Oh yes. Was blown away. I’m sure our newly elected team is applying leverage to up our QOL as we speak.

Why do hate on RTP guys so much? They're good people trying to take advantage of an opportunity rarely given to helicopter pilots. Are you god's gift to aviation? Were you given an ATP instead of a birth certificate? If you're so awesome, why haven't you made it to the majors yet? I think you feel a little bit slighted that these guys are getting significant help financially with their ratings. Feel free to pull yourself up out of the muck and the mire of an airline full of rotor trash.

No trouble finding anyone. Company is scaling back new hire class sizes to only cover attrition for the foreseeable future, also to help get the training pipeline reduced. This was announced a few months back.

Think about it, we have more than enough pilots for 56 jets. We just need to get the 200+ waiting in the training pipeline out to the line.

Yes yes, no trouble finding anyone...

That being said:

Company goal was to hire 300 in 2018. They broke 200 but did not meet that goal. NH recruitment started to fall off as other Regionals increased pay and QOL items in their new contracts. The 5 month pool of applicants that PDT had throughout 2017 shrank significantly in early 2018 and NH class sizes have shrunk to <20/ month since the TA came out and subsequently failed.

The most critically short area of staffing has been Captains. The projected shortfall of Captains has stunted PDTs growth aircraft wise. Original goal for aircraft long term was 100+ and has since been drawn back to “about 60” as the realization that there’s not enough Captains to staff the more ambitious goal and PDT doesn’t have the ability to quickly increase production of Captains. This captain shortfall has been experienced AAG wide, sparking DEC programs and forced upgrades at Envoy and PSA also.

At Piedmont, the company goal was 6+ DECs/ month to replace captain attrition from the flow as more FOs upgrade (which is taking approximately 3 years thanks to 11 month training delays and FOs blocking 40-50hrs/ month avg througiht the year). PDT used money freed up by shutting off the Military Transition Program (which produced similar Extra training event rates as piston CFIs but cost upto $23k per person more) to fund DEC bonuses. They’ve hired 1-2/ month since the TA failed and failed to reach that goal. They have since reinstated MTP to boost the overall # of NHs in classes as interest from other groups of applicants has fallen off.

The training department is an easy scapegoat but the crux of the issue is that AAG doesn’t allow PDT to offer enough pay/QOL to recruit and retain enough captains to fly the line with a surplus from which they can produce instructors to tackle the backlog of folks. PDT has had blocks of sim period sitting vacant for most of 2018 due to lack of instructors. The company has chosen to attempt to minimize the impact of Captain attrition on the line and has intentionally withheld instructors from starting training for most of the year.

I do know that consistently the rotor guys are not ready for 121. Hear it from instructors and see it on the line. That’s our fault for not having resources to mentor them and fully prepare them for the transition. And it’s their fault for not observing sims, studying enough, practicing flows until their eyes boggle, callouts all day, and running profiles in their heads using the FGC posters and the mockups in the sim centers

There are some helo guys that excel. Directly related to how much they invest in the above

Shut up baby dick.

Why would rotor guys not be ready for 121? Coming from a military environment they’re familiar with studying SOPs and procedures. They have good study habits from military flight school and almost mandatory college these days to be an officer.

The only weaknesses I personally have seen from transition training is that rotor guys don’t use the rudder when flying since helicopters fly in trim automatically. A bad habit certainly, but not really an issue flying jets compared to light aircraft. The second problem might be stick and rudder skills. Again, I would argue not the biggest deal. If stick and rudder skills were the primary consideration then airlines would only recruit aerobatic and bush pilots.

I might be stirring up trouble, but when it comes to having the discipline to study the relevant procedures, memory items, and flows, I would think these guys would be on top of it.

If folks are seeing otherwise I’d be curious as to what theories are as to why these folks are having trouble.

You still waiting on sims?

That's true of commissioned officers, but a lot of the RTP guys are warrant officers, which doesn't require college. Being a good pilot or natural pilot isn't even necessary in order to make a career out of military flying.

I would agree that it does take some discipline, though.

I'm not saying you didn't see rudder misuse, but I assure you it's not because of helicopter time. Helicopters are unstable, and require far more footwork than airplanes, especially tricycle gear airplanes. A lot of the large/military helo's do have stability augmentation, just like more advanced airplanes do, but the helicopter inherently requires a lot of pedal input (whether by human or computer). Nearly all helicopter pilots with enough experience to come in as RTP guys will have flown helicopters without stability augmentation (like the Bell 206 / TH67) where you spend far more time dancing on the pedals than any airplane pilot.

Unless you're specifically, and only, talking about rudder use with aileron input. If that's the case, you're right. Helicopters are unstable, but they don't exhibit "adverse yaw".

I'd guess that poor rudder use is not because of helicopter experience, but simply the lack of airplane experience. They're knocking out add-ons quickly and probably aren't learning the fundamentals as thoroughly as someone on a more traditional route.

Yea, agreed. Helicopters, small airplanes, and transport-category jets are three different animals. Being good at one doesn't mean you'll be good at either of the other two.

I think the trouble comes from the fact that 121 jet flying and helicopter flying are so dramatically different. You're flying 10 times higher, and five times faster in the jet. It's all IFR, flying into busy airspace where you're expect to get in and get the hell out of the way, flying SIDS/STARS, always on an instrument approach or backed up by one. Most helicopter flying is the opposite of all that.

Most helicopter pilots have no experience with the complex taxi instructions we get in the hubs. Energy management in a helicopter is most critical when you're slow and close to things. In the jet, it's when you're high and fast and trying to get down.

It's all just so different. A career helicopter pilot with 250 hours in airplanes isn't much much more prepared than an airplane pilot with just 250 hours.

To me, what RTP proves is that you can take someone with a very basic understanding of airplanes and make them jet pilots with the right training. In effect, it's the same thing the Asian airlines do.

In my opinion, most of RTPers skills are foreign enough to be irrelevant. The biggest asset an RTP guy can come in with is work ethic and trainability. In that regard, a pilot that has been successful in helicopters is simply more likely to train successfully in jets, than is someone randomly chosen from the general public.

Let's all have a little pity party for this guy! The majors didn't recognize your Chuck Yeager like skills and sent you to the minors to suffer with the dregs of society. Sorry about that. I guess it goes to show that you are a line item like anyone else. The Piedmont group will be better without your presence. How does it feel to know that quite a few rotor guys who hit the market in the last two years are getting hired at majors?