Originally Posted by Huskypilot (Post 3724348)

Fair warning: I had a bad experience at Skywest and wanted to share it so that others are aware of a potential pitfall.

I went through training as a DEC candidate about 18 months ago. My impression from working at another regional flying the ERJ was that Skywest loads candidates up with way too much information: why do we need to memorize alternate minima criteria? why do we need to memorize the ops specs requirements for TDZ when the RVR is x, y or z? That is primarily the dispatcher's realm, and either way it is readily available. This continued in the sim, with 2 hr briefings routinely going over the two hour limit and every split second of the four hour sim ride filled with detailed instruction and unrealistic scenarios ("Hold at X at Y airspeed, descend now to Z altitude with two minute legs, left turns, etc etc etc"). In the real world, I would have responded to half these scenarios with, "Unable" or "I can go down or slow down, which would you like." Yes, the training was thorough but far from user friendly. A lot of folks either washed out or required up to three extra sims (out of a 12 sim footprint).

Despite doing fairly well throughout the sims, I had an awful LOE checkride (Sim 12). I clicked off the autothrottle when asked to descend, slow and enter a hold and forgot to reengage. I got a couple knots below Vglide (Green Dot for those who know this term) and my ride was over. The check airman said we could polish it up in a few minutes of retraining, take a recheck and move on. He also said that if I failed the next checkride, I would be terminated. Now I had a decision to make. I had been told to expect a west coast base, but had already been advised that everyone in my DEC cadre would be going to Houston for "a while." Coupled with my unfavorable impression of the operation (again, my opinion), I decided not to risk it and to move on. I sent a resignation letter to the Director of Training; he accepted my resignation and wished me luck. Fast forward a year and a half, and I'm applying to a major airline. I check my PRIA and PRD and guess what I find? "Skywest employment status -- Terminated for Pilot Performance." Shocked, I tried to contact Skywest but there are literally no numbers on their website that are answered by a human. I reach out to my former classmates and get hooked up with the ERJ training manager who says, "Oh, yeah, we always terminate people who resign after a failure." Really? Setting aside the ethical issue, was there any attempt to tell me, say, before my resignation was accepted? How about informing me that I had been terminated after the deed had been done? The answer to both, of course, is no. Skywest took my resignation, sprinkled some S&!$ on it and, presto! I'm fired. So I plead my case all the way up to Tracy Gallo, VP of Ops -- the answer was nope. I contacted a labor attorney and he said, "You will likely find your answer in the fine print of your training contract." In other words, buried in whatever paperwork we as pilot candidates sign for Skywest is a ticking time bomb wherein you will be fired if you decide that you don't want to stick around after an initial failure. Forget the fact that the check airman didn't know that ("AFTER a second failure, you would be terminated") and the director of training didn't mention it, ("We will process your resignation. Best of luck."), if you didn't read the fine print and made the same mistake I did, you have a termination on your PRIA. I have at least one classmate that made the same mistake and likely doesn't know yet. And yes, I reached out to SAPA. They promised to look into it and are currently ghosting me.

Sorry for the lengthy post, but I wanted everyone to know that there are unseen threats in Skywest's contract. It's possible that this clause exists in other companies, but my takeaway is that I felt Skywest had the opportunity and obligation to let me know what would happen if I resigned prior to completing my training. If I had to do it all over again, I would definitely have sucked it up and completed the training. And if I could go back even further, I would never have crossed paths with Skywest.

With no disrespect to current or past OO pilots, this is only a heads up for everyone who wants to keep their certificate as clean as possible.

Originally Posted by FoundIt (Post 3724324)

I have INDOC coming up on November 20th for the ERJ, are we meant to recieve study materials beforehand? I've contacted the training coordinator with no response

Originally Posted by Huskypilot (Post 3724348)

Fair warning: I had a bad experience at Skywest and wanted to share it so that others are aware of a potential pitfall.

why do we need to memorize the ops specs requirements for TDZ when the RVR is x, y or z? That is primarily the dispatcher's realm, and either way it is readily available. This continued in the sim, with 2 hr briefings routinely going over the two hour limit and every split second of the four hour sim ride filled with detailed instruction and unrealistic scenarios ("Hold at X at Y airspeed, descend now to Z altitude with two minute legs, left turns, etc etc etc"). In the real world, I would have responded to half these scenarios with, "Unable" or "I can go down or slow down, which would you like." Yes, the training was thorough but far from user friendly. A lot of folks either washed out or required up to three extra sims (out of a 12 sim footprint).

