Why is it so hard to understand why the majority of us want to see people build their experience one step at a time?

Pick a sport, they all start from nothing and have many steps to make it to the majors. Football and baseball both start in grade school with little league, move on to JV, then varsity, then college, and then A FEW move on to the NFL/MLB. IN NASCAR, there are a hundred or so modified racers for each driver starting at Daytona.

We pilots should likewise start small, prove our worth, and advance proportionally to our skills.

 

Bad analogy. Some guys join the pros at 18. Some of them leave college early. Most of them join the pros right out of college. In some sport guys play in the minor league or farm teams and are pulled up from there based on performance and may only get a shot if somebody gets inured. The aviation industry is nothing like that. If it is then the guys getting hired young with low time must just have a lot of God given talent. Not really.

 

This is really not up to us, it's up to the American public. The American public doesn't want a regional pilot being an entry-level position.

This has nothing to do with experienced pilots selling younger guys out. I was hired with low time, and I did just fine. Unfortunately, the FAA standards can not tell the difference between a good 250 hour pilot, and the bad 250 hour pilot. Flying a Q400 or a CRJ200 with pax is a bad place to find out you suck.

I think we all know that if a student doesn't have what it takes, they just pick up and move down the road to the next flight school that will sell them the license. They will find the school with no integrity. As for 121 training, they always seem to find the instructor to sign off the pilot. Because if they don't they will have to face the lawsuit for unlawful termination.

This is why I feel the door needs to be closed. ATP for 121, thumbs up.

 

That's true, as a CFI you aren't exposed to many of those things. Here's an idea- go learn about it. Books, internet, other pilots etc. That will make your life a lot easier as you go through training. What's wrong with doing that while you work your way up to your ATP?

 

Just to play devil's advocate re. the 250hr foreign pilots. Somebody mentioned that they get much more training and are the best of the best etc...

Not necessarily so. I've been looking into several foreign companies that hire these 250hr guys. At a lot of those airlines do not let the new FO fly below 10k, let alone take off and land. When they do fly above 10k, the AP must be on.

I don't know at what point they allow the FO to fly, but how would you feel if you joined your airline and it was over a year before you got to fly?

 

It would be about the same as getting married and waiting a year to consummate the marriage .

 

The law is going to change for the better or for the worst. It depends who your talking to. The problem with pilots and unions are we eat our own. When someone gets hired at airline xxx you get sub-par wages. You get screwed when your furloughed, company goes out of business or you get a new job. Your seniority with the teamsters and ALPA doesn't follow you to your new employer. If pilots want to change anything we have control of, then we need to have your seniority number follow you to your new company.

 

Yes they do. What they're willing to pay for an airline ticket proves they want the cheapest pilots, mechanics, maintenance, etc. Sad as that is.

 

Your views of the world and how it works are slightly narrow minded. If you think that saving an airplane from an engine failure makes you a good safe pilot, you may need more experience. Saving the airplane from the pilot is the real task. So many perfectly good airplanes were destroyed due to an inexperienced pilot and how they reacted. (Colgan, Air France, that crazy European 737 that lost 8000FT instantly because the F.O. had no clue what the hell he was doing) It has nothing to do with how many hours they had when they crashed or saved the airplane. It has to do with how many hours they had before they got the job. The laws of primacy actually play a significant role in real life.

If you have 1500 hours before you get to a job flying flesh and meat around, you have probably had time to scare the crap out of yourself and learned what not to do in a more forgiving environment. Everyone should go upside down in an aircraft whether it is inadvertent or intentional. One way or another you should have done that several times before you get to the airline environment. Everyone should have gone out and flown with friends and experienced what flying has to offer before you get to flying lots of people around in an extremely dynamic environment. Mistakes happen as we are only human but pilots need time to make a lot of those mistakes before they get to the airlines. 250hrs isn't enough time to do that. The first time you have to make life or death decisions shouldn't be in an airliner when you are captain having been hired with 25hrs of actual PIC time.

And maybe this new rule may save some frustration along the way. How do you know that becoming a pilot is something you are really meant to do? Many guys should not be flying airplanes for a living but are stuck in the job and pose quite a threat. Had they needed to actually try to get the job instead of having it given to them they probably would have washed out and realized there are other things to do in life.

This change isn't a fix all solution. But it is a step in the right direction. I will support it all the way. It's not about paying your dues, but rather respecting what a true professional pilot requires to one day be of value. Once we all realize that, the prestige of being an airline pilot may one day exist again.

 

Nope...they want all pilots to be ex Shuttle commanders, all mechanics to be ex neurosurgeons, and all flight attendants to be ex Playboy bunnies.....



...All while paying Wal*Mart prices....



They don't have a clue.