hmmm

[SaladShooter]

Come on guys we all need to lighten up a little.....I took Don's post as a funny little anticdote. We all need to understand that this job is not hard....just like computer programming is not hard...it is all challenging but in different ways. I would not say flying for ACA is a hard job..it is challenging but no more challenging than those guys hanging off the 495/95 bridges welding iron together. Nor is it harder than the guy who has to load the bags on board the airplane in a 95 degree day, and you sure can not say our job is harder than the CS agents who have to deal with all the passengers at the terminal(you could never I repeat never get me to that). We all have challenging jobs in different ways and we all deal with those challenges in different ways also. I personally have no problem with multi tasking, in fact I can get ATIS setup the approach and get the new V speeds while listening to the latest ball game scores (for the passengers of course) on the ADF without missing a beat. Now is it hard, maybe yes maybe no but is it challenging........you bet.

Terry-

Raising the min hours to get a job is a worthless adventure. Who is more of a valued crewmember a 2000 hour CFI with 1500 hours of Dual given or a 1000 hour single pilot no autopilot freight dog. Adding hours to become an airline pilot is no different than adding a college degree to becoming an airline pilot. The problem we have in my opinion is too many young naive kids who are willing to sell out the industry for a chance at the majors and the big oney. We as an indusrty need to get the kids when they are young and explain how the system works.

 

[acaTerry]

SaladShooter,
I respectfully disagree with you on the hours issue. What we are talking about is not an issue of quality of hours, but quality of character.
Classic examples here:

800 hour "I want to fly a jet" guy. Thought process when contract comes up: "I love flying jets, in my 800 hours of Cessna and Piper time I know all about airlines because I read it on the computer---I'll do it for nothing, it's easy". Result: 19.00 per flight hour year one, 19. 98 per hour year 2.

2000 hour " I have been doing this for years" pilot. Thought process when contract come up: "I've busted my rear end for years, darned if I take it in the rear again". Result: 21.22 per hour year one, and 34.74 per hour year 2.

I think we know the airlines I am talking about, and I think we know the difference in competitive minimums we have between them.

It's not about how "hard" flying is. It's about the responsibilty you have, the road you must travel to get there, and the professionalism you need to possess on the job. Unfortunately, I see more and more people like Don out there, who:
a) have no idea what they are talking about and
b) pi$$ all over those of us who worked hard to get where we are and have it taken away because of little self-appointed experts who wh0re themselves out and enable the bar to be pulled down lower and lower.
To require higher minumums will keep the bar up by having people who will expect pay and rules that go equivalent to what it took to get to be an airline pilot. Look what we regional pilots have done to the majors by having all these RJ's: Majors are declining while LCC's and regionals are taking over the world. Now staff these RJ's with low time easy-road pilots who will do it for nothing and what is going to happen? You guessed it---lower pay, fewer days off, and lower quality of life.

Fact is, Don is shooting off his mouth about something he has no clue about. Teaching a pilot to do lazy 8's in a 2800 lb airplane is quite deiiferent from the level of professionalism and responsibility of being an airline pilot. It's got nothing to do with how "hard" it is. Don needs to sew his lips closed until he has really worked a real hard job to become an airline pilot. Sitting in a cubicle does not qualify. Be a CFI for 3000 hours, dig holes in the desert, fly boxes, do something where you EARN an airline job by working you rear end off. THEN LET ME HEAR YOU SAY A PILOT DESERVES THE EQUIVALENT OF FRY-COOK PAY.
I stand firm and unbending on this---a pilot is worth more.

 

[Don]

So working for poverty wages for years builds more character then going through 6 or 8 years of school?

Flying an RJ is super complicated, so much so that 300 hour pilots can't make it through training and get a type rating?

If flying is sooo hard, and computer programming is fairly simple, then why not quit your job, get that easy masters or PhD and work as an application developer or researcher at a university? I get spring break off, a week at christmas, two months of annual leave and I make $75,000.00 a year.

I challange you to enter the IT industry and offer to do that job for nothing! The truth is, you can't! Most people can't. Thats why the job pays so darn well. At the end of the month you'd have nothing to show for your efforts.

I do agree you guys are underpaid, but you need to realize that flying a jet is not all that difficult and the reality is, with a little training most folks can do it.