Originally Posted by Huskypilot (Post 3724348)

Fair warning: I had a bad experience at Skywest and wanted to share it so that others are aware of a potential pitfall.

I went through training as a DEC candidate about 18 months ago. My impression from working at another regional flying the ERJ was that Skywest loads candidates up with way too much information: why do we need to memorize alternate minima criteria? why do we need to memorize the ops specs requirements for TDZ when the RVR is x, y or z? That is primarily the dispatcher's realm, and either way it is readily available. This continued in the sim, with 2 hr briefings routinely going over the two hour limit and every split second of the four hour sim ride filled with detailed instruction and unrealistic scenarios ("Hold at X at Y airspeed, descend now to Z altitude with two minute legs, left turns, etc etc etc"). In the real world, I would have responded to half these scenarios with, "Unable" or "I can go down or slow down, which would you like." Yes, the training was thorough but far from user friendly. A lot of folks either washed out or required up to three extra sims (out of a 12 sim footprint).

Despite doing fairly well throughout the sims, I had an awful LOE checkride (Sim 12). I clicked off the autothrottle when asked to descend, slow and enter a hold and forgot to reengage. I got a couple knots below Vglide (Green Dot for those who know this term) and my ride was over. The check airman said we could polish it up in a few minutes of retraining, take a recheck and move on. He also said that if I failed the next checkride, I would be terminated. Now I had a decision to make. I had been told to expect a west coast base, but had already been advised that everyone in my DEC cadre would be going to Houston for "a while." Coupled with my unfavorable impression of the operation (again, my opinion), I decided not to risk it and to move on. I sent a resignation letter to the Director of Training; he accepted my resignation and wished me luck. Fast forward a year and a half, and I'm applying to a major airline. I check my PRIA and PRD and guess what I find? "Skywest employment status -- Terminated for Pilot Performance." Shocked, I tried to contact Skywest but there are literally no numbers on their website that are answered by a human. I reach out to my former classmates and get hooked up with the ERJ training manager who says, "Oh, yeah, we always terminate people who resign after a failure." Really? Setting aside the ethical issue, was there any attempt to tell me, say, before my resignation was accepted? How about informing me that I had been terminated after the deed had been done? The answer to both, of course, is no. Skywest took my resignation, sprinkled some S&!$ on it and, presto! I'm fired. So I plead my case all the way up to Tracy Gallo, VP of Ops -- the answer was nope. I contacted a labor attorney and he said, "You will likely find your answer in the fine print of your training contract." In other words, buried in whatever paperwork we as pilot candidates sign for Skywest is a ticking time bomb wherein you will be fired if you decide that you don't want to stick around after an initial failure. Forget the fact that the check airman didn't know that ("AFTER a second failure, you would be terminated") and the director of training didn't mention it, ("We will process your resignation. Best of luck."), if you didn't read the fine print and made the same mistake I did, you have a termination on your PRIA. I have at least one classmate that made the same mistake and likely doesn't know yet. And yes, I reached out to SAPA. They promised to look into it and are currently ghosting me.

Sorry for the lengthy post, but I wanted everyone to know that there are unseen threats in Skywest's contract. It's possible that this clause exists in other companies, but my takeaway is that I felt Skywest had the opportunity and obligation to let me know what would happen if I resigned prior to completing my training. If I had to do it all over again, I would definitely have sucked it up and completed the training. And if I could go back even further, I would never have crossed paths with Skywest.

With no disrespect to current or past OO pilots, this is only a heads up for everyone who wants to keep their certificate as clean as possible.

Originally Posted by MelaniaWasHot (Post 3727603)

Thanks for sharing! About 12 years ago, I went to SLC for an interview. There was a sim portion done in a Frasca piece of Sh!^ A racist instructor told me that I should get more IMC time before I apply again. At that time I was hand-flying a Shorts 360 out of Puerto Rico. I asked him if before asking ATC for a deviation for a build up maybe next time I should ask to go thru the WX... Bunch of idixxx

Originally Posted by Huskypilot (Post 3724348)

Fair warning: I had a bad experience at Skywest and wanted to share it so that others are aware of a potential pitfall.

