I cannot get over the fact that regional pilots act like grade school children compared with other 121/135, corporate and even flight instructors.
I read forums, talk with major/LCC, 135, 91 pilots and flight instructors, and cannot get over the fact that regional pilots (not all but most) are very juvenile. The comments I hear and read regarding the industry are at times idiotic. I rarely read any corporate or major/lcc (or even flight instructors) sling so many insulting comments at one another as I do regional pilots.
Why is this? Besides the age (mostly newbies) in the regional industry, there's no reason we should be behaving like this. Nobody's d**k is that much bigger than the next guys, but yet most of you need to puff your chests out and throw insults at each other.
We are all in the same game, suck it up and try to act like men. If we would just stick together we could make a change, but I fear we are too far gone to have that happen.
Instead lets just keep slinging sh*t and bring this industry even farther down the drain.

 

Why? Because stupidity.


If regional pilots were smarter, we wouldn't be regional pilots. There are multitudes of industries that will pay more, have better average stability, and result in a better quality-of-life with less monetary investment. There's a trail of bad decision making that lands each and every regional pilot in their position.

 

I think it's prominent on this forum because it is largely tolerated here. More so than in other forums... I just assume 50% of the posts are trolls and go about my day.

 

And this too.

 

This life and career truly is what you make of it. If you got a free ride through the ATP school model because your parents are rich you'll be in a shiny jet in no time with "oh look at me" and no complaints, but on the other hand, if you had to bust your ass to get all the ratings and the glorified and ridiculous 1500 hour rule to get a min wage job then you're gonna have a tumultuous internal issue to sob about at some point...hence some of the peeps here.

To the OP, maybe you shouldn't generalize those you talk about, because those that are here that ***** and complain do not represent the feelings of most regional pilots who are perfectly happy with their jobs and find way to make **** work while keeping a positive attitude..

 

I agree, mostly. However during the height of the UAL/CAL CBA and SLI, the amount of stupid/idiotic/kindergarten/juvenile posts that went on was epic and could top most regional posting/threads. And it was widely tolerated/unmoderated. And often STILL IS.

About the the only thing that comes close to that is the same stupid/idiotic/kindergarten/juvenile posts of the standard DAL vs. AS or a DAL vs. SW posts. But all the same players.

 

Easy answer--it's social psychology 101--we are a tribal species.

Where does more violent crime take place? Trailer parks/inner-city ghettoes? Or high-income suburbs? We all know the answer.

In every human society since the beginning of time, the poorest and most downtrodden classes in the social hierarchy tend to organize themselves into tribes/gangs/clans based on shared symbols such as neighborhood/ethnicity/family relationships (or regional airline brand)...no individual tribe at that level of society is big enough or powerful enough to totally annihilate all the others, so an endless cycle of honor killings, verbal disses, and turf wars ensue...this principle of human social organization transcends race, national boundaries, and industries--it most certainly explains the juvenille "my regional is better than yours" phenomena you are referring to.

At the bottom of the barrel--where short-term survival is the prime directive--humans revert to a primal state and organize into fragmented groups--all trying to bash and stomp down the other groups to avoid being the "bottom of the bottom."

If the gangs/clans/regionals had the luxury of thinking rationally, with a long-term perspective, they could easily set down arms, band together, and collectively raise the status of ALL individuals in their overall socioeconomic class.

But no--that is not how humans operate in a state of poverty and despair--when we are in poverty and despair, we'll do or say anything to our peer groups to: 1) Make ourselves feel better about our rank in life, and 2) Attempt to hold on to what little we have, while possibly snagging slightly more for oursevles at the expense of a rival gang/regional.

Given all of the above, I am very confident that if any legacy simply stapled any regional underling, giving those regional pilots the job stability, respect, income, and benefits of "real" legacy pilots, the behavior to which you are referring would be drastically reduced--overnight.

Turf wars/bragging rights/competitions still occur at the legacy level (Airways East vs. America West comes to mind), but only when there is an immediate, large threat to one of the tribal groups' income/survival.

 

[QUOTE=Da40Pilot;1792711, if you had to bust your ass to get all the ratings and the glorified and ridiculous 1500 hour rule to get a min wage job then you're gonna have a tumultuous internal issue to sob about at some point...hence some of the peeps here.[/QUOTE]


Careful. Many of your colleagues who started their careers in the early to mid 1990s needed 1500 hours to get hired by the commuters also. Not because it was regulatory at the time, but because those were the prerequisites required by the airlines.

In fact, in 1996 most required 1500 hours TT, 500 ME, AND a $10,000 "investment" to the good folks at FSI for training. If you passed that successfully you could go fly a Jetstream 31 for $13,000 per year. The exception were Piedmont and Allegheny, who both required 2500 TT and a lunar landing to get an interview...

So forgive me if I have trouble empathizing with the plight of those who were burdened by the "glorified and ridiculous" 1500 hour rule.

 

What you read on here is from a tiny percentage of the regional pilot group. For the most part the childish posts you see on here are only here. I rarely encounter anything even similar out in the real world.

 

When I'm watchin' my TV
And that man comes on to tell me
How white my shirts can be
But he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke
The same cigarrettes as me
I can't get no, oh no no no