UnlimitedAkro

Last night several anchors for the news were discussing how shocked they were that an airline pilot could only be paid $16,000 a year. Turned on the news this morning and saw the same disgust from another news program.

This may shock you, but some of these people in this pay scale have come from years of airline experience only to be put back into that pay scale due to losing their other job. The part that really sickens me is when an airline says: "We pay our pilots pay scales that are industry standard". This is an industry standard that is disgusting.

Because of the events of this Colgan crash, we may all be required to complete stick pusher scenarios in the sim. I have no problem with this, however I can pretty much assure you that in 95% of the transport aircraft out there, if you get a full stall to the point of the stick pusher at the outer marker, you are just along for the ride until it hits the ground. This is why the FAA only stressed recognizing and avoiding stalls for the last 40+ years, and with no problems. And because of the media, their shock of how we could not practice this event in the sim shows their misunderstanding for the whole concept.

But we also have this pay issue that is finally out in the open. Yet with the politics between the FAA and the airlines, this is one major problem that will never be solved. And with more pilots being furloughed with no other work to turn to, there are more experienced pilots flying regional jets around for pennies. It is sickening that this is a policy that will probably never change.

PinnacleFO

I hope they expose not only colgan's pay but Pinnacles pay and the fact that we have been in negotiations for 5 years. I really hope the media shows the world how cheap this company is and how the only thing they care about is money.

papacharlie

welcome to capitalism and free market my frineds

papacharlie

the same economic model was put in place in my country (argentina) by the US back in 1995 and everything collapse in 1999-2000.banks went under,no credit,people wages went down 50 % all because of the free market and capitalism where all it matters for companies is to make money.
if this pilot doesnt want to fly for $3000 we'll find someone who does.(That was the hole idea) 0% oversight.

Confused

it would be nice to get paid more yes, but my only hang up is that when we all went out lookin for our airline jobs we knew full well what the pay was going to be but we all still took the jobs despite that fact.

It is not as though on day 1 they said oh yah you get paid 23 an hour. We all knew what we were getting into so I don't think we can be that upset. Nobody is forcing us to work here.

Ya don't like it......... quit.

Colnago

Agreed. We all took the job knowing what 1st year pay was. We have each other to blame for.

UnlimitedAkro

Wow! Talk about unified. The only ignorant person who would telling us to quit our job if we are not happy with the wages we accepted would probably be low time CFI trying to get into the door.

If you are not going to be part of the solution, get the hell out of the way.

KC10 FATboy

What does this accident have to do with "stick pusher" training? They stalled the aircraft. And it wasn't until AFTER the crew did exactly the wrong recovery, and CONTINUED to do so until they hit the ground, did the stick pusher engage. It was trying to save the aircraft and they overrode it. This accident was completely avoidable and recoverable (provided that there wasn't an overweight or CG problem that we don't know about yet).

I've been in all sizes of aircraft up to the stick shaker (mostly for training) and have had two events that went beyond the shaker and on to extremely bad buffeting of the aircraft. The result, the crew applied the proper procedure and the airplane lossed a few hundred feet (the worst event was an accelerated stall at FL240 and with a grossweight of 500,000lbs --- higher altitude and heavyweight ... bad combo). The aircraft I fly now has a stick pusher, but I'm hoping I never get to see it.

I disagree with the statement that if you get into a stick pusher event, it is unrecoverable. At the time they got the stick pusher, they still had workable airspeed and altitude. I don't know what the terrain altitude is there, but if they had at least 1000 feet they should have been able to recover. And remember, the stick shaker onset was artificially raised due to them putting it into "ice" mode. Therefore, you can make the argument that the aircraft may have been flyable at airspeeds below that reference point. We know that it was flying just fine as they approached the "ice" stick shaker reference point. Vrefs are 1.3 stall speeds. I don't know what their Vref was ... but assuming 130 knots ... your stall speed is approximately 91knots. The aircraft is still flying below 130 knots.

We can argue all day about whether they should have had stick pusher training. The reality is, they failed the first basic law of flying, stall recovery. They never applied max power, he kept the nose up, and she decreased lift by raising the flaps. That airplane never should have hit the ground.

Mason32

23, 43, 53, 73 an hour.... it all sounds good... but only to people used to getting paid fourty hours of pay, for fourty hours of duty time. Getting 5 hours of pay for 16 hours of duty time, week after week after week is BS.

UnlimitedAkro

fatboy, I agree with most of what you are saying. My point though was first you get a stick shaker- time to recover. Once you go through the shaker without recovery, you will then get the pusher as a last resort to save you. If you are low to the ground (or god forbid covered with ICE!) and you get all the way to the pusher you have two choices: lower the nose and get that speed back as you hit the ground, or hold the nose up in the air and then lose control and hit the ground. Either way, you hit the ground- that is why the FAA trains to recognize at the imminent signs.

How about Air Florida Flight 90: Covered with snow and ice, low to the ground, got the shaker, then the pusher and at that point it did not even matter. It was going to crash 5 second before it hit the ground, no matter what input anyone would have applied.

So back to our point: the transport category standards are to avoid the stall and recover from the imminent signs. So if the FAA is going to re-write our procedures to have us recover from pusher scenarios, fine. OR, how about address more important topics like work rules, crew rest, and pay- issues are right in front of us, and causing numerous pilots across the country to suffer on a DAILY basis. How many stick pusher scenarios were there yesterday in all world wide 121 ops? Or even last week, or even the last year. Just one!