Why hire military over your competition?

[Russ]

Yes or no, you've ever actually shot a PAR to mins. Or any PAR.

Flown hundreds if not thousands under contract for controller proficiency training in all WX. Doing the math, I've given several thousand over my years in the military.

A PAR requires all your navigation skills

No it doesn't. One of the original selling points was that you didn't need lots additional equipment either on the ground or in the air. Most, not all, but most of the places I worked, there was no backup NAVAID. It was us or nothing. USAF got smart and started putting in ILS installations, took many years for Navy/Marine Corps to catch up.

Granted the FMS can be a challenge to the uninitiated... For about 25 hours.

Really? FMS issues are a constant source of problem in the airlines composed of both military and civilian aviators. "What's it doing now." Saying happens to more than someone with 25 hrs of FMS time.


We're you a nav/RIO/GIB/air crew or pilot in the mil?

 

[SpauldingSmails]

The most qualified of pilots, in my book, is the pilot with the best attitude. Regardless of background. Military, civilian......it doesn't matter. The entire point is the experience got you THROUGH the door at the major. From that point on, its their way. A pilot with a good attitude knows this, and adapts to it- putting forth the effort.

I will say that in my class of 15, at a major, approximately 1/3 were military. Every single pilot with the military background had also been sitting right seat at a regional airline, and had some 121 regional/commuter experience.

Second that. It matters not where you came from or what you did there. Welcome to the seniority system, right, wrong or indifferent.

At the end of the day, it will likely never matter if you cut your teeth busting bunkers in the desert in an F-whatever, or flying at some bottom feeding crap-bag regional.

You fly a well-designed (mostly), purpose built aircraft managed by a very sophisticated safety net. Mistakes happen, but rarely are they dangerous - as evidenced by the raft of knuckleheads I've encountered flying over the years who still tread the earth.

Respect your peers and their experience. You may be surprised what you'll learn from them regardless of their backgrounds.

 

[nordo_2]

Only from experience, I have never had a training problem with a IFR rated militarty pilot. Even a 1000 hour military pilot has a consistent training success record. I do not see this with all civilian piltos. Now I will add when we were hiring furlouged major pilots, furloughed ABX pilots, these guys when through with no problems. If you came from a solid training background 121, or military it shows. There is a very wide variety of skill found in the 91/135 world.

I already told you guys. Its because they all have four year college degree's, nowadays. From colleges'..

 

[SIG600]

Flown hundreds if not thousands under contract for controller proficiency training in all WX. Doing the math, I've given several thousand over my years in the military.



No it doesn't. One of the original selling points was that you didn't need lots additional equipment either on the ground or in the air. Most, not all, but most of the places I worked, there was no backup NAVAID. It was us or nothing. USAF got smart and started putting in ILS installations, took many years for Navy/Marine Corps to catch up.



Really? FMS issues are a constant source of problem in the airlines composed of both military and civilian aviators. "What's it doing now." Saying happens to more than someone with 25 hrs of FMS time.


We're you a nav/RIO/GIB/air crew or pilot in the mil?

Navy still hasn't caught up. Hornet doesn't have a civilian ILS, nor is there an ILS at any Navy field I've ever landed at. Training command jets had an ILS but we would have to go to civil fields to use them. NTU has an ILS but it's the boat variety which works different from civil fields. In a pinch you could "manufacture" an ILS with the radar, but it was just enough to give you a shot at landing depending on where you break out, nothing you'd do on a regular basis in low wx.

If you weren't backing up navigation controllers were giving you, especially during vectors to final, you haven't had a controller try and drive you into the mountains.

 

[wingnutt]

The most qualified of pilots, in my book, is the pilot with the best attitude. Regardless of background. Military, civilian......it doesn't matter.

Agreed, multiplied by eleventy!

[\thread]

 

[pilotyip]

I already told you guys. Its because they all have four year college degree's, nowadays. From colleges'..

oh please! have you not paid attention, we all pretty much agree here that a college degree has nothing to do with flying an airplane. It may have a lot to do with getting a job, but not with flying an airplane.

My pilot heroes did not have college degrees and they performed feats that would test the metal of anyone. They flew in WWII, George Bush I in the Pacific, the 10,000?s of B-17 and B-24 pilots in Europe, and the C-46 pilots over the hump in China. I meet these guys on the air show circuit, they come to see the C-47 and B-17, and I ask them about their adventures during the war. I am in awe of what they did. How can anyone say these guys without degrees were not as good as today?s degreed pilots?

