Air Force to UAL New Hire

[duece123]

Flew fighters 20 years. Now I fly MD-11s around the world into places like Japan, China, Germany, and Brazil when not beating up the domestic system.

Cool thing about flying fighters first is while I once envied the cool places my friends in 141s got to go, I eventually got to go to some cool places too.

My college roommate that went to the regionals and is now an AA captain had a pretty cool life. Mine is pretty similar now too.

So?we all (hopefully) get to that point without too much heartache or angst.

However--and for the guys who did fly the fast iron, or take Hercs into Baghdad on NVGs, or refueled a C-5 or C-17 over the cold North Atlantic, there probably is some smug satisfaction. It rests with concept of "hey?.I did THAT?" And THAT--whatever it was, was something very, very few people ever get to do. And that makes it special?

My own little piece of satisfaction came from not raging in Stony MOA or flying low level tapping Tornados in Germany (both very fun, BTW..) but leading 8 ships into Iraq to enforce the (idiotic) No Fly Zone. The satisfaction in that came from knowing that it wan't the CIC, the MAJCOM CC, the Squadron Commander, or anyone else that for the next 6-8 hours was going to enforce national policy. It was ME--and 7 of my comrades in arms. How many people can say they were an instrument of policy in their lives? My dorky little circles in the sky pale in comparison to what some of the guys on this board have done in combat, but again--for a few hours of their lives, they have made history--not just read about it.

If I am a lesser airline guy because I wasted so much time first driving Eagles around the globe, I can live with it. Next time I am drinking Caipirinhas in Brazil or sipping a beer in Cologne or a some wine in France, I'll be sure to reflect on how superior those guys who came out of the regionals before working up SWA are to me. And I'll sulk. And I'll have to have another round or two to ease my pain. But I'll get through it?.

Nailed it.

 

[Dan Roman]

Wave, I think your mistake was in saying Civ pilots are better, I don't think that's what you meant......there are outstanding pilots from all backgrounds. Invariably the weak ones are not either mil or civ, but simply the ones that think their particular background makes them better. Perhaps you could have framed your argument better simply by making the point that it is, in fact, unfair to hire from primarily one demographic or the other and leave it at that. Ex mil are just as good as civ pilots or vice versa, you are correct to say it's unfair to discriminate against civ pilots over mil pilots.

 

[Dan Roman]

Here's a true story that the SWA/DAL brigrade will love......back in the 80's, DAL had more fatal accidents and incidents then any other airline, by a long shot. They had an L1011 try to land in a TRW and crashed, another took off out of LAX, lost an engine and shut down the wrong one, almost went in the water. They had 727 try to start an engine just before t/o and as a result crashed due to the flaps in the wrong place. Another plane landed at the wrong airport. Etc etc, that is just the ones I recall right now. The result was the FAA all over their jumpseats like flies on you know what.

They came up with a reason.

Delta had hired too many ex fighter pilots.....no that's not how they worded it. Officially they said they had hired too many pilots with only a single pilot background and as a result their crewmembers were not working well as a team and causing these problems due to poor CRM. Mandated CRM was the fix.

So, while Wave may not have been that tactfull and perhaps a little extreme in the other direction, we do have an airline that just narrowly averted a tragedy in Branson and had another blatant pilot error incident in LGA. Right wrong or indifferent, if SWA is creating a culture that undermines pilots of all different backgrounds working well together Wave could be on to something. He is correct that SWA is notorious for some weak taxing practices. That's not urban myth about how fast they taxi. You guys say they have slowed down and I believe you, but he sees a lot more of the operation then I do.

 

[AirCobra]

Wonderful. What's that got to do with this thread?

Military amputees have returned to flight status at times too-

I don't know, you brought it up. All I did was was praise the accomplishments of some civilian pilots. This offended you for some reason.

 

[AirCobra]

Here's a true story that the SWA/DAL brigrade will love......back in the 80's, DAL had more fatal accidents and incidents then any other airline, by a long shot. They had an L1011 try to land in a TRW and crashed, another took off out of LAX, lost an engine and shut down the wrong one, almost went in the water. They had 727 try to start an engine just before t/o and as a result crashed due to the flaps in the wrong place. Another plane landed at the wrong airport. Etc etc, that is just the ones I recall right now. The result was the FAA all over their jumpseats like flies on you know what.

They came up with a reason.

Delta had hired too many ex fighter pilots.....no that's not how they worded it. Officially they said they had hired too many pilots with only a single pilot background and as a result their crewmembers were not working well as a team and causing these problems due to poor CRM. Mandated CRM was the fix.

