FAA to boost co-pilot req....

[pilotyip]

It is the Civ vs Mil again. Now USA Jet does not have long line of people to pick from so we may not be seeing the astronaut candidates from the Civ world. Having hired bunches of each over the last 14 years, our failure rate with ex-mil was 2%, that is 1 out of 47, the civ failure rate was around 7% 15 out of 254.

We administer a general knowledge test as part our hiring process, no ex-mil has every scored below the 50 percentile.

Another thing is the lack of respect for mil helo driver's. I know the fixed wing brotherhood looks down on the helo drivers as lessor pilots, I mean they have never been to FL410, or done a M.78 descent. Hovering into a dark LZ on goggles is much more demanding of a pilot’s skills than shooting a Cat II coupled approach.

Someone has to figure out why uninformed management knuckleheads don't view a multi-crew Captain time in an advanced IFR helo like the H-60, H-46, H-53 or H-47 as not real flight time. However, PIC in a VFR only C-150 in the traffic pattern is the breakfast of champions for an airline career by those who set hard fixed wing limits and ignore helo time in total time.

Why are most management and insurance company’s sooooo waaaayyyy out of touch with reality? Ops I am sorry I was management bashing again.

 

[laker4284]

I've been on both sides. There are good and bad pilots from the mil world and the civvies world. However...the mil flight training program is far more concentrated and intense than is that of the civ world. If you fail, you're OUT. Much of mil ops is high stress/high danger. There are a lot of good civ pilots, but one has to compare the training regimen and ops goals and accept that mil pilots are in another place. Later in life things tend to even up, but early on, overall, maybe not so much.

 

[pilotyip]

I've been on both sides. There are good and bad pilots from the mil world and the civvies world. However...the mil flight training program is far more concentrated and intense than is that of the civ world. If you fail, you're OUT. Much of mil ops is high stress/high danger. There are a lot of good civ pilots, but one has to compare the training regimen and ops goals and accept that mil pilots are in another place. Later in life things tend to even up, but early on, overall, maybe not so much.

I agree there is leveling out as experience builds, a 1500 hour mil pilot probably has a lot more exposure to high performance and heavy metal airplanes. It is hard to match that mil experience in the civ world early in a career. 18 months after getting my wings, kinda the same as finishing comm/MEL/Inst, I had over a 1000 hours of P-3 time, a 127K 4 engine MEL turbine time, half of it in the left seat. Had made over dozen ocean crossings, flown in and out of airports all over the world, was doing low level night IFR runs ins on radar contacts, managing a 10 man crew while acting as the PIC under training. It is kinda like learning to swim in the deep end of the pool. This not saying that most pilots if physically qualified here couldn't do this, I mean if I could do it almost anyone could, but most civ pilots do not get this experience early on.

 

[Sacha]

What are the physical qualifications for a P-3 guy?

 

[pilotyip]

What are the physical qualifications for a P-3 guy?

In 65 almost the fogged mirror qualification, Navy was facing a big surge in training and recruiting number went way up. I took the AQT/FAR and scored high so they said take the physical. Your were supposed to have 20/20 vision in both eyes, near and far. My near vision in right eye was 20/25 on the test. The recruiter took the corpsman aside and said this guy is a pilot test him again, so I read them again and passed.

 

[Sacha]

gotcha...when I did my AF physical, I was pretty worried because My vision was barely 20/20 and the doc noticed I was a little bummed. He asked what the problem was so I told him that since I was a little kid I always told my Dad I was going to fly F4 Phantoms.
But I didn't know if my vision would stay 20/20 long enough for that to happen. He started laughing and said "Son, after I sign this little piece of paper, you could walk out of here with a white cane and a seeing eye dog, and if you are good enough to fly Phantoms, you will fly Phantoms." I didn't know that. Cool Doc.. But it also became my first introduction to "Military Logic"