Congress OKs overhaul of airline pilot rules

Apparently, all 1st Officers must have 1500 hours instead of 250 hours. Good luck getting a 1500 hour guy, getting 250 hour pay.


http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100730/D9H9HRP00.html

There are plenty of 1500 hour folks out there right now sitting on there hands. Matter of fact there is likely some 15000 hour folks doing nothing. In the late 70s when I started minimum requirement for a commuter job was 1500 tt and 250 Multi PIC. The majors were considerably more.
250 hour, "shake and bake" pilots (truck driver to airline pilot in 18 months) have not only destroyed the profession but worst of all they have killed people. Hopefully this is a step in the right direction.

Interesting topic. One I have thought on for years.

I'm not sure what this rule will do to the industry. Maybe help, maybe not.

I don't have a big problem with the low time F/O per se. It's the low time COMBINED time in which I have a problem. F/O - 200hrs., first month in airline. Capt. 1,500hrs, 1.5 years with airline still wet ATP in his pocket.

F/O - "wow, I've never seen a tough line of weather before, what do we do?"
Capt - "I don't know, I've never seen one either!"

We all have to get experience somehow. Every one of us pilots started with no hours in our logbooks.

There is even a time in the Sixties when Northwest and United were hiring pilots with 200 hours, a pulse, and an instrument ticket. The DIFFERENCE is they were sitting in the flight engineer seat for a couple years and then FO seat for years next to a Captain that had 10-20 or more years of experience. Low time FO's got to gain experience next to one that was experienced and modeled how to make good judgements.

Now, all regional airlines are not like that. To my old Mesaba brothers, I know there are a LOT of 20 year captains there.

Even though I would be unaffected career wise at this stage, my dream of a better safety world would be for anything that says UNITED on it be flown by one seniority list, anything that says Delta one seniority list. (I'm neither pro or anti airline union)

That would ensure any low time new hire is going to sit next to a guy who's been there a while.

I don't often do it because of where I live, and say what you will, but I like Southwest because I KNOW they have no little, uncomfortable planes piloted by lowtime kids.

A lot said, I know, but I didn't start the topic....

Iflylower said:

Interesting topic. One I have thought on for years.

I'm not sure what this rule will do to the industry. Maybe help, maybe not.

I don't have a big problem with the low time F/O per se. It's the low time COMBINED time in which I have a problem. F/O - 200hrs., first month in airline. Capt. 1,500hrs, 1.5 years with airline still wet ATP in his pocket.

F/O - "wow, I've never seen a tough line of weather before, what do we do?"
Capt - "I don't know, I've never seen one either!"

We all have to get experience somehow. Every one of us pilots started with no hours in our logbooks.

There is even a time in the Sixties when Northwest and United were hiring pilots with 200 hours, a pulse, and an instrument ticket. The DIFFERENCE is they were sitting in the flight engineer seat for a couple years and then FO seat for years next to a Captain that had 10-20 or more years of experience. Low time FO's got to gain experience next to one that was experienced and modeled how to make good judgements.

Now, all regional airlines are not like that. To my old Mesaba brothers, I know there are a LOT of 20 year captains there.

Even though I would be unaffected career wise at this stage, my dream of a better safety world would be for anything that says UNITED on it be flown by one seniority list, anything that says Delta one seniority list. (I'm neither pro or anti airline union)

That would ensure any low time new hire is going to sit next to a guy who's been there a while.

I don't often do it because of where I live, and say what you will, but I like Southwest because I KNOW they have no little, uncomfortable planes piloted by lowtime kids.

A lot said, I know, but I didn't start the topic....

Click to expand...

Cal

I couldn't agree more!

Too bad the new rules will not have the mentoring program instituted for another 3 years....we need it YESTERDAY!

Lou

I know ZERO about it, but wondering how the new pilot will get the needed 1500 hours. Instructing? Wonder how it will effect the recruitment of new pilots.

I've personally always been pretty comfortable flying with the regional guys...seems like they get to do a lot more approaches/landings in a day than the big guys do.

gb

I assume this only applies to part 121 air carriers. You have to realize that most of these wonder-pilots who come out of university programs or off the street with 250 or even 500 hours have never flown an airplane on a flight that wasn't part of a 141 training curriculum. I really don't think you learn anything about flying until you are flying passengers or cargo in someone else's airplane, on their nickel and the safe outcome of that flight is entirely up to you.

I am reminded of a saying that I've heard from time to time: "There are pilots with 10,000 hours and pilots with 1 hour 10 thousand times." It doesn't really matter if the person in the left seat has 10,000 hours--if they were an FO sitting next to a 2000 hour guy who was hired with 250 hours, then you basically have a blind-leading-the-blind scenario. After a couple of years, you might be an expert at bidding and know the best places to eat at every overnight, but you really aren't improving your airmanship, judgement and decision making.

I personally flight instructed until I had 1200 hours, then I flew single pilot freight until I hit 2000, and it was just dumb luck that I landed a corporate jet job--right seat, of course, and even after initial in the sim, I was so far behind the plane it wasn't even funny. I've flown with pilots from a lot of different backgrounds and I can say that the one's that are the strongest are folks with a background similar to mine and military pilots. I'm sure there are exceptions, but for the most part folks who somehow shortcut the system do fine under normal circumstances, but are extremely weak when the sh** hits the fan.

Recently I was a training captain in Africa and the muppets who occupied the right seat were so weak that I was basically single pilot. Actually, it was worse, because at least if I was single pilot I wouldn't have had to fly and babysit. These were folks who were sent abroad to get their licenses and return to their home country to the right seat of whatever jet or turboprop their national airline happened to put them in. I wasn't flying with newbies either, I was flying with guys who were turboprop captains and had moved to VIP charter side a year previous. Guys with 10+ years of experience and over a year of experience in type who were flying almost every day were routinely trying to kill me. They just lacked the fundamentals.

At any rate, there was a time not too long ago when 2000 hours wouldn't get you a right seat job at a regional and I don't know that their safety record was any different--and I really don't know if it is any different from mainline carriers on a per-mile basis, since we have "regionals" flying 4+ hour legs now and so much mainline flying is outsourced. I still avoid regionals whenever possible.