And in an effort to try and avoid this becoming a flame fest, I hold no grudges here towards any types at work. We all just show up and do our thing and go home; It's just rough, on occasion, for someone to bring all their troubles with them into work and expect us all to deal with it instead of 'compartmentalizing' and simply just getting the job done. The 1500 hr limit for hiring would be interesting, if pay would become more commensurate with experience. Until then, im afraid we're stuck in the current predicament we currently find ourselves in.

Only one poster refuted the comparison to AMW 5481. Since I knew the CA and was at her funeral, I'll reiterate what that single individual said because Katie and Jonathan deserve that much.

AMW 5481 was caused by improper rigging of the elevator/trim system performed by contract (outsourced) maintenance. They were within the CG envelope using approved weights. It was the misrigging that improperly moved the aft CG limit forward just enough to make the A/C's actual CG too far aft to fly.

I am with you 100%. I can't believe no one else said something about the OP using them in comparison with this topic. That was probably one of the most tragic accidents in that the crew and pax died only a few seconds after being airborne, the CA and FO didn't even know what was happening. Very very sad, I heard that mechanic was never fired.

When the regionals, even the "bottom feeders", are forced to compete with the 135 companies for pilots, a pay increase might well come. Getting someone to work for 20k is easier when it is the only job he qualifies for. Getting someone to work for 20k AFTER they have had a job makeing 30k and up flying boxes is a tough sell.

While the link between 1500 hours and better safety is dubious, the idea a required ATP will increase pay is worse. It will do nothing to increase pay and those who believe it will are misguided. Only better economic times and better negotiating tactics will lead to higher wages.

Man your avater rocks, got any close ups of her, as...ahhhh I mean board?:D

I can make that statment because he would have just instructed until 1500 and still been hired just like the FO, just at a later date, so technically he would have been there but with what 800 hours less 121 experience, so probably same result. By the way the FO was hired at 1600+, and would have been there too, I think that they would have both been there that night regardless, now the question is had they been trained on the q400 differently would the outcome been different? How about better training oversight (which I have been preaching) Maybe his failures would have prevented him from being there???. In the end, a simple 1500 hour rule would not have prevented this.

or 800 hours more CFI time demonstrating stalls and observing students' errors.

Eclat Consulting - Aviation, Airline, Airport Consulting

Everyone knows what Babbit's job was before his appointed to the FAA post - right? He's been out of the pilot representation business for a long long time.

You can bet his solution will be what's best for airlines - not line pilots.

How do you know he would have just instructed till 1500 hours? What if he didn't have what it takes to become a CFI. After all the training, ratings and certificates I have, the hardest was my initial CFI. He may have given up and gone back to his old career. I know many people who have become CFIs and got burnt out in the industry and switched careers. He may have become a CFI and gone out and gotten himself and a student killed. He may have become a great CFI and built up his basic airmenship and the whole situation would not have happened.

I don't think there is one cure all to solve this problem but 1500 hours is a good start. To have quality hours you also need some quantity.

On the training side, I think there is much to be done. First of all, with a new airplane at an airline there is an extensive process the airline has to go through to get the aircraft certified to fly passengers. Because of economical restraints, ie being a cheap airline, the people that made critical decisions for the Q400 program probably weren't as good as the people who made the decisions at an airline like Horizon. I have gone through a lot of the information available on the NTSB's website and am not too impressed with some of the things I've seen. For instance, the POI failed training on the aircraft.

One of the factors I believe may have contributed to the crash is Colgan's normal landing profile. http://www.ntsb.gov/dockets/aviation...027/417476.pdf It says you shall be configured and done with checklists before the final approach fix. This to me shows that they wanted to be very conservative on flying the new aircraft but I think it may have had a large factor in the crash. At 22:16:07 the gear comes down at 176 knots. The profile calls for doing the landing flow after the gear comes down. I haven't found the "flows" on the NTSB site but by reading the CVR and checklist it looks like chiming the FAs, setting the props forward and setting the bleeds and standby pumps on. I don't know the Q 400 that well I've only jumpsat on it a couple of times but I would assume that the pilot doing the flow would be too wrapped up in doing the flow to pay much attention at what is going on with the airplane. While the FO was doing the flow the airspeed went from 176 kts to 140 kts. The airplane was straight and level while she was doing the flow. I believe this is the grave mistake. There is no reason to be fully configured in straight and level flight before the outer marker. The airspeed dropped 36 knots in 16 seconds with the gear and condition levers being moved. At 22:16:23 He calls for flaps 15 landing checklist at 140 kts. The FO now just finished with her flow selects flaps 15 and has her head buried in an 8 1/2 by 11 checklist, 3 seconds later the shaker went off and no recovery was made. So while a big configuration change was made in straight and level flight there was really only one pilot because the other one was busy doing flows and checklists. They could have easily done 170-180 to the marker dropped the gear over Klump done the flow set flaps 15 and been on speed by 1000'. After passing 1000 feet the FO could have then gone through the before landing checklist. It appears that the people who came up with the profiles were either afraid of the airplane, didn't know the capabilities of it or were just way too conservative. They also didn't have much real world experience to think they could go into EWR and be doing 120 kts outside the Marker while going in. This is something the FAA needs to be looking into instead of just approving an AOM/FOM without reading the contents.

At both airlines I've been at (neither of which was Colgan), this was standard proceedure for non-precision as well as precision (non-visual) approaches for both props and jets.

Ok, And you are correct, I was making the point in reverse as someone else said if the 1500 rule had been there, he wouldnt have been (all of this including my statements and yours and others is pure speculation.)

