Pft Help!

[enigma]

Re: Mesa gReed and P-F-T

Airline pilots have historically battled those who will work for less. Read the chapter about E.L. Cord in Flying the Line. P-F-T is another hurdle to be overcome. Maybe P-F-T is something ALPA should take up.

thanks for the details of Mesas PFT. Like I said, I left before any of that actually started. I did hear Grady and JohnnyO make the statement about how many resumes they had from people who would take the job for less.

About ALPA and PFT, It'll never happen, you see the top of ALPA knows the truth. They understand that their purpose is to keep out the rif-raf and to maintain the income for themselves. They know that qualification/fairness/honesty/integrety have nothing to do with getting on, so a lot of them sent their sons and daughters to PFT programs during the mid ninetys when it became obvious that the hiring boom might last long enough for them to get their kids on at the the family airline. No, I'm really not bitter, just a little sarcastic. I am tired of major/mainline ALPA running all of ALPA for the good of the big six, or seven. It doesn't seem to bug a lot of them if the entry and lower levels are terrible jobs, they've already got theirs.

Oh well. I'm going to succeed in spite of them.
regards
8N

 

[Timebuilder]

46buba wrote:

So much of this post smacks of snobbery and the proverbial "paying your dues" rhetoric that it it is comical. As someone posted, PFT rears its ugly head when the supply is high and the demand is low. However, that's reality and if you want to take some b.s. high road as if you are better than PFT, then do it quietly.
To whomever started this post, if you have the jack and stamina to go the PFT route, then do it because the only thing that is going to get you into a major (presumably everyone's goal here) is turbine PIC and you need to figure out how you are going to do it. As some drunk Irishman more or less once said, "Don't let the bastards get you down".
Last item, as far as 20 year old black females getting "there" before the rest of us, so what. Suck it up and do what you need to do. When you are the H.M.F.I.C., change it.

46 buba-
This sounds much like something I might have written in my twenties, before I had accrued much life experience. Me, me, me. Do what ever it takes, integrity and the high road be d**ned . I won't bore all of the others with a long post where I reinterate my reasoning about PFT. Instead, I'll suggest you read through some threads like "anyone fly for Gulfstream out there?" and learn about some of the experienced advice of long-time aviators on the subject.

Instead of a narrow, me-only-at-any-cost personal view, I suggest you get the "Big Picture". Avaition is a family, albeit a dysfunctional one, and we need to look out for one another. It's the basis of the idea of collective bargaining. What one person agrees to do has repercussions for all of us. We can change industry trends by acting together. If Big Iron ALPA pilots are the ONLY ones who send their kids to PFT, then it will be so rare as to die by starvation.

There is no problem with anyone, including a twenty year old black female getting there before anyone else. In America, the one I was raised in (and the one Dr. King saw) we need to encourage the idea that she gets there before all of the other applicants who are less qualified, not less female or less black.

Remember when you were in school, and a kid butted in line? How was he received? Was he applauded, or was he punched, pushed, and cursed? Elementary school is in many ways a microcosm of social life. There is a lesson there.

The dues you pay in aviation don't simply represent a place in line, they represent experience built over time. Seasoning. Learning. Being mentored. Being a mentor. That is the dues paying you find so comical.

Personal advice from an older pilot: There is only ONE HMFIC, and neither you or I am HE. You might consider spending some time in his word, too.

I'll get down off of my soapbox now.

Next...

 

[Ty Webb]

Thanks, 8N, for a great post- one that summed up things that most of us who were around in the last tough pilot market saw first hand.

Publisher- you continue to play Devil's Advocate. Fine, but try to get a better understanding of how PFT has affected wages. The information is there, but you have to be willing to see it.

I'll tell you this- in the mid Nineties, when PFT was in full swing, if your regional was in contract negotiations, you could count on management saying, "Hey, at least you guys didn't have to pay for your training, so you're already ahead by $7,000. . . ".

And as for the military guy with the "me, me, me!" attitude- remove PFT from your post, and replace it with "cross a picket line" and you'll see that the arguments you raise in favor of PFT sound just like the same things a scab says in defense of his choices, too.

 

[publisher]

Apology

I apologize for the short quips, we have become a nation of soundbites.

1. I believe that there is a chain that starts with a young person looking to the skies and wanting to fly. At the other end is an astronaut. It is the pilot community and a career chain.

It is also competitive, very comptitive and not necessarily very fair or equitable. Throughout the chain, opportunities present themselves to move around some folks that are ahead of you. These opportunities have nothing at all to do with skill or experience, they are just that.

