No, that process is for FAA rules made by the FAA itself (which are not laws).

A law goes into effect when congress says it does. I would assume there will be a grandfather clause of some sort for those already employed (not for furloughs I suspect). The timeline should already be in the bill's language if you look it up.

 

If someone held a gun to my head and forced me to pick an arbitrary number, I would choose 1000 hours. Maybe that's because it is a four digit time and looks realtively impressive, but I wouldn't impose goofy qualifiers to it like experience in icing or prior 135 experience.

I know American Eagle takes a lot of flack here, but look at their requirements for employement. You need 1000 hours, 200 multi, instrument time that equals 10% of TT, and a flying job for the 12 previous months. I'm not so sure about a requiring a previous job unless free lance CFI counts, but that looks pretty good to me.

Regardless, I just don't like government involvement, especially from Chuck Schumer.

 

Airline requirements don't mean squat. AE hired 400 hour pilots in the past, when they needed. As soon as the crunch is on, most regionals throw their standards book out the nearest window.

SKW probably did the best job of holding the line but even they went down to
800 hours for those with 121 CRJ experience. UAL hired 400 hour pilots in the not-really-so-distant past.

I'll take the government's best efforts and compromise this time because I think it beats the alternative.

 

I did 8 years at the regional airlines and flew as an LCA and chatted often with friends involved in the hiring process where we were proud to have a 1000 hour minimum where most people were actually hired with well above that because the "pilots" who did the hiring believed in experience when it came to safety. These same guys who hired didn't want to be giving "basic instruction" at work everyday.

So I actually believe that back in the 90's and before, safety was a concern when you where hiring pilots who would be flying turboprops into nasty weather day in and day out with a good chance of upgrading to captain in 2 years or less. That along with a larger pool of applicants created an environment which correlated experience to safety.

The advent of the RJ and fully automated aircraft created a belief that the day to day flying was safer anyway and a deterioration of pay and benefits at the major level created the shortage of guys who were willing to work for 18K a year. So the choice for the airlines was to either increase pay to compensate and attract pilots with quadruple digit experience or continue to lower the mins to commercial standards and virtually take pilots out of the hiring process by shoving this down their throats (no pilots I know were in favor of this drop in experience). We know what happened with that story and now we are seeing the results of that decision in the safety standards of some of these poorly run airlines. I predicted in the early part of the decade that this would come back to bite the industry and now we are seeing congress take action to change something that the FAA should have been all over in the beginning. I think my grasp of the matter is actually pretty good, I just think that they should make the requirement to be ATP minimum and not compromise on the original proposal the house put out. Of course 800 hours is better than 250, but it can be better; I really don't know what your point was.

 

Does anybody know where to find the exact details for this bill? that news article from the first post is kinda vague! what does "800 hours of flight experience in specific, rigorous conditions" really mean? I've been researching around and the most information I can find is that this bill will only require 800 hours to act as a copilot on part 121 flight operations and you will not need to log flight time in icing conditions you would only have to demonstrate proficiency in such conditions. I derived this information from a news article at the following site: Schumer legislation in FAA bill | WIVB.com Please correct me if I'm wrong or if anyone can find some solid information on the topic!

 

Yup! Sounds about perfect!

 

link for some language
Senator Charles E. Schumer

I hate these vague, open ended statements at the end. I am sure we could discuss them into the wee months of the next decade. I just pray they pass the buck onto the air carriers as far as some or most of these training requirements. Passing these onto students would pretty much kill flight training for career oriented students.

I almoast don't know if I should laugh or cry when these loonies make up rules that everyone but them have to live with.

 

I gotta chime in again. This is just bugging the **** outta me.

(-Adhere to the highest professional standards).

So could ABC regional overworking pilots to the point of chronic fatigue, lack of sleep, low pay and maybe an OK QOL be considered professional?

This is like a big slap in the face to all you guys and gals that work your @$$ of so management and stockholders can make a buck. EEWWW!!!! I wish I could just B-smack some of these loonies.

I just don't get how we are constantly held to this double standard!

 

Schumer’s provision will mandate that FAA conduct a rulemaking for co-pilots, which must be completed by 12/31/2011. FAA’s rulemaking must include a requirement Co-pilots to have 800 hours of flying experience, which must be met in specific conditions, listed below. If FAA does not complete the rulemaking on time, then co-pilots will have to get an ATP license, which is 1500 hours of flight experience in specifically-prescribed conditions.

According to Schumer’s provision, pilots will have to have no less than 800 hours of flight time before serving as a flight crew member for a commercial air carrier, and will have to demonstrate the ability to:
·Function effectively in a multi-pilot environment;
·Function effectively in an air carrier operational environment;
·Function effectively in adverse weather conditions, including icing conditions;
·Function effectively during high altitude operations; and
·Adhere to the highest professional standards.

The FAA Administrator will also have to dedicate a portion of the minimum 800 hours to flight training in difficult operational conditions.



So let me see if I'm reading this correctly. Congress is trying to pass a provision requiring the FAA to make a rule change for FO's by 12/31/2011 (End of next year). If the FAA does not do this within that time frame then the minimum requirement for FO's automatically goes to an ATP? What about the specifically-prescribed conditions stated in this article for an ATP? Are they referring to the already written requirements for obtaining an ATP or are they planning on coming up with something different?

Next we come to the part of, "Demonstrate the ability to." What in the world does that mean? Does that mean that we are now going to have PTS's for these new requirements, more written tests, or will the fact that you have flown for a regional, even though you may be furloughed at this time, going to be enough to meet these requirements?

Finally we come to the flight training in, "Difficult flying conditions." Once again, what are we talking about? Are we talking about icing, very busy Class B (i.e. JFK, EWR, LGA, ORD, LAX, etc.), IMC, emergency type training?

I agree with NoBeta that these statements are way too vague. There is no where to go to and get any information on these changes, and as far as I know there have been only two articles that I have found which even discuss the changes. Granted this bill sounds like it is a proposal of rulemaking to the FAA so specifics are probably not available yet, but some of these changes could affect quite a few pilots. My concern is for those of us who are furloughed, through no fault of our own in many cases, who meet the 800 hours, but who may now not technically be qualified to do the jobs we have already done because of these additional requirements. Will there be any type of Grandfather clause for those of us with 121 experience? This bill is just filled with way to many questions.

 

Reading those comments from Schumer's site make me laugh. Aren't most the things he listed items which have to demonstrated in one way or another during a 121 training program? This looks to be a farce in that way, or it could purposefully be a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing? At least for those items, it seems to be one or the other.

The scary part are the requirments the FAA might be instructed to make as part of the 800 hours. Again, just where is the avenue that allows piltos to gain training in icing conditions? Will they be forced to fork over a boat load of money through a crippling loan to achieve this? Why isn't this just a boom for the acadamies so many hate? I know 135 is a possibility, but how many job are out there for short timers looking to move on quickly?

What about thunderstorms? Why doesn't this proposal mandate we fly through thundertorms before flying for an airline. I mean after all, the Buffulo accident was in icing, but that doesn't mean the next accident couldn't be in a thunderstorm like the very experienced pilots of Delta 191 in Dallas encountered.

These reactionary moves meant to appease the public are always backward looking and rarely if ever help. More than 99.9% of the country has no idea what it means to fly for an airline and that includes the Congress.