Robert Lovett, WWII Asst Sec of War for Air, may have saved the US in WWII. He showed we needed quantity, not quality. We will need 100K pilots per year, we will not get that many physically qualified college educated pilots. He said the college was not needed to fly an airplane, so he devised a test to identify those traits and knowledge levels needed to be successful in pilot training. He found that many college educated people could not pass this test, but many high school graduates could. These 19 year old pilots proved their worth all over the globe, flying equipment under conditions that would test almost all of us on this board.

 

[FLYLOW22]

No idea. Military guys have their place but AREN'T airline pilots. Companies are hiring a known and proven factor of intelligence, accomplishment and programming by hiring military. That's all.

In fact, it takes many of them several years to acclimate and "grow their hair out".

No harm no foul... Takes all types and I celebrate diversity in background... But not necessarily diversity itself.

 

[Dumb Pilot]

In my years involved with training, I didn't see any evidence that a military background gave trainees an edge over other types of backgrounds....., but guys & gals that came from heavy hand flying backgrounds such as helicopter pilots, bush pilots, crop-dusting, turbo-prop, night piston twin operations, whether they came from the military or not seem to have no issues at all with stabilizing their approaches and crosswind landings. Out of those with military background, the transport guys did the best (C130 drivers were the better pilots for some reason) B-52 pilots did the worst, specially with crosswind landings, fighter pilots were a mixed batch. Out of those with civilian backgrounds, those with the heavy hand flying backgrounds that I mentioned before did the best, those that went from just a few hours into highly automated flight decks did very poorly.

This has been my experience, I don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings....!

 

[Sluggo_63]

He found that many college educated people could not pass this test, but many high school graduates could.

So how could you be a college graduate without graduating high school? Weren't they all high school graduates? What you're essentially saying is that if they had just stopped at high school, they would have flown fine, but the mere act of taking college classes made them worse pilots.

 

[labbats]

The question isn't if military or civilian is better after being hired.

The question is why are the majority of newhire classes military and not civilian.

 

[pilotyip]

So how could you be a college graduate without graduating high school? Weren't they all high school graduates? What you're essentially saying is that if they had just stopped at high school, they would have flown fine, but the mere act of taking college classes made them worse pilots.

Assuming all college grads are high school grads, that would make them a sub set of all high school grads. We are looking for those skills found in high school grads, college does not develop these skills. The skills to be a pilots are like the skills to be a good basketball player, you either have it or you don't. A high school grad without the basketball skill set will not become a basketball player by going to college.

Robert Lovett, basically the first Sec of the USAF, was WWI Navy Bomber pilot, he dropped out of college to fight in WWI. He knew as a Squadron CO, that the educational background of his pilots had no bearing on their success in combat.

When Lovett was appointed asst Sec of War for Air in November of 1940 he knew we would not be able to get enough college grad pilots and told Hap Arnold things would have to change In WWII the tests were developed to identify those traits that marked success in pilot training. No one can say that these high school grads who flew in WWII were not the right stuff.

Similar ones are still being used to identify those candidate to start flight training. You took them to get into flight training. I am going bet there were a lot of guys in college with you that took these and did not qualify for pilot training.

I will say that two years of college math, one year of physics and chemistry were helpful in going through pilot and navigator training. But how many college grads have this back ground coming out of college? From observing the pilots I have interviewed, I can say very few.

 

[wood pecker]

College gets you drinking buddies as well as the military.
Drinking buddies gets you referrals which gets you in the pool.

However, in the near future I am guessing a HR computer program will replace drinking buddies.

 

[JumpersAway]

The question isn't if military or civilian is better after being hired.

The question is why are the majority of newhire classes military and not civilian.

I'm not really seeing this to be the case. It is my understanding, talking to a myriad of different people at different legacy carriers, that the new hire classes are comprised of pilots from all walks of life. The attrition at the regional level supports this, as does my own experience.

 

[labbats]

I'm not really seeing this to be the case. It is my understanding, talking to a myriad of different people at different legacy carriers, that the new hire classes are comprised of pilots from all walks of life. The attrition at the regional level supports this, as does my own experience.

That's not what I'm hearing from AA and I also heard a recent Southwest class was 100% military.

I don't know anyone at Delta, but every post on the recently hired thread there is military.

USAir may be the exception, but from people I know who have been hired and turned down it seems there is no rhyme or reason in their hiring criteria.

If you remove the flowthroughs and strictly focus on newhires I'm sure you'll see my point.

 

[Flash]

That's not what I'm hearing from AA and I also heard a recent Southwest class was 100% military.

I don't know anyone at Delta, but every post on the recently hired thread there is military.

USAir may be the exception, but from people I know who have been hired and turned down it seems there is no rhyme or reason in their hiring criteria.

If you remove the flowthroughs and strictly focus on newhires I'm sure you'll see my point.

SWA will be running out of wall space soon for all the cool pictures of pilots past glory days