To move forward, one has to achieve some things. As stated multi engine turbine time being one, various ratings another. These lead to more opportunities. PFT may be one of these, a low paying job that you get a rating out of another.

You and only you need to figure out where you are in the chain, where you are in your life, and what time frame you need to get what done. People on these boards can throw in their two cents but cannot make the decison for you. In times like this, anything you can do to get around some folks is a big plus.

2. Kit Darby only makes any money when major airlines are hiring. Supply does not mean anything to him really. If the majors are hiring he will be doing fine.

3. My promotion and respect for professional pilots has nothing to do with the pay aspect of it. I do have a different perspective of major airline labor issues, not so much with the pilots themselves, but the way the labor situation has evolved. The major carrier pilots who are my close friends are much more concerned with their time off than their time on. Frankly, they have more interest in their investments and other jobs than their companies or any of their junior pilots. I have a bit of a problem with that.

4. I just do not see this massive damage to the profession as a result of PFT. The damage I see is the imbalance of power between the labor groups and company management. Equally important is the different wage structure that is really out of whack with the world.

5. Kit nor I make any of this happen or we have some power way beyond our knowledge. I am only saying that supply is not important in his success nor ours. To me there is a world of aviation out here that is not big airline oriented. One reason that I get so frustrated is in the talk like that is all there is. That some guy who is flying a Lear Jet for $70k a year is depressed and not enjoying a good career as he is not in the big buck airlines.

There is a good deal more to being a professional pilot than making the big bucks flying big iron. It is in the standard that you carry in life, the tolerance for others, the caring about doing more than what you are paid for. the mentoring of those behind you, taking that extra step even though you did not need to so you can be extra safe.

Of all the pilots who have worked for me or who I have known, most all could take the aircraft from point a to point b in a safe and efficient manner. However, if I was going to put my children on one of those aircraft, I wanted the guy that really cared that they arrived. The guy that bought a few extra pieces of gum for them. The guy that brought some class with him to the cockpit along with the time and expertise. Frankly, I do not care whether they PFT'd, went to this or that school, etc.

I just want a professional person.

 

[Timebuilder]

Great post, Pub!

Perhaps the only difference you and I have on this is what aspects of character and personal ethics are the hallmarks of that professional pilot you'd want to be flying your kids.

My position is that person is one who cares enough about aviation to have come up through the ranks, learned the craft, taught it to others, taken kids for rides, showed them the joy and awe of it, and not taken the shortest route between two points in the hopes of the Big Career at Huge Jet Airlines. I'm not convinced that PFT contains a large number of the folks I could look up to. Someone said that we can't fault a pilot for taking advantage of PFT when it is offered. Life is about choices, good and bad, and we are judged by our peers largely by the choices we have made. That's why it is important for youger guys considering PFT to consider this mark they will carry with them, and how others see this part of aviation. Knowlege is power.

The 70K will fit my needs quite nicely. Who knows, maybe I'll make more.

 

[AAflyer]

It can be done

I landed AA in my twenties. I didn'y PFT it. There are 101 ways to get to where you want to be.

I t would be hard to sit here having reached my goal, and say don't you dare buy your job, while some other shmoo walks up does it and is sitting left seat in a turbo-prop in 2 years while you are still teaching. To not judge others is the hardest thing we humans will struggle with in our lives.

In the end,when you through on your pilot shirt and staighten your tie you will have to look at yourself in the mirror, I guess it is what you can live with.

Whatever you decide to do, you probably got into aviation like the majority of us (you love it). Keep the politics out of the cockpit, keep your chin up and enjoy the rewards of one the finest jobs known to man.

Good Luck,
AAflyer

 

[46bubba]

