WHACKMASTER

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Boredflyguy

Exactly it makes no sense. Why are people so gung ho about ruining the pay scales?

e6bpilot

All the D225 pilots are required to get turbine time at a fractional/feeder job. I saw that post too, and it was started when the assistant to the regional manager came over to the CQT class on a Sunday when nobody else could make it to do the company brief.

It's like when you fly with a check airman and they tell you that we are updating our training programs for the 787. Mmmmkay.

e6bpilot

Simply put, there is no substitute for experience. 10,000 hour me is a way better pilot than 1,000 hour me. The thought is that odds are you are going to see and do stuff in those thousands of hours that is going to scare you enough and teach you enough lessons that you are going to be a better pilot going forward.

If you were doing the hiring, would you rather that person gain that experience here with your pax in the back or would you rather they do it somewhere else? Turbine experience is valuable. Period. Turbine aircraft go faster and higher, carry more stuff, and have issues with spool up times and performance that piston aircraft don't. You want a pilot that already has that experience and isn't learning it in the training center and on the line.

Str8 Cash Homie

Agreed. I became a better pilot when I took my first flying job as a certified flight instructor. I became a better pilot when I went through my first regional initial training and flew the line for 1,000 hours turbine. I became an even better pilot when I went through upgrade training and became a captain. After hundreds of hours of turbine PIC time I’m an even better pilot. You take my skill level from when I passed my Commercial check ride and compare it to now it’s literally light years in comparison. You would be hiring the same person, but totally different pilot.

I’ll be starting at a legacy carrier in a few weeks. I understand some will have an easier path to gain a seniority number at a Major than I did, this isn’t jealousy, it’s just a fact that experience does matter and Southwest blowing up the 1,000 turbine mins and hiring 1,500 CFI’s would be dangerous to all your careers at SWA. All it takes is one major accident.

Here’s a better idea, how about instead of reducing hiring minimus they make SWA a career destination again. This is coming from someone who received a CJO and lives in a SWA base but accepted another offer.

ZapBrannigan

This. The whole world operates on this master and apprentice type system where there’s really only one pilot on the airplane, and one student pilot. Except the US. Everyone is Captain qualified on day one. That’s something we should be proud of, not looking for excuses to reduce or eliminate.


Sure the Europeans can sit down and watch the white triangle eat the pink line all the way across the Atlantic and then make one landing a week. 999 times out of 1000 it’ll be just that easy. The 1000th time it’s AirFrance 447, or Malaysian 370, Ethiopian 302.



Germanwings 9525 is another one to take a look at though. The FO had 630 hours. If he had more time in the profession, maybe flight instructors, or examiners, or controllers, or coworkers might have started to see a trend in his behavior, his mental state and thrown the flag before 149 people had to die. Taking a low time pilot and having them warm the right seat is asking for trouble. Do we want the FO position to be an apprenticeship? Or do we want FOs who come with the experience and the airmanship to be an active and participatory member of a crew when the poo hits the fan?

Excargodog

It’s all HR and the current algorithm. No actual thought required. And when the Big Six had 3000 plus applications a year from people who met the simplistic requirements and were hiring less than 1000, they had no reason to question the criteria. Now they don’t. But neither do they have much expertise in such decision making.

tm602

Dude, the fatality rate would thin the ranks of available pilots even worse than it is now LOL.
The freight dawgs are seldom caught with their pants down on anything. I always liked hearing "I was with (name your freight company) flying a Beech 99". I then knew this guy had lousy radar, engine problems, propeller problems, diversions, lots of hand flying, lots of real IFR, and had to make a lot of decisions.
But I can't tell you how many "fast track" FOs I have had at regionals who had springs fly out of their heads every time a Master Warning or go-around came up.
At NJA, I was happy that we had pretty stringent mins at 2500TT/1000ME and some turbine preferred (although they recently dropped them well since I left). Because they already had a good handle on flying in general, the FOs there were pretty sharp. Couple that with the long road to upgrade they had a lot of experience, and I was quite comfortable flying with all of them.
And while I don't consider myself a "high timer", I have enough type ratings and time to be considered well qualified when I applied at SWA....and even at that, hitting the line was a blur and the first few flights from PHX to SAN, LAS and the other "short" flights, man I barely looked outside. I can't imagine bringing people with no turbine in here. Now before I start hearing "well, the low timers get through training so they must be pretty good" and other nonsensical arguments, I'll liken sim training to be like having sex with a blow-up doll....it just aint the real thing. I'm really not an arrogant man, at all, but this is high stakes gambling and I'd rather be paired with someone who has played cards a lot than a guy who read lots of books about it and played a few games of 21.
This is not at all about "paying your dues", its about being ready.

ZapBrannigan

I hated check hauling at night. Scared myself every week whether it be shoddy maintenance, weather, flying way over gross. You name it. The day after I quit the guy who took over my run bought it on the side of a mountain near Roanoke. Still, after doing that flying the Jetstream was a walk in the park. (Once I learned how to fly the wiggly pig)

Cleared4appch

Completely agree. I came to my first 121 carrier with about 1,000 hours of turbine PIC. Though they didn’t require turbine time, I feel like it helped me in training quite a bit, especially with IFR skills and decision-making. What many young new FO’s entering the 121 world today don’t seem to understand, and don’t find this out until they’re in the sims for the first time, is that yea, sure, the company might not require any turbine time, but it sure will help going through the fire hose treatment. It will make things a little bit easier and less painful. Sure, there’s lots of 121 specific things and aircraft specific things that you will be seeing for the first time like the rest of your classmates if it’s your first 121 job. But having a good baseline of knowledge and skills from a previous turbine background can only help you instead of hindering you. Many ‘fast track’ types coming from 141 mills and even ATP completely overlook the value of turbine experience.