So, while Wave may not have been that tactfull and perhaps a little extreme in the other direction, we do have an airline that just narrowly averted a tragedy in Branson and had another blatant pilot error incident in LGA. Right wrong or indifferent, if SWA is creating a culture that undermines pilots of all different backgrounds working well together Wave could be on to something. He is correct that SWA is notorious for some weak taxing practices. That's not urban myth about how fast they taxi. You guys say they have slowed down and I believe you, but he sees a lot more of the operation then I do.

I must of missed the day in Pensacola when they told us to taxi fast.

Dan Southwest is known to taxi fast because quick turnarounds are essential to their business model. They average something like 32 minutes while United was doing 40 minutes for a guppy and even longer for an A-320. The overruns at Burbank and Midway were for the same reasons. They were in a hurry. None of that has anything to do with whether the pilot is military or civilain trained. Time is money, and they look to shave every second off their turnarounds.

 

[AirCobra]

Here's a true story that the SWA/DAL brigrade will love......back in the 80's, DAL had more fatal accidents and incidents then any other airline, by a long shot. They had an L1011 try to land in a TRW and crashed, another took off out of LAX, lost an engine and shut down the wrong one, almost went in the water. They had 727 try to start an engine just before t/o and as a result crashed due to the flaps in the wrong place. Another plane landed at the wrong airport. Etc etc, that is just the ones I recall right now. The result was the FAA all over their jumpseats like flies on you know what.

They came up with a reason.

Delta had hired too many ex fighter pilots.....no that's not how they worded it. Officially they said they had hired too many pilots with only a single pilot background and as a result their crewmembers were not working well as a team and causing these problems due to poor CRM. Mandated CRM was the fix.

Wasn't the L-1011 crash in 1988. Weren't most of the former military guys Vietnam era? Weren't most of the Vietnam era fighters/strike aircraft two seat? (F-4, F-111, A-6, F-14, F-100D, F-105).

The push for CRM was due not to single seat guys, but the "Captain is God" system the arilines had set up dating back to the days of Pan Am Clippers. The landmark United DC-8 accident and the KLM/Pan Am 747 collision triggered CRM training throughout the industry. Both found copilots unwilling to speak up because of the "Skygod" culture.

The story may be true but the analysis isn't there. Hiring all the military transport or civilian pilots in the world wouldn't have changed a culture that purposefully mimiced ocean travel, and had been around since the 1920's.

 

[AirCobra]

Yes-

That is a concise view of the argument I'm making

And I say that in regards to fighters not because they shouldn't be proud of what they've done- I say it bc they're often very weak in crm and airliner ops- but it shouldn't be a disparagement anymore than requiring helicopter pilots to go build fix wing time is a disparagement- it's about being qualified and ready for the top end job from day 1 and not applying the military pecking order to a civilian op that has no applicability

If I were good with words I wouldn't need 8000 posts
At least I admit I'm on full blown troll status

Then why all the nonsense about taxiing and how all of us got selected through shady back room deals?

 

[AirCobra]

Yes-

but it shouldn't be a disparagement anymore than requiring helicopter pilots to go build fix wing time is a disparagement-

Why do they need to learn how to become lousy pilots?


"Airplanes are for people not talented enough to fly helicopters"

"A helicopter can do anything an airplane can do except go fast. Airplane pilots like to go fast...just ask their girlfriends"

 

[pilotyip]

Flew fighters 20 years. Now I fly MD-11s around the world into places like Japan, China, Germany, and Brazil when not beating up the domestic system.

Cool thing about flying fighters first is while I once envied the cool places my friends in 141s got to go, I eventually got to go to some cool places too.

My college roommate that went to the regionals and is now an AA captain had a pretty cool life. Mine is pretty similar now too.

So?we all (hopefully) get to that point without too much heartache or angst.

However--and for the guys who did fly the fast iron, or take Hercs into Baghdad on NVGs, or refueled a C-5 or C-17 over the cold North Atlantic, there probably is some smug satisfaction. It rests with concept of "hey?.I did THAT?" And THAT--whatever it was, was something very, very few people ever get to do. And that makes it special?

My own little piece of satisfaction came from not raging in Stony MOA or flying low level tapping Tornados in Germany (both very fun, BTW..) but leading 8 ships into Iraq to enforce the (idiotic) No Fly Zone. The satisfaction in that came from knowing that it wan't the CIC, the MAJCOM CC, the Squadron Commander, or anyone else that for the next 6-8 hours was going to enforce national policy. It was ME--and 7 of my comrades in arms. How many people can say they were an instrument of policy in their lives? My dorky little circles in the sky pale in comparison to what some of the guys on this board have done in combat, but again--for a few hours of their lives, they have made history--not just read about it.