 

[BoilerUP]

I do agree you guys are underpaid, but you need to realize that flying a jet is not all that difficult and the reality is, with a little training most folks can do it.

Tell that to the flushbacks at American Eagle.

You are missing the point. Flying an airplane and doing computer programming are both difficult tasks - in different ways. Computer programming and IT deal mainly with book intelligence...you can learn it just by reading about it. You cannot learn how to fly just by reading about it.

Why in the world do you think all these intelligent, succesful computer and businessmen millionaires who think its cool to own and fly a King Air or CJ with 500 hours are required to fly with a PROFESSIONAL pilot for such a long period after passing their required training at FSI or Simuflite? Must not be too easy...

The reason some 300hr pilots can pass a 121 checkride is they have had intense, structured training in transport-category aircraft systems and operations, often accompanied with transport category simulator experience. Its the same reason the Air Force can take somebody with just a PPL and within 300 hours give them a BE400A type rating.

Both flying and computers require intelligence and training, but the required intelligence and training for each is different. That doesn't mean one is better than the other, it just means they are different.

I have a friend who does IT work for Purdue and is a junior in the Aviation Flight program. He does the computer stuff on the side as a hobby, and just so happens to enjoy it as much as he is good at it. In the same vein, I have instructed IT professionals who couldn't fly their way out of a cardboard box on a severe clear day.

I for one applaud you for being successful in your career, but I hope you don't bring the superior intelligence ego you espouse here along into the cockpit. If I wanted to work with computers, I'd go to school for it.

 

[acapoisonpill]

So working for poverty wages for years builds more character then going through 6 or 8 years of school?

Exactly!!

 

[Brett Hull]

The problem we have in my opinion is too many young naive kids who are willing to sell out the industry for a chance at the majors and the big oney. We as an indusrty need to get the kids when they are young and explain how the system works.

Allow me to add my thoughts to this.

There's a list of people who have crossed the picket line. Make another.

Why not send an "unofficial" professional representative to all of the major aviation schools throughout the country once a year and have this person inform the students AND INSTRUCTORS: "Currently, Airline AAA, BBB, CCC, ZZZ, and Mesa are not up to professional standards with regard to first and second year flightcrew pay. Any of you youngsters who accept a job with said airlines after [insert calendar date here] will be forever brandished to this list, much like the infamous SCAB list. Should you choose to disregard this advice and accept employment with aforementioned airlines, you will have a difficult time obtaining employment with major airlines in the future. As soon as contracts are ammended to an acceptable level, we will remove these restrictions."

Please don't scream at me how this would be illegal. I know. Supposedly so is the SCAB list. I'm sure you college edumacated folks could make it work somehow.

And please again, don't squawk "supply and demand, supply and demand" like a parrott. We know.

Just a thought. Go easy on me now, especially about the Mesa remark. It was a joke.

 

[acaTerry]

So working for poverty wages for years builds more character then going through 6 or 8 years of school?

Generally Speaking, YES. Besides, most airline pilots HAVE been to school...and we don't need our computer to "spell check" for us.

Flying an RJ is super complicated, so much so that 300 hour pilots can't make it through training and get a type rating?

Once again, you have come through for me with an ostentatious display of ignorance. 300 hour pilots have failed left and right. Miserably. Ask anyone at Eagle, ask anyone at CoEx...need I go on? And, By the Way, they do NOT get a TYPE RATING...THAT COMES WITH THE CAPTAIN UPGRADE!

If flying is sooo hard, and computer programming is fairly simple, then why not quit your job, get that easy masters or PhD and work as an application developer or researcher at a university? I get spring break off, a week at christmas, two months of annual leave and I make $75,000.00 a year

Again I'll thank you for having a big mouth and a little brain. First, the "quit" option is SO DARN typical of you computer types. Spoken like today's weak, lazy, helpless public...If the going gets tough....quit. No sir, I will not quit. I love what I do, but I despise little pro$titutes like you who will GIVE AWAY what so many of us have worked for.
And your $75,000.....have you ANY IDEA how many YEARS!!!! we have to work before we can earn that? And little rich spoiled brats like you, because you have come to the airlines the EASY way are willing to give it all away? You just proved my point....the ones who come in from school, rather than from EARNING the job are the ones who will be the undoing of it all for those of us who earned it.


