love how you can "contact Al now". Its "experts" like these that p-ss me off. Im sure hes had a very successful career and a lot of experiences, so kudos.....but i go up in my "little CRJ" and fly the same people and do the same routes and through the same weather as the MD88 pilot or the 757 pilot, or the guy flying the Citation X for Corporate....so all I have to say to you Al is "dont bash the Regionals, dont bash any pilots, cause we re all here doin the same damn thing.

Not really... allthough I am sure there are some who do have a transition problem. Fighter guys rarely operate single ship... almost always in concert with 1-3 other aircraft ...and believe me..... formation flying requires CREW resource mgt within the flight. Its not exactly the same.. but many of the same principles apply.

as for the comment above about spoon feeding mil pilots during IOE... I would bet that the spoon feeding as more to do with airline operations...than actual flying the aircraft... as I said above...there are always exceptions.....course we all arent god and walk on water like River6.

:) I know a lot of civvie SWA pilots and military SWA pilots and I've never heard this. ;)
Personally - I as a F-teen driver as you say - do some things better than other types of military pilots.
They (all the non- F-teen drivers) do other things better than I do.

I told a story on another thread recently that a 3,000+ hr former Part 135 pilot came thorugh training. He did pretty well....but he wasn't the best out of the class. For instance - at the carrier qualification - the top hook award was awarded to a guy with about 250TT.

USMCFLYR

EXACTLY...

CRM is not a foreign word to us. We just use our other flight members or operations duty officer in the role that you might use the pilot sitting next to you in a multi-crewed environment. Now I do look forward hopefully trying out my single seat CRM skills in a multi-crew cockpit.

USMCFLYR

Here are my gripes with this "news article":

"That crew was not ready to respond to a stall warning," Dean Bandavanis, director of flight operations for Colgan Air...testified. "They kind of acted surprised."

This quote is worth ten million dollars to any lawyer with a pulse. Home Run.

Shaw also seemed ill-prepared for the stall warning, Yurman said.
"She said it herself, 'I've never seen so much ice,'" Yurman said, referring to a transcript of the flight recording. "And [Renslow] did exactly what an inexperienced pilot would do."

If this is a true statement, and if "all regional pilots are inexperienced" is also a true statement, the only logical conclusion is that every regional flight results in the deaths of all aboard.

Both pilots also violated FAA regulations by talking about non-flight-related matters below 10,000 feet, something more experienced pilots would not do, Yurman said.

Yurman does not = Airline Pilot. Yurman = Tool.

"He wasn't experienced enough to know that he was having this icing problem to begin with," he said. "An experienced captain would not let that happen.... A lot of these commuter airlines try to teach experience, and you can't do that."

Another reason every regional flight results in the deaths of all aboard?

But Roger Cohen, president of the Regional Airlines Association, said it's wrong to suspect that regional airlines aren't as safe as the major airlines. Safety on smaller aircraft is "equal to or better" than safety on larger aircraft," Cohen said...

Cohen basically says Civilian is "equal to or better" than Military. Case closed.

"All of our member airlines adhere to the exact same rules as the major airlines in terms of scheduling, safety and so forth," Cohen said. "It's all part of one system. Safety is number one on our radar screen every day of the year."

Every day? Maybe. But Colgan (and Comair 5191) crashed at night.
I was unaware that Colgan, Mesa, Delta, and Southwest all "adhere to the exact same rules" for scheduling.
Cohen = Yurman = Tool.

I think the people on here who are getting wrapped around the axle need to relax a little bit. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Lets face it, two of our peer groups made big mistakes in judgement and duty performance. It sucks because even if you aren't a regional pilot, their actions will reflect on all us.

Experts who testified during the first day of NTSB hearings said Renslow — who slept in Colgan's flight crew room prior to the flight, violating regulations — could have prevented the plane's plunge into a private home had he lowered the nose of the aircraft. Instead, the 47-year-old pilot — who took private flying lessons to obtain his commercial license — pulled the plane upward.

Sleeping the crew room violation of regulations? You gotta be kidding. And taking private flying lessons to get your commercial? Are there public lessons I can take for much less money?
Get real buddy.

I think the point they're getting at is ... if you aren't properly rested, you shouldn't be flying. If both of them were sleeping in the crew room because they were fatigued, and you are sending text messsages to friends saying that you are tired and you are considering calling in sick ... then yes, you would be violating regulations.

If you don't feel well rested, don't go to work. It is that simple.

..........................

I bet most media folks are wondering how they hit the ground if he pulled the plane upward. They're just too afraid to ask.

I think GPWS should be changed. Instead of "whoop Whoop Pull Up" It should say "Whoop Whoop Pull The Plane Upward"

Must be the YMCA flight training program.