I don't mind "coaching" an newbie on airplane specific characteristics or procedures and airline specific operations. I should not have to coach basic IFR or radio procedures or IAS vs TAS vs GS or basic aerodynamics like this....

FO..."Ground Flagship 5900"
ground..."go ahead"
FO....."flagship 5900 holding short of papa"
ground..."flagship 5900 what gate are you going to?"
FO......."A3"
ground...."flagship 5900 taxi via papa mike mike6 to the gate"
fo.....'uhhhh...roger" (even though i have no clue what the route is)

at this point in the career, do I really need to tell them to turn those 6 or more sentences into 2 by using the basic who you are, where you are, and what you want to do primary radio etiquette?

 

Nope... Absolutely not. But that sounds a lot more like the training departments fault then anything else. If this guy cant even talk on the mic, how did he mange to bumble his way through training?? Hate to say it, but if he managed to make it all the way to the flight line, somebody who is NOT a 250 hour "wonder" should have washed him out a long time before you flew with him. Maybe we shouldn't be focusing so hard on the skill of new pilots and be spending a little more time looking into the skill of those who are supposed to be teaching them.

But no, I dont think you should be held responsible for teaching FO's how to speak.

 

agreed...but we need to be looking at his primary/instument/cfi/commercial training, not the airline's training that he was hired at. They slip through because nowhere from your interview, through ground school, through sims and PC are you really required to talk to ATC on the radio, until you get to IOE. it is rightfully assumed you know these things. And lets face it, you're probably not gonna bust a newbie on IOE just for his lack of radio etiquette...assuming all other areas are progressing normally. it's hard to undo 250 hours of poor radio communication skills in 25 hours of OE...

 

I completely agree, radio skills are one area that a lot of new guy's will probably struggle in. However, i feel like the airline who is training said new guy should do a better job teaching radio etiquette during the training process. I feel like radio skills are only acquired through a good cfi, and i was fortunate to have one that insisted we fly in high traffic areas where ATC communication was 100% nessacary. That is how i learned, but not all cfi's are like that. So while i agree that radio skills need to be seriously improved upon, I think that standardization of ATC skills should be a part of 121 ground school. If we are being examined in every other aspect of our pilotage skills, the radio should not be left out. Thats pretty scary that the first time real radio skills are used is during IOE, and I can see why that would make a captain nervous.

 

Chill out bro, your not gonna change anybody's mind talkin sh!t and throwin out abbreviations left and right. Many have tried and it never works. These guys dont care about what you know, only about how many less hours you have than them. We went to school together and I know ure a legit pilot, now you just have to prove that to everybody senior to u. Do your thing and prove these clowns wrong. Actions speak louder than words, thats just the way it is.

 

I didn't mean to imply that you were flaming anyone, just that this had turned into a derisive debate. For the record, I agree that sensationalism gets WAY out of hand when the media gets their teeth around any aircraft incident or accident, but a lot of it is usually misplaced or contains misinformation. You know hearing the media talk about airplane incidents drives you crazy, like how "the pilot" guided that Southwest plane to a safe landing in Yuma. I didn't realize Southwest was doing single pilot operations now. We can all appreciate the difference between CFI or GA experience and 121 experience, but I don't think that negates the lessons that can be learned in the 121 world. You may not learn anything as a result of something especially stupid or dangerous you accidentally did but you're still gaining good hard IFR skills that increase your ADM ability and make you a better pilot. Maybe your stick and rudder skills diminish if you just turn on the auto pilot on and off at 1000 agl, but my point, I suppose, is that the public doesn't recognize that difference (and maybe for good reason). Once a guy has 10,000 hours in anything, I don't think anyone would care if he only had 250 hours of CFI time a decade before because the public only cares about his ability to fly the big jet they're riding on and if he's got a big four digit number worth of time, well by golly he must know what he's doing. You can argue that maybe that's a naive viewpoint, but that's the viewpoint I think they and the media will take. Personally, I think a guy with 9,500 hours of large category jet 121 time has been through more than enough to give him some good ADM ability and I wouldn't give a second thought if he had been a low time hire years before.

Also, the 3407 FO taught in the Phoenix area, just like I did, and while you
may get a bunch of flight time it's all in severe clear. I picked up about 0.3 of actual during the year and half I was down there, so it's certainly not going to teach you how to fly in ice. Also, she wasn't the PF, so while yeah, she probably could have got on and shoved the yoke forward when the shaker went off, how many FOs would be a bit conflicted about taking the controls from the captain? Or fighting for the controls if that were the case? Yeah of course, your life is on the line too, and I'm not saying she was right to just sit there and dump the flaps, but I feel like that whole thing happened so fast that there wasn't much she could have done despite her CFI experience.

No, you absolutely shouldn't but that's example is the kind of thing that can catch even the most experienced CFI off guard. I was hired with about 1000 hours to fly a Caravan in a passenger scheduled 135 outfit, and the first time I landed at O'Hare and got "taxi to 32L at Tango 10 via right Alpha, Alpha 17, cross Bravo behind the Embraer, Mike 2, Mike, Tango, tower on Mike 120.75" I was like uhhhhhhhh, one more time, I had you up to the Embraer. The problem is when you CFI even for thousands of hours, you're usually at a slower airport, sometimes non towered, and even if it is a busy tower, you're always coming and going from the same place so your taxi instructions are always the same. I instructed at the busiest GA airport in the country, KDVT, and even then it was always "taxi to the ramp via Alpha, give way to whoever." I think taxi clearances at a big airport are the hardest thing to get your head wrapped around and it's the kind of thing you're going to have to learn on the line.

 

You misunderstood my post...I'm not talking about what taxi route to expect and drinking from a firehose taxi clearances at a major unfamiliar airport (however alot of that confusion can be reduced at the gate or at cruise with a good common sense study of the airport diagram)....I'm talking about saying in 1 sentence what it takes some 4+ transmissions to get out..."ground flagship 5900 on bravo short of papa taxiing to gate 3"......instead of making 4 transmissions out of that one sentence...

 

You're right, I did misunderstand your post. Fair point.

 

"Flagship can you take an intersection departure?"

"Roger but we can't flex."

 

ha ha sometimes I think MEM ops talks better on the radio!