I challange you to enter the IT industry and offer to do that job for nothing! The truth is, you can't! Most people can't. Thats why the job pays so darn well. At the end of the month you'd have nothing to show for your efforts.

It must be terribly difficult...that's why it's going to 3rd world countries (like India), who, by the way, are doing it for....nothing (fractions of your pay).

I do agree you guys are underpaid, but you need to realize that flying a jet is not all that difficult and the reality is, with a little training most folks can do it.

"a little training"...please tell me this whole thread has been a joke. I find it hard to believe that someone can possibly be this stupid.
Look, we have been round and round, and all you have done is prove repeatedly what an ignoramous you are. What kicks it in is that you are so boiterous about it and you have NO CLUE what you are talking about. I will no longer dignify your inexplicable hostility towards pilots, nor your gross and obvious ignorance of the subject. Now put your Bill Gates pajamas on and go to bed. Good bye, good riddens, good night!

 

[46Driver]

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.

Different strokes for different folks. For me, flying (both helos and jets) is easier than computer programming (it kicked my butt in college.) Likewise, my bud flew Cobras with all of the assorted training and then went to med school - he thinks med school is a good bit harder. It all depends on where your talents lie.

Wait a minute, I gonna say it now before somebody else does concerning salaries and the industry,

"SUPPLY AND DEMAND!"

As for the India people "doing IT for nothing", they do quite well considering India's per capita income and their cost of living. Its all relative. Same goes with airline salaries - what might be considered inadequate for someone living in a fashionable section of NYC would be considered very comfortable by someone in a small southern town.

 

[CatYaaak]

So working for poverty wages for years builds more character then going through 6 or 8 years of school?

Flying an RJ is super complicated, so much so that 300 hour pilots can't make it through training and get a type rating?

If flying is sooo hard, and computer programming is fairly simple, then why not quit your job, get that easy masters or PhD and work as an application developer or researcher at a university? I get spring break off, a week at christmas, two months of annual leave and I make $75,000.00 a year.

I challange you to enter the IT industry and offer to do that job for nothing! The truth is, you can't! Most people can't. Thats why the job pays so darn well. At the end of the month you'd have nothing to show for your efforts.

I do agree you guys are underpaid, but you need to realize that flying a jet is not all that difficult and the reality is, with a little training most folks can do it.

Oh, Don Don Don,

It's not a case of an RJ being difficult to learn..it's a case of learning it and then going on to fly it (or something like it) for thousands of hours over years and decades through the wx, bouts of fatigue, hassles at home, life-changing events etc etc, without accident, incident, or violation as part of a career. You see Don, there are no "Do-overs" in this game if you fxck up, unlike the IT world where you can try and try again.

And Don, 6-8 years of school? Big deal. Even after that big nursery school known as College, we are constantly being sent through school in one form or another..Initial, recurrent, transition, upgrade, Int'l Ops, Safety training, and that's not even considering the fact that this is aviation.....every time you fly it's part of continuing education. 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.

Oh, and when the worst happens...when the your tool of your trade "crashes", you kick it, swear a little, and reboot. When ours does, it means those cute little computer thingys you work with that were part of our airplane are strewn about in the bottom of a smokin' hole. It gets to the scene of the crash a lot quicker than your Cessna.

When you've "been there and done that" for a few years and thousands of hours, get back to us, because you'll find that we don't get paid for "flying a jet" per se...the jet is just the tool of the trade. We are paid for exersizing sound judgment and making good decisions when using that tool...every single time we go to work.

Any weenie or fool with the money can go out and buy themselves a jet and get checked out with a few hundred hours.... but that doesn't mean they know how to "fly it", and in fact doing so might indicate they don't know much about flying in general. Any insurance company would surely tell you they don't, as reflected in their premiums for such a person, and looking at the ab initio types at the airlines creates a false impression you've apparently taken hold of. Those 300-hour types operate in the most regimented and standardized womb of aviation under the watchful eye of everyone, and certainly aren't making command decisions, nor will they for a long, long time. All they do is steer, and they aren't even typed.

I won't quit my job for IT work though. I don't think it would be hard to learn, but I do think it would be incredibly, agonizingly boring.

 

[Nindiri]

I get spring break off, a week at christmas, two months of annual leave and I make $75,000.00 a year.

But at the end of the day, you're still just a geeky little computer programmer in your cubicle.

 

[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.