ASA_Aviator
Well-known member
- Joined
- Nov 7, 2005
- Posts
- 1,136
Spoken like a true elitist IP.
No, my job is to get the people safely from point A to B, while complying with all applicable rules & regulations, and offering an acceptable level of customer service.
It is THE FO's JOB to model himself or herself after the captains they feel do well, to reject the business model of the captains they feel don't, and learn how to one day be a good captain. The captain should offer guidance and feedback in this quest.
Is not the captain's job to teach basic airmanship to a low time pilot. That is an excuse cooked up by management to justify hiring low timers, and the training department to excuse their ineptitude in training them. A part 121 regional airline is not the place to learn how to fly, though that is what it has become. Gone are the days when got yourself "truly proficient through experience" either flight instructing or flying a "grand caravan, single pilot" running freight or charters. Now the burden has fallen on the airlines for that.
Guess what? A lack of planning by the RAA does not constitute an emergency on my part. If the airlines hadn't eroded the profession to the point that nobody wants to be in it, they wouldn't be in the hiring situation they are now where they can't get good quality applicants.
If they want to hire crap, rubber stamp their foreheads in training (at minimum cost, mind you), then send them to me and tell me to teach them to fly, then they better start paying me LCA pay. Or they could improve the pay and working conditions so that more people will again want to become an airline pilot. But don't hand the burden of dealing with the problem to the captains currently flying.
Read some Bob Buck books, and you'll see that it has always been the job of the captain to instruct the new FOs. Get off of your high horse, and do some work.
We have to accept, as pilots, that the market is yielding a certain type of FO. If we aren't receptive to them, then we'll end up parking airplanes. It is just a fact that those out there on the market are not as qualified as in the past.
And, for the record, I am not an IP. I'm a realist who understands that the training department cannot get a 500 hour pilot up to the level of experience that ASA's captains are used to. It would take literally a couple of months of being on IOE to get someone up to that level.
So the next time you fly with one of these new guys, cut them some slack, and help them out. If they have a bad attitude, take them down a couple of notches...that's fine.