I went through training as a DEC candidate about 18 months ago. My impression from working at another regional flying the ERJ was that Skywest loads candidates up with way too much information: why do we need to memorize alternate minima criteria? why do we need to memorize the ops specs requirements for TDZ when the RVR is x, y or z? That is primarily the dispatcher's realm, and either way it is readily available. This continued in the sim, with 2 hr briefings routinely going over the two hour limit and every split second of the four hour sim ride filled with detailed instruction and unrealistic scenarios ("Hold at X at Y airspeed, descend now to Z altitude with two minute legs, left turns, etc etc etc"). In the real world, I would have responded to half these scenarios with, "Unable" or "I can go down or slow down, which would you like." Yes, the training was thorough but far from user friendly. A lot of folks either washed out or required up to three extra sims (out of a 12 sim footprint).

Despite doing fairly well throughout the sims, I had an awful LOE checkride (Sim 12). I clicked off the autothrottle when asked to descend, slow and enter a hold and forgot to reengage. I got a couple knots below Vglide (Green Dot for those who know this term) and my ride was over. The check airman said we could polish it up in a few minutes of retraining, take a recheck and move on. He also said that if I failed the next checkride, I would be terminated. Now I had a decision to make. I had been told to expect a west coast base, but had already been advised that everyone in my DEC cadre would be going to Houston for "a while." Coupled with my unfavorable impression of the operation (again, my opinion), I decided not to risk it and to move on. I sent a resignation letter to the Director of Training; he accepted my resignation and wished me luck. Fast forward a year and a half, and I'm applying to a major airline. I check my PRIA and PRD and guess what I find? "Skywest employment status -- Terminated for Pilot Performance." Shocked, I tried to contact Skywest but there are literally no numbers on their website that are answered by a human. I reach out to my former classmates and get hooked up with the ERJ training manager who says, "Oh, yeah, we always terminate people who resign after a failure." Really? Setting aside the ethical issue, was there any attempt to tell me, say, before my resignation was accepted? How about informing me that I had been terminated after the deed had been done? The answer to both, of course, is no. Skywest took my resignation, sprinkled some S&!$ on it and, presto! I'm fired. So I plead my case all the way up to Tracy Gallo, VP of Ops -- the answer was nope. I contacted a labor attorney and he said, "You will likely find your answer in the fine print of your training contract." In other words, buried in whatever paperwork we as pilot candidates sign for Skywest is a ticking time bomb wherein you will be fired if you decide that you don't want to stick around after an initial failure. Forget the fact that the check airman didn't know that ("AFTER a second failure, you would be terminated") and the director of training didn't mention it, ("We will process your resignation. Best of luck."), if you didn't read the fine print and made the same mistake I did, you have a termination on your PRIA. I have at least one classmate that made the same mistake and likely doesn't know yet. And yes, I reached out to SAPA. They promised to look into it and are currently ghosting me.

Sorry for the lengthy post, but I wanted everyone to know that there are unseen threats in Skywest's contract. It's possible that this clause exists in other companies, but my takeaway is that I felt Skywest had the opportunity and obligation to let me know what would happen if I resigned prior to completing my training. If I had to do it all over again, I would definitely have sucked it up and completed the training. And if I could go back even further, I would never have crossed paths with Skywest.

With no disrespect to current or past OO pilots, this is only a heads up for everyone who wants to keep their certificate as clean as possible.

Originally Posted by domino (Post 3727989)

ouch. Sorry. That's some nasty juju right there. Have been hearing LOTS of stories of pilots giving the two week notice required and yet finding that on the PRIA (even though it's not required) that OO is alleging the 2 week notice wasn't given. Seems once you leave the cult, they play dirty some times.

Originally Posted by amcnd (Post 3728027)

PRIA is training record not “two week notice” record. I had a FO few months back on a Friday tell me it’s his last trip. “Heading to Spirit Monday!” Asked when he should put in his notice…