FAA won't back training requirements

[CessnaFan]

Regarding the ATP certificate, just having the numbers doesn't mean that you are ATP proficient. Say you have your 1500 but you're not quite sure that you're good enough, so you study, you practice, you learn, you ace the checkride, and then you are a better pilot as a result of having gone through that experience.

No, no stick shaker experience for me, but this video does a great job of explaining:

http://www.part135.com/TailplaneIcing.html

Rest of you comments are dead on.

Well, since an ATP is already REQUIRED for the left seat, and since the ATP requires a minimum number of flight hours, I don't really understand what you're getting at here.

Unless your profile information is incorrect, you haven't flown an aircraft with a stick shaker.

Do you know what the stick shaker is telling you, from a TECHNICAL standpoint and how it relates to VsO? Do you understand the difference between tailplane icing recovery and wing icing recovery techniques?

If you read the thread, and the BUF accident report, you'll see the crew was concerned with icing, and tailplane icing requires a completely different response. Not to defend the CA, who was PF, but he had less than a second to react to what he thought was going on... and he chose poorly, but that's NOT the primary cause of the accident.

The primary cause of the accident was the CA not paying attention (due possibly to fatigue, or possibly to him not having the skillset to be in that seat in the first place as evidenced by multiple checkride failures), not increasing power after putting the condition levers forward on the props and adding more flaps (thus adding more drag), and the F/O's chatterbox talking and not paying attention, all of which allowed the aircraft to slow to stall speed and neither of them catching the mistake because they weren't paying the fu*k attention to what they were doing.

They paid for their mistakes with their lives.

There's a lot of secondary lessons to be learned from this accident, for certain, and I've been an advocate of an ATP to be an airline pilot for almost a decade now having been made to suffer through enough 300 hour wunderkid children of the magenta to realize just how useless they are (single pilot would be better much of the time, I don't have to watch what the hell you're doing over there as well as flying - I'm not a babysitter), as well as question what someone with 3, 4, or even 5 checkride failures inside 10 years of a career is even DOING in the left seat, but the primary lesson learned is not to get distracted and if you're fatigued, don't come to work.

The push for an ATP is just an additional help to our profession from what was a horrible tragedy.

 

[Lear70]

Regarding the ATP certificate, just having the numbers doesn't mean that you are ATP proficient. Say you have your 1500 but you're not quite sure that you're good enough, so you study, you practice, you learn, you ace the checkride, and then you are a better pilot as a result of having gone through that experience.

No, no stick shaker experience for me, but this video does a great job of explaining:

http://www.part135.com/TailplaneIcing.html

Rest of you comments are dead on.

At least you're figuring it out BEFORE you move on to larger aircraft. You have no idea how many pilots I had in the right seat who had no idea what the differences between the two were... Not kidding. So good for you for learning above and beyond your requirements for your current flying.

That said, the U.S. ATP is a joke. I took mine at the bare minimum hours required by the FAA and it was the exact same checkride as my commercial multiengine instrument with slightly tighter tolerances. Was one of the easiest checkrides I've ever taken.

Tightening up the standards to JAA requirements would be a nice start as well, but I digress.

Merry Christmas / Hannukah / Festivus to you!

 

[atpcliff]

hi!

On the foreign training front, I have been flying for two different aviation organizations based in NBO.

I don't have any opinion on the training, as I have not had any, at all. Not required here.

cliff
YYZ

 

[AC560]

Anyone with a Bic pen can log 1500hrs fairly easily. When 500hrs of multi time was the magic bullet to the majors everyone seemed to get it somehow.

The problem is unqualified pilots with either 1hr or 100,000hrs of PIC time. What needs to be happening is the FAA giving checkrides and revoking the certificates of pilots who cannot meet PTS standards consistently.

 

[Lear70]

Anyone with a Bic pen can log 1500hrs fairly easily. When 500hrs of multi time was the magic bullet to the majors everyone seemed to get it somehow.

The problem is unqualified pilots with either 1hr or 100,000hrs of PIC time. What needs to be happening is the FAA giving checkrides and revoking the certificates of pilots who cannot meet PTS standards consistently.

There's an idea for safety...

Three checkride failures within a set time interval, say 5 or 7 years, triggers an AUTOMATIC 609/709 ride.

I like it.

 

[jmreii]

There's an idea for safety...

Three checkride failures within a set time interval, say 5 or 7 years, triggers an AUTOMATIC 609/709 ride.

I like it.

I believe everytime you fly is a checkride, so you should include busting altitudes, crossing restrictions, speed restrictions, near misses, runway incursions, not listening to atc(not allowed to miss more then one call), hitting terrain, running off a runway or taxiway, having a bad attitude, and not using CRM (even if the person is a pastry worker). This sounds just as ridiculous as what you suggested, and will never solve any problems.

 

[Lear70]

I believe everytime you fly is a checkride, so you should include busting altitudes, crossing restrictions, speed restrictions, near misses, runway incursions, not listening to atc(not allowed to miss more then one call), hitting terrain, running off a runway or taxiway, having a bad attitude, and not using CRM (even if the person is a pastry worker). This sounds just as ridiculous as what you suggested, and will never solve any problems.

Opinions vary... but those who aren't worried about their skillset wouldn't be worried about it. I'm not.

Seriously? You're concerned over 3 checkride failures in a 5-7 year time frame? Really?

I have absolutely ZERO patience for someone who can't be bothered to maintain absolute proficiency in their aircraft to ATP standards once every 6 months. If someone can't hack it, get the hell out of the profession and go practice underwater basket weaving or something that doesn't involve flying a multi-million dollar piece of equipment at high speeds with public safety at risk.

And by the way, half the things you mentioned DO have a tendency to trigger a 609/709 ride. It's called a "violation".

p.s. If a system like I just proposed was in place, the Captain of the Buffalo crash likely wouldn't have been in the left seat, and might not have been on a flight deck at all. I don't think there's an aviator worth his salt who thought his training background was anywhere NEAR acceptable. I certainly wouldn't have hired him. One blemish in your flight career? That's a bad day. Several? That's a serious safety concern.

Scares me a little you don't agree...

 

[livin'thesim]

Checkrides and orals need to be about 100% harder. Standards will do a lot to fix this problem.

Too many low and high-time losers are being allowed into our cockpits. ALPA should be leading the charge to remove incompetent crewmembers from our seniority lists.

Let the bad eggs go be bartenders, and return this profession to being a PROFESSION. Protecting the jobs of deficient airmen is not doing the union a service either.

 

[Bringupthebird]

AQP=Acceptable Losses

 

[labbats]

Let's say you were daydreaming and suddenly the stick shaker went off. It's not even your leg. What is the first thing you would look at? Where is the first place your hand would jump to?

I've made many, many mistakes but I'm sick of hearing about the tail stall retort regarding the Buffalo crash. Basics are basics. If either pilot could correctly answer my two questions then we'd never know who they were.