hmmm

[General Lee]

"The nerds are back, and they're BAAAADDDDD!"

From "Revenge of the Nerds II" the movie---a classic.

Bye Bye---General Lee


PS--He is probably like that guy in the movie "Office Space"----"It's not that I am lazy, it's just that I don't care...."

 

[logjammer]

Don, how many times do you sit working IT and an government IT inspector shows up to watch you perform and potentially end your career? Happens all the time here.

Everything else said above might be OK, but statements like this make me laugh. If you actually worry about your rides anymore you need a new job. Some people actually take 4 or more per year in different models from jets to props, and you worry about one airplane you have flown for hundreds or thousands of hours? Blow that one up the public's a$$ I guess but not on this board. I would just pitch the fact about how crappy the QOL can be, that is really why the pay should be MUCH better.

 

[CatYaaak]

Everything else said above might be OK, but statements like this make me laugh. If you actually worry about your rides anymore you need a new job. Some people actually take 4 or more per year in different models from jets to props, and you worry about one airplane you have flown for hundreds or thousands of hours? Blow that one up the public's a$$ I guess but not on this board. I would just pitch the fact about how crappy the QOL can be, that is really why the pay should be MUCH better.

Um, no, I've never worried much about checkrides, line checks, blah blah etc... they go with the territory...so I think I'll stick with flying. And believe me, with being based and operating primarily in Africa and the Middle East nowadays, checkrides don't even appear on my Worry List near the bottom.

But inferring a "worry" from my post is soley your own invention, because the point I was trying to get across to DON (not this board's collective a$$es) in that reference was that the Job receives scrutiny up and above one's own employer. We live in a government-mandated fishbowl, so therefore SOMEBODY out there must think it's important that we not only learn, but maintain our skills and judgement, and they spend public tax dollars to see that we are. If we don't, they have the power to stop us from pursuing our vocation. There are no such counterpart "somebody's" scrutinizing his IT world.

Now excuse me I have to go. I'm too worried about something to write anymore......

 

[rgd]

No General, he is the guy in office space looking for his stapler...


Don,

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not become an airline pilot!! You are right!! Run away, run away. Not to mention that If I have to sit by another socially inept, power starved, insecure, full of useless information, trying to overcome an insignificant high school and college exsistance by thinking being a pilot will make you cool and accepted, loser, nerd, geek, who can't get laid, has to rub one out in the crew quiet room, know nothing, age of empire playing, online seal team x-box master chief, matrix chat group moderator, I will drive my truck into a bridge embankment!!!
Go back to your microsoft flight simulator junior and leave the flying to the professionals!!!!

 

[acaTerry]

Being a Marine grunt, you have ridden in the back of our helos flown by a 350 hour copilot and a 700 hour aircraft commander.

Yes and No. Yes I have sat in the back with "low time" pilots in the Marines. Except for the fact that the bird is trying to shake apart the whole time, I felt safe. But the 350-700 hours for a military pilot supercede, by miles, the skill levels of the typical GA 350-700 hour pilot.
Look at the selection process alone...then the professionalism of the officer...and the fact that 18-20 months are spent in training on subjects that the typical GA 350-700 hour pilot has never even thought about (such as Aerodynamics for Naval Aviators).
The aircraft utilized in the military are far better preparation than a CE172.
We get these kids like Don who have 1500 hours and a huge ego, so huge in fact that it is going to get someone killed one day. They shoot off their mouths about things they know nothing about, and have no idea how dangerous they are to any poor passenger who is unlucky enough to be seated in the back of the plane. The military pilot has lower time than Don, but know very well that there are consequences, and that flying is about judgement and multi task thinking. They tend to be a little more level headed in the airliner.
I am quite dissappointed in Don. Most of the GA CFIs with 1500 hours has learned these types of lessons. I did. I still look back and see how many times I've learned lessons in aviation, and into the future on the lessons that await me. Every pilot should.
But no, not Don. He is a higher being. He is a programmer. He has 1500 hours (which I am beginning to doubt). He knows everything. These guys need to STFU. It's not about hours, it's about what they've learned in them.
Heck, those Lufthansa kids have 300 hours and they are flying around in Airbusses. That used to worry me. Then I spent a few years instructing for Lufthansa, and I'd sit in the back of those planes with the 300 hour kids before I'd get in the back with most 1000 hour pilots in our own regionals. Why? They have a superior selection process than ours for flight school, they are MUCH more structured and they have a simple plan: you cut the mustard or you are out of there....they only get UP TO 6 hours of additional training in the entire 9 month course or they fail out. Here in our schools...we just say "keep those checks coming" and you eventually will pass. Not exactly the howl monkey Don loves to use. Now they need time and experience to develop judgement skills, and they know that. But the ATTITUDE is right.
Our 1000+ pilots have the "chicks dig me" mentality. They are so busy concerning themselves with getting laid, playing video games, etc that they retain the high school level of thinking. It shows in the "my airline can beat up your airline" stuff that has RUINED this board. If someone asks for advice or information, they get "Oh SKW sucks! You should go th XYZ" or "Don't worry--pilots are stupid. I can teach a monkey to fly, I'm a programmer".
This is what it has become? I never see this kind of thing on the "Majors" board here. Why? Maturity. Seasoning of the crowd. And the fact that they respect themselves as professionals...not worthless little geeks who deserve poverty wages because they "think flying is easy". Physically, flying IS easy. It's no secret. But its the OTHER stuff that maker it tough...reduced rest, feds, recurrent, line checks, commuting, weather, rowdy passengers, DMI's and so on. THIS is why pilots get paid more (eventually). At least until enough people like Don make it to the airlines. By the time they "see the light" it's too late. They've done their damage and then we all suffer from it.
So no it's not just hours, it's how they got them and what they've learned from them.

