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.