pipejockey
Well-known member
- Joined
- Nov 7, 2003
- Posts
- 1,041
Pipejockey,
I think your disdain for the military pilots is a little out of date as the paradigm has now changed. I think the military probably produces about a 1/3 to 1/2 less pilots than just a decade ago, look at all the types of planes that have been retired. Of those, many many more are Helo pilots compared to fixed wing of last decade. The military is even accelerating that transition with increased UAV usage. Of the fixed wing pilots, many do not get out until retirement age because of the way the industry has worked for the last decade, and of those, many have no wish to go to a "regional" job for just enough wages to cover the tax on their pension.
Bottom line, I don't think it's the military pilots that by and large take the $30K a year jobs and compete with the embry riddle and Comair academy grads. Most of the military pilots are older with families so this living in an RV in the LAX airport to fly planes is not a viable option. So in that vein, you are right, that if there was no opportunity for a fixed wing military pilot to hire into a position that was a least a livable wage within a few years, there would be no military presence in the airlines.
Yes, we are on the same page here. Because the military guys will flat out refuse to fly the RJ's and turbo props because of pay, you will never see all of an airlines flying brought back into the domain of the mainline pilots where it belongs. So those in this industry who have not gone the military route but instead went civilian with a regional and perhaps didn't get their regional job until 30 years old or so, and are stuck in the quagmire of one of the several airlines with 10 year upgrades, these folks will not get the PIC time needed for a job at a major until they are well into their 40's. And because mainline pilots will never approve anything that would require their military buddies to have to fly regional aircraft at regional pay for a few years, even though they would all be on the same list as everyone else, and given time would be able to hold an aircraft with 100+ seats and be on major pay, as a result 70% of the regional pilots will be stuck at these puke regionals for the rest of their lives.
Destroying the careers of many thousands of civilian pilots stuck at the regionals by keeping separate seniority lists thus blocking them from mainline equipment, just to protect the military to mainline superhighway seems a tad unjust. Ever hear the saying that the good of the many outweigh the good of the few?