If I am a lesser airline guy because I wasted so much time first driving Eagles around the globe, I can live with it. Next time I am drinking Caipirinhas in Brazil or sipping a beer in Cologne or a some wine in France, I'll be sure to reflect on how superior those guys who came out of the regionals before working up SWA are to me. And I'll sulk. And I'll have to have another round or two to ease my pain. But I'll get through it?.

this++, even though I flew P-3's it was still a fantastic adventure and if some tooth fairy offered me a chose of job at SWA and a chance to fly P-3's around the world, there would be no hesitation to pursue the P-3 dream.

 

[CRAWDADDY]

Here's a true story that the SWA/DAL brigrade will love......back in the 80's, DAL had more fatal accidents and incidents then any other airline, by a long shot. They had an L1011 try to land in a TRW and crashed, another took off out of LAX, lost an engine and shut down the wrong one, almost went in the water. They had 727 try to start an engine just before t/o and as a result crashed due to the flaps in the wrong place. Another plane landed at the wrong airport. Etc etc, that is just the ones I recall right now. The result was the FAA all over their jumpseats like flies on you know what.

They came up with a reason.

Delta had hired too many ex fighter pilots.....no that's not how they worded it. Officially they said they had hired too many pilots with only a single pilot background and as a result their crewmembers were not working well as a team and causing these problems due to poor CRM. Mandated CRM was the fix.

So, while Wave may not have been that tactfull and perhaps a little extreme in the other direction, we do have an airline that just narrowly averted a tragedy in Branson and had another blatant pilot error incident in LGA. Right wrong or indifferent, if SWA is creating a culture that undermines pilots of all different backgrounds working well together Wave could be on to something. He is correct that SWA is notorious for some weak taxing practices. That's not urban myth about how fast they taxi. You guys say they have slowed down and I believe you, but he sees a lot more of the operation then I do.

So true but now the DAL new hires look like the new hires at UAL 15 years ago. You have to look at FedEx now for dumb accidents caused by MilOnly pilots.

 

[ROSWELL41]

So true but now the DAL new hires look like the new hires at UAL 15 years ago. You have to look at FedEx now for dumb accidents caused by MilOnly pilots.

What exactly do they look like? Care to elaborate?

 

[Dan Roman]

Wasn't the L-1011 crash in 1988. Weren't most of the former military guys Vietnam era? Weren't most of the Vietnam era fighters/strike aircraft two seat? (F-4, F-111, A-6, F-14, F-100D, F-105).

The push for CRM was due not to single seat guys, but the "Captain is God" system the arilines had set up dating back to the days of Pan Am Clippers. The landmark United DC-8 accident and the KLM/Pan Am 747 collision triggered CRM training throughout the industry. Both found copilots unwilling to speak up because of the "Skygod" culture.

The story may be true but the analysis isn't there. Hiring all the military transport or civilian pilots in the world wouldn't have changed a culture that purposefully mimiced ocean travel, and had been around since the 1920's.

You are spot on that CRM came about due to the "Skygod" culture endemic in the airline industry. But it is a fact that DAL was found lacking in CRM and the FAA did lay blame on the fact that they had hired so many pilots with a single pilot background. (BTW F4 F111 etc you mentioned is still a single pilot operation)

 

[bluesideup1]

I was part of American Eagle when the AA pilots started furloughing. We had a flow back agreement with AA that stated AE would take and put the AA pilots in the left seat as they flowed back. Unfortunately AA had hired right up until the furlough and they had plenty of 1,500 hour single seat fighter pilots that had been at AA less than 6 months. Now given time most of those fighter jocks will learn the ropes and become productive Airline pilots. That was not the case when they were being sent back into the Captains position at Eagle though. It didn't take the FAA or the poor F.O. long to realize that the fighter guys had almost no transitional experience to flying Passengers aircraft in a crew environment. There was problems with WX as none of those guys have ever really dealt with WX, Deicing, crowded terminal environments, CRM, ect. The FAA removed all of those low time fighter pilots from their captain positions and made them get at least 3,000 hours before they would allow them to become P.I.C. again. I guess they just weren't too impressed with all those Night vision low altitude bombing runs after all.

 

[Turtle21]

I was part of American Eagle when the AA pilots started furloughing. We had a flow back agreement with AA that stated AE would take and put the AA pilots in the left seat as they flowed back. Unfortunately AA had hired right up until the furlough and they had plenty of 1,500 hour single seat fighter pilots that had been at AA less than 6 months. Now given time most of those fighter jocks will learn the ropes and become productive Airline pilots. That was not the case when they were being sent back into the Captains position at Eagle though. It didn't take the FAA or the poor F.O. long to realize that the fighter guys had almost no transitional experience to flying Passengers aircraft in a crew environment. There was problems with WX as none of those guys have ever really dealt with WX, Deicing, crowded terminal environments, CRM, ect. The FAA removed all of those low time fighter pilots from their captain positions and made them get at least 3,000 hours before they would allow them to become P.I.C. again. I guess they just weren't too impressed with all those Night vision low altitude bombing runs after all.