Timebuilder,

I will do my best to refrain from flaming on you here. You see I was once in my twenties as well. And like you, I too have a military education, only mine was spent on active duty deploying overseas flying 30 year old equipment. But alas, my experience is not pigeonholed into one distinct and particular realm. In fact the extent of the responsibilities that I have been charged with have extended well beyond the cockpit, in and out of the Navy. I prefer to call that perspective. Try it sometime, it can be enlightening. The "me-me what's in it for me" assertion you make is absurd and shows that basically you don't get it. Yes indeed aviation is a family, but so were the Mansons. To get down on some bootcamp just out of college because he may or may not pursue PFT is wrong. It sounds more like some are concerned that others will get ahead without having to do some of the same crap as they did.
I see the brotherhood/family in full force everyday as I peruse these boards and listen to the employed give the unemployed all the advice they can handle in the name of "solidarity" and other rhetorical horsesh**. I have several amigos that did the PFT route at ASA a few years ago. If I had the cash, I may have pursued it myself. Anyway, those are good people whose background did not carry the requisite C-172/152 or whatever time, so they took the route that was available. They had no impact on the industry other than to supply it with high quality, seasoned pilots.
Don't make more out of PFT than what it is, a business oppurtunity exercised for the good of a company because "brother", we are the company and what matters is "what have you done lately", not were you a CFI or did you suffer the correct amount in the shi**y jobs portion of your career. Quite frankly, beyond some friendly conversation over suds, who friggin' cares what you, me or anyone else has done. What matters is, can you get the job done today? Will I be taxed to the max with this guy or gal in the right seat? Will I be up to the challenge of making an airline pilot out of Joe Bag-o-donuts? When PFT starts to produce dangerous co-pilots, then there will be a problem.
You know, you **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED** near had a point, but you lost it with your obvious concern over someone else's bidness.

I ain't gittin off no soapbox.

 

[Timebuilder]

bubba-
People ask questions here regarding the relative value of the possible career tracks they might take, and PFT always enjoys some lively discussions.

If you come out of the service as an aviator, then you have no need for PFT, so I am a little befuddled by what you are saying. A naval aviator has tons of turbine time, right? You have your records showing quals, traps, aircraft, etc. So, why was this a problem for you and your friends? I'd expect you to have networked your way to a job at Delta, assuming that was before last year.

My post has nothing to do with how many cr**py jobs you've had. It has to do with outfits who take a kid with big dreams and fill his head with a bunch of baloney that the PFT route will fail to have a negative impact on aviation, and his individual careeer in particular. When people take the PFT route, it keeps that plan alive, like a parasite with a willing host. Why should operators offer a job to a kid for $18,000 instead of hiring pilots to man their planes? My boss pays the bill for training all of his pilots, and pays them to boot.

Shure, talented people can be exceptions and get an airline job with the turbine time afforded by PFT. With my family's money, I could have done it in a heartbeat. I was counseled against it. If you read the thread I recommended, you will gather some valuable insights into the full breadth of the PFT discussion. Just because somone has done this and gone on to be a success at an airline doesn't factor in the question of the value of the method, or the fact that it enables this kind of operation's continued existence.

When someone takes a path for mere expediency which is detrimental to the aviation business as we know it, and to their own reputations, it needs to be pointed out. I think it's more than fair to identify that behavior as being self-centered. That's what mentoring is. Helping to foster that Big Picture, the idea that what you do goes beyond yourself.

You disagree. I don't really understand the level of hostility I'm reading.

I could give a hoot if someone doesn't have to do what I did. The point is that the traditional path most often turns out a superior brand of pilot, and that is substantiated by pilots who were flying before you and I were born. Further, Each pilot who works hard, and not necessarily at a "cr**py" job, helps to provide mentoring and support to an entire group of less-expereienced avaitors who have yet to attain his level of experience. Giving back something to our community is an important part of life.

The Mansons were only called a family, and in reality they were just a group of evil people. What does that have to do with the kind of brotherhood shared by pilots? You say your friends took the PFT route because it was available. What was their hurry? Was a service background a factor that made teaching, flying freight, sharing the joy of flying just too unintersting for these men? I think not. More likely, it's a shame that they never took the opportunity to share experiences that would be of value to people who are just getting started.

My "bidness" is aviation, among others. The concern here is not that PFT produces "dangerous" copilots. The concern is that it produces predators on the hiring side, and exploited shortcut takers instead of aviators on the pilot side. I know some aviators. We could all do worse than to aspire to become like them. You could, too.

That's another perspective. Try it.

 

[Checks]

"Fourth, I can see no evidence that PFT hurts your wages and that is probably who you care about."

I think you right so I am going to find out where you work and offer to do it for free. If your a CFI I am going to put up a flyer in your FBO saying I will pay students 10bucks an hour to teach them.

I think you Pro-PFT guys are right. Lets pay for EVERY job. Instead of an interview companies will do credit checks.

I am trying to get ahead....dont fault me.

 

[Ty Webb]

Timebuilder and Checks:

Between the two of you, you guys said it.

Also, if you saw Enigma (8N's) post, he also added another factor to the discussion- and that is that PFT doesn't even get you ahead unless you hit the market just right- or unless you are making that PFT job your last. Once you start over at another airline, that money was largely wasted.

THe funniest part to me about Gulfstream is that once those guys are out on the street, if they are [luckythey will just go to another regional, and start over at the bottom again, still have no real PIC time, and are $18,800. poorer.