Is that not exactlywhat Babbit said??? Quality and quantity, not just quantity

Now I actually agree with your thought process on this, and I agree, I think the q400 training manual at Colgan, may have been rushed into certification. Hindsite 20/20

Why then does it seem in the midst of all this that all line pilots see as whats best is a knee jerk reaction to supposedly raise pay, rather than what is needed to really make a safer industry. I am behind Babbit on this one, he is calling for stricter training and oversight, rather than an arbitrary number, to appease the public ( really look and pay attention to what he said). It actually looks like instead of some magic pill we all might face stricter, tighter standards to continue to fly 121, regardless of your hours when you entered. Is that so bad. My question is what are some of you scared of... Wouldn't you rather have an 800 hour pilot that has been vetted and proved himself, rather than a 1500 hr pilot that got a free pass into the industry because of an arbitrary hours minimum he met??? Trust me even back during the boom there were plenty of 1500+ hr pilots that were failing training events. HR 3371 as currently written is but a bandaid.

Same here. That may be "standard procedure" for training but is that what you do on the line? The problem isn't isolated to Colgan. The FAA pencil whips through these manuals without looking at them. My airline has a handful of things in the FOM/AOM that are ILLEGAL but somehow they were overlooked when they were approved by the FAA. Why would they sign something off when we all know you routinely get maintain 180/170 knots to the marker or 5 out etc. Personally I think it is much safer doing a nice clean power off approach to the marker where you start configuring then start adding power instead of reducing power configure add power then reduce power again once the glideslope comes in.

http://images1.fanpop.com/images/ima...31_500_271.jpg

Examples of things in your FOM/AOM that are counter to FARs, please...

I agree with a lot of what you are saying but the problem is who is going to set these higher standards. There are a lot of FEDs out there that are only FEDs because they couldn't fly an airplane and were either fired or quit their airline jobs. After 3407 our training department, which I believe is one of the best in the contry, came under scrutiny from the FAA. Every day FEDs were observing PCs, LOFTs, and flight training. Many people with 20+ years in the business were failing for dumb things. One captain failed because he did his right seat training (all captains are dual qualified) after landing flow to slowly. A couple others failed because they recited the memory items incorrectly (saying press instead of push). They have to be 100% verbatim no exceptions. Is it going to save lives saying that you press instead of push the bagg exting button? NO. There were guys failing the stall maneuvers because they did not maintain +/- 100 feet on recovery. What made the Colgan flight come down? pulling back on the yoke. What do you think is better in a "stall maneuver" flying out of the maneuver and losing 150 feet or pulling back to maintain +/- 100 feet getting the pusher and not being able to recover. Did I mention that the stall maneuver is only done once every 2 years for FOs at my airline? We even had a check airman fail while giving a checkride, causing the instructors to be on edge. The PCs aren't practical tests they are just a list of boxes that need to be checked. I heard one debrief that went along the lines of " you may be Chuck Yeager on the line but if you lose 150 feet on a raw data stall recovery in the sim you are going to need some more training. Now on the other side, you could be an ace in the sim but be a danger to society if you go out and fly the line (sim instructors that only fly a few hours a year)

Babbitt wants an endorsement for flying in icing conditions. Why? He said you need an endorsement for high altitude operations. I don't have one and I have 1000s of hours in the flight levels. That is all covered in airline training. The icing would just be another box to check. He wants CRM training. I don't know of any airline that doesn't do CRM training. I know some do more than others. There are so many different experiences out there. There are many well rounded pilots out there but everyone has some area that is their weak point and some area that they excell at. I've done mountainous back country flying, high performance aerobatics and flown in some of the worst icing in the world (Cascades) in a light twin, but I never had experience in tropical weather with daily thunderstorms like what you see in Florida or Squall lines like in the great plains until I flew for an airline. You have the best chance of having well rounded, experienced crew, when people with a vast spectrum of experiences come together.

1 Strobe lights are not to be used in the day. 14 CFR 91.205
2 There is no difference between the accelerate/stop distance on a dry runway and on a runway with poor braking action. 14 CFR 25.109
3 A lot of our Mx procedures but I won't get into that as there is a formal investigation going on regarding that.

Why not both? 1500 hours isn't the only thing, they would need to pass an ATP check as well after meeting the prereq's for the rating.

For visuals, no, just configure by 1000' AGL. For instrument approaches (in real weather), yes, just like the sim... and I've never had a controller complain.

What airports do you operate at? I don't think that would go over too well at ORD. And I know when SEA is down to CAT IIIs they usually want 170 to the marker. What do you do at airports like SJC where the marker is 8 miles from the threshold?

I was based in ORD. No problem. You can be fully configured and still fly 170kias in a CRJ.

I think I've only ever done visuals into SJC, but

OK that makes a little more sense. Most planes can't be fully configured at 170 kts if you use the highest flap setting for landing. (162 kias flaps 40 B737, 145 kias flaps 45 ERJ non XR etc)

My turn to shock you, I AGREE....;). I think that is what Babbit said.

I am the one who said that, and I stand by my post. I am not saying he wouldn't have been at Colgan, or in the airlines. I am saying that he would not have been the Captain on that flight.

If he had gotten to 1500 hours before getting hired at Colgan, it would have delayed his hire date by at least a year or two. Also, everyone else hired with him would have had equal hours. Because of the seniority system at the airlines, he would have had to wait his turn before upgrading. If everyone being hired has 1500 hours, I would be willing to bet that "quick" upgrades never happen at Colgan. This means that even if he had decided to go to Colgan, his date of hire would have him currently sitting as an FO. Hence my claim of he would never had been flying that plane.