You seem to think this is evidence of Military pilots being less qualified but you are mistaken. You see everyone knows fighter pilots always brag about winning the yellow snow contest, and FAA guys are real sensitive about always losing the yellow snow contest (the real one, not the figurative one). Fighter guys just don't know when to keep their mouth shut. You will notice the heavy mil guys were smart and didn't PO the FAA in the middle of a check ride by challenging them to a yellow snow contest.

Moral: Don't challenge the FAA Examiner to a yellow snow contest unless you are absolutely, positively, 100% sure that you will lose, which is pretty dam+ unlikely.

 

[mesaba13]

Disclaimer: Regional Civilian guy

The Military guy is and always has been a known quantity who was able to complete training on schedule under duress. They complete missions where the flying part is secondary to other high workload tasks. With CRM school at the airlines these days the transition for a military guy should be low threat. Suggesting that a military guy start at a regional is ridiculous. That being said we all know idiots from every background

 

[Jack Campbell]

A civilian pilot with a proven training record is also a known quantity. Multiple type ratings, dozens of Part 135 and Part 121 training events and thousands of hours of experience should level the playing field, but it seems there is still the notion on this board the mil guy is superior. Doesn't make sense. There are a lot of very qualified, safe civ pilots vying for top jobs and any airline that doesn't give them serious consideration is ignoring a strong talent base.

 

[Turtle21]

A civilian pilot with a proven training record is also a known quantity. Multiple type ratings, dozens of Part 135 and Part 121 training events and thousands of hours of experience should level the playing field, but it seems there is still the notion on this board the mil guy is superior. Doesn't make sense. There are a lot of very qualified, safe civ pilots vying for top jobs and any airline that doesn't give them serious consideration is ignoring a strong talent base.

The reason so many folks give fighter guys $h!t is because so many people feel inferior to them, or maybe they just deserve it. But in any case the more folks give them $h!t the more superior it makes them feel.

 

[user912]

I was part of American Eagle when the AA pilots started furloughing. We had a flow back agreement with AA that stated AE would take and put the AA pilots in the left seat as they flowed back. Unfortunately AA had hired right up until the furlough and they had plenty of 1,500 hour single seat fighter pilots that had been at AA less than 6 months. Now given time most of those fighter jocks will learn the ropes and become productive Airline pilots. That was not the case when they were being sent back into the Captains position at Eagle though. It didn't take the FAA or the poor F.O. long to realize that the fighter guys had almost no transitional experience to flying Passengers aircraft in a crew environment. There was problems with WX as none of those guys have ever really dealt with WX, Deicing, crowded terminal environments, CRM, ect. The FAA removed all of those low time fighter pilots from their captain positions and made them get at least 3,000 hours before they would allow them to become P.I.C. again. I guess they just weren't too impressed with all those Night vision low altitude bombing runs after all.

Found outside the confines of FI


the demands of regional aviation with its compressed training schedules can be a rude awakening. When the parent company of American Airlines and American Eagle (AMR) got the Eagle pilots to sign an 18 year contract it did so not by offering better working conditions at Eagle but rather offering the carrot of a potential ?flow through? of its senior pilots to American. The unanticipated events of 9/11 brought, instead, a ?flow back? of junior American Airlines pilots, like Brian Schiff, to American Eagle. Flowing back as well were some American Airlines new hires with very little civilian time who found it difficult to get through training.

 

[Jack Campbell]

The reason so many folks give fighter guys $h!t is because so many people feel inferior to them, or maybe they just deserve it. But in any case the more folks give them $h!t the more superior it makes them feel.

Did I give fighter guys a hassle in my post? No. Read my post again.

What I'm saying is that both backgrounds have a lot of really qualified pilots and neither group should be looked at as superior. Capiche?

Some people need to put words in others' mouths to make it appear they are superior and if that describes you, that's wonderful!

 

[Turtle21]

Did I give fighter guys a hassle in my post? No. Read my post again.

What I'm saying is that both backgrounds have a lot of really qualified pilots and neither group should be looked at as superior. Capiche?

Some people need to put words in others' mouths to make it appear they are superior and if that describes you, that's wonderful!

You seem awfully defensive...
Do you consider yourself to be included in "so many folks"?