Very good post. Fatigue has been compared to being intoxicated, and it affects decision making accordingly. Additionally I might ask, what was the pilot doing to acquire the 1500 hours? I mean was the majority of his or her experience flying around the local airport, or was their experience more extensive than that? Let's face it, we don't get the experience with thunderstorms, wind shear, ice, or contaminated runways and such as a flight instructor. That's where the 121 training comes into play, and in my opinion the FAA didn't do their job in monitoring Colgan

 

No, they're not impossible to find by any means, you just need 1200 hours like always...and you need to be able to fly your way out of a wet paper bag too.

This is true in a sense but it's not a pyramid scheme exactly. It depends essentially on a five-for-one replacement. Each CFI needs 1500 hours...start with 300, so you need 1200 dual given. If each student needs about 200 hours dual, that's six CPL/CFI students to support one working CFI through 1500 hours. That's obviously not sustainable, and would only be temporarily viable during periods of massive regional hiring and interest in aviation careers (late 90's, early-mid 2000's?)

But foreign training demand isn't going away soon, and at least half of my dual given was for private, ie non-career, pilots.

The foreigners could take their training home, but in many cases it will always be cheaper to come to the US than to re-engineer their local regulations and build a non-existant GA infrastructure...we're not just talking about buying a few skyhawks, we're talking about building airports...

If the foreigners do go home and GA continues to wither, then the day may come where the airlines face a real pilot shortage. First they'll dramatically downsize the regionals; lifer captains will be unemployed because they have no one to sling gear for them. But since the whole point of regionals is cheap labor, the industry will not start subsidizing primary flight training just to keep regionals alive.

If there is ever actually a looming shortage of applicants for MAJOR airline jobs, then the majors will start looking at scholarships or even ab-initio type programs...but we're a very long way from that.

Google Air Crash Investigation...numerous episodes about recent crashes of non-US airliners due to basic airmanship issues.

They typically get paid more than we do. They're not going to competing with us any time soon as labor, although the quality product of some overseas carriers could attract international travellers who are fed up with the abuse of US majors.

Cabotage is not coming to the US in the foreseeable future, there are too many security concerns (some of which are legit).

 

Really? So in the instances BEFORE FO's got a type, EVEN the SIC, how did they ever handle the plane when the CA died? (roll eyes)

 

The reason for the 1500 hr rule, is because the families of Colgan 3407 lobbied hard and exposed that the airlines would not regulate themselves and that there was too much back scratching between the FAA and the airlines which they supposedly regulate--which was shown on the "Chuck Colgan is friend of the FAA testimony". The politicians did try to avoid raising the requiremnts, but the families would not let the issue die. They followed the lawmakers around, brought a lot of heat on them. Prior to this, MESA was actually hiring 250 hr pilots for a short time.

 

Eagle was hiring 250hr pilots in 2008. They went back to 1,000hrs in 2010 and lower it again to 500 in 2011.

 

My point exactly, the real negligence here is lies with the FAA. How in the world did they get away with it?

 

Toolbag quote of the day.

 

3407 was not a question of judgement. It was a pilot who pulled the yoke into his gut when the stall warning system went off and then held it there.

That is EXACTLY what some time spent in a non-airline enviroment would have not taught him not to do -- no matter how little sleep he had. In fact "taught" is a poor word, "burned into his soul" would be a better term.

We are a product of our experiance, and that experiance should be deeper than a mud puddle when step into our first 121 job.

 

That sounds correct for a tail stall recovery, could have just been a misdiagnosis.

 

to me, that sounds like a guy shutting down the left engine with a right engine fire and then saying "that sounds correct for a left engine fire could have just been a misdiagnosis"