Great Lakes Hiring Run Finally Ends...Newhires Sent Home

[ratherbeflyen]

Why do places always hire right up until they furlough?

I think crew planning should officially be changed to crew guessing. None of them ever seem to have any idea how many pilots they need.

 

[DUATS]

Seriously, I wonder what all you candya$$es would do back when the airlines flew primarily airmail and pilots had to sleep under the wings and repair their own wings with the shirt on their back.

I remember that movie! Jimmy Stewart playing Chuck Lindbergh, right?

 

[Trogdor]

afraid or just don't have enough time?

Afraid. The training department at GLA, term used very loosely, makes upgrade notoriously difficult.

 

[flythere]

Afraid. The training department at GLA, term used very loosely, makes upgrade notoriously difficult.

You've got it all wrong! It's not a training department, it's a check-ride department. Capt upgrade was more or less a self study course. If I can remember right ground school lasted approx 6 days, including the final exam, with 4 sims and a check-ride! Was like standing under Niagra-Falls trying to take a drink!!

 

[Browntothebone]

What's the QOL like?

 

[Crossky]

Nope, only N Amerika flying for me so far . . .

 

[Andy Neill]

I remember that movie! Jimmy Stewart playing Chuck Lindbergh, right?

Yeah...and it was really said when he crashed with his buddy Wiley Post while looking for Amelia Wright.

 

[Metro752]

I thought Jimmy Stewart played Chuck Colgan Sr. ?

 

[Minimaniac]

You've got it all wrong! It's not a training department, it's a check-ride department. Capt upgrade was more or less a self study course. If I can remember right ground school lasted approx 6 days, including the final exam, with 4 sims and a check-ride! Was like standing under Niagra-Falls trying to take a drink!!

I am just curious as to what you think is an appropriate amount of training for an upgrade on the same piece of equipment that you have been flying? The systems don't change. The limitations don't change. The manuals don't change. The process for flying approaches does not change.

An upgrade candidate on the same aircraft type has had a likely minimum of 6 months in the airplane. That is plenty of time to learn the systems, the SOP, the Ops manual. When an upgrade becomes imminent, any FO should be able to learn the new flows and the other half of the memory items in a few weeks. There is no reason to fear the checkride.

Now, not feeling ready to be a captain after less than year (or less than 3 years, whatever) is different. I can understand not feeling as though you have seen enough to know how to run the show on your own. I can understand not wanting to make the diversion decision for the first time having never watched a captain do it. But if you were able to pass the initial checkride, you should be able to pass the upgrade ride. Just stop forgetting what you already learned!

 

[staylow]

Funny...this happened back in early 2001, before 9/11. Class finished Indoc and Systems ground school and they were told they would be called for their sim dates...never happened. Some finally got called back in July or August of 2002. Then Lakes furloughed again every summer for the next couple of years.