 

[greyhound]

Hmmmm..

I like the idea about improving the wages at the new-hire level.


This way when you get fed up with your company you will be more willing to move to another airline without worrying about having to make $15,000 all over again.

If ALL regionals paid a decent wage from the beginning. You could strike or quit, and no matter what happens to you're airline.
(goes out of business) Who cares! You go look somewhere else and know that you won't starve when you start all over at another company..

One more thing.
The workforces at the regional's are getting senior everyday.(Not much advancement to the majors.) The more senior pilots get, the more they will be getting paid.
Eventually, RJ's will not be as profitable, so the "remaining" majors might bring back the flying to themselves.

You could speed up this process by demanding better pay so there will not be any more incentives to give the flying to the regional (cheaper) partners.

 

[rvsm410]

Just another Food for thought Idea.

Give this some thought, maybe its pie-in-the sky right now, but maybe it could work to a win win for us and the airlines someday.

Since most company pilots and employees are union represented anyhow, why not have ONE "national union" that covers all pilots, another for F/A's, one for dispatchers, etc.....

In the case for pilots, This new union would set up a "national" standard pay rate for each aircraft type and years of experience flying that type aircraft. This Union would take into consideration COLA for high cost areas, set up basic QQL , guaranteed hours/month etc...for all.
Airlines would input there cost and hiring requirments for each type of aircraft and then averaged across the board for all carriers, then a contract negociated to establish a national pay scale observed by all airlines no matter where or for whom you worked for.....

Just an example: So your at ABC airline with 3 years as an Rj FO making $45/hr and the company folds, or you decided to work somewhere else, you are in good standing when you left ABC.... you already got interviewed at XYZ airlines and they want to hire you as an Rj FO with 3 yrs experience in the IAD area. They are required by the "National" union to pay you the same $45/hr you made at ABC and the COLA for IAD as well.

The airlines could ONLY hire pilots from this union, all others would be considered SCABS and forever be banned from joining in the future, any airline that attempted to hire a person not represented by the National Union would face established penalties and fines for the action.

This unon also establishes through contract what the minimum requirements are to be accepted into this union, i.e. 2000 tt 1000 Muti, 500 inst, etc... what ever else. Down the road, the unon could establish its own benefits center funded by the airlines to reduce there overhead, (outsource it to the National Union) to include retirement funds.

Of course each company would still have seniority lists as today that establishes who goes first in a layoff, or has priority over another company employee.

Anyway, maybe I'm crazy, but it was just an idea, a starting point of sorts that might help establish and level the playing field for all airline employees. I'm sure ALPA, DALPA, APA and the others would be against this because they are big business, this is just another idea.
The bottom line as well all know today, if cost go up then it has to get passed to the consumer in higher prices, people will have to get use to paying more for a ticket in the future. Not as high as mainline, but not as low as LCC's today....

Sure this sounds like socialized work rules, and your right, the complaints about salary and other work rules are a direct result of the free enterprise system in our country.
The way I see it, either we get used to the race to the bottom, or something needs to change that meets the needs of the employees and the airlines ability to operate with a profit.