(qualified?) pilot shortage round 2? MPL

[Dornier 335]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...lantic-Ocean-Air-France-crash-killed-228.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...s-words-plane-crashes-sea-I-dont-control.html

Daily Mail! Sigh.... Where's the next reference coming from? Playboy? Legoland News?

 

[pilotyip]

Good thing you'll be 6 feet under by then.

by 2015? don't think so unless one of these young inexperienced F/O's does me in.

 

[Flybywire44]

http://www.alpa.org/portals/alpa/fastread/2012/jumpstories/11-27-12story2.htm#jump

Is There a Pilot Shortage or Not?
The following is reprinted with permission from Holly Hegeman’s PlaneBusiness Banter, November 21, 2012, Vol. 16, Issue 43:

Over the last several weeks, the issue of whether the airline industry faces a severe pilot shortage has generated a great deal of discussion in various media outlets. One recent article in the Wall Street Journal in particular generated a high number of email comments to us here at PlaneBusiness. That article also generated a lot of “me too” stories at other media outlets.

So is there a “catastrophic” pilot shortage about to descend upon the industry?

According to Kit Darby, of Kit Darby Aviation Consultants, more than half of current U.S. airline pilots are over 50. Darby’s firm calculates that all U.S. airlines, including cargo, charter and regional carriers, together employ nearly 96,000 pilots, and will need to find more than 65,000 over the next eight years.

Dave Barger, CEO of JetBlue Airways, was also quoted in the WSJ article, as having said in a recent speech that the industry is “facing an exodus of talent in the next few years” and could “wake up one day and find we have no one to operate or maintain those planes.”

Dan Garton, CEO of American Eagle, said the impact of the FAA’s proposed new first-officer rule “is going to become much more visible when regionals have to decrease their flying” for lack of pilots, and that the airline may have to eliminate service to some smaller cities.

Okay. Is it just me or does this sound like the old tried and true “fear”-based strategy?

Yes, there is another side to this debate, which in the last two weeks has been put forth by such folks as Lee Moak, President of the Air Line Pilots Association and Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, former US Airways Captain and now aviation consultant to CBS News.

That argument more or less tracks this line of reasoning: all of this talk of a pilot “shortage” is being overblown, and in, fact, is merely an attempt by the airline industry to pressure the FAA to back down on already congressionally mandated tougher minimum pilot training and experience standards.

In an interview on CBS, Sullenberger said that the latest round of media hype is nothing more than a “scare tactic.” Sullenberger alleged that airline executives are crying wolf, with the aim to pressure the FAA into reducing the first-officer requirements in the final version of the new rule.

“This [the change in mandatory experience requirements] is not a surprise to anyone,” he said. “You know, we’ve known since December 2007 what the mandatory age for retirement for pilots was going to be. We’ve known these rules were coming for several years. In fact, in congressional testimony this year regional airline association officials, in response to a congressional question, indicated that they fully expected by August of 2012, which has passed, that their member airlines would be completely compliant with the airline transport pilot license requirement in the new rule. As a matter of fact, they further say that out of their 18,000 regional pilots, only 100 might not be and that’s because they haven’t yet reached the age of 23, which is one of the requirements.”

Last week, ALPA President Lee Moak wrote in a letter to the editor to the WSJ,

“Next time I suggest the Wall Street Journal do a better job of reporting. “The Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l does not agree with your analysis in “Airlines Face Acute Shortage of Pilots” [November 12, 2012]. The article failed to consider a number of variables, including the cadre of highly qualified pilots who are currently furloughed or displaced from North American carriers and those flying overseas in order to make a livable wage.

“A significant number of currently furloughed or displaced American and Canadian pilots have had no choice but to accept pilot jobs in other parts of the world in order to make a living. In addition, many qualified pilots have chosen to fly for overseas airlines because of the instability in the North American aviation industry. These pilots would prefer to fly for North American carriers, if they were able to support themselves and their families as well as feel confident of a long-term career.”

He then added, “It’s also important to consider another key issue. Emirates—as well as other Middle Eastern and Asian carriers flush with cash, incentives, and favorable government aviation and tax policies—attracts highly qualified airline pilots because they offer compensation commensurate with the pilots’ training and skill; some North American carriers do not . . . so you see, the solution to increasing the quantity of airline pilots in North America lies in attracting and retaining the most qualified pilots.”

I’m going with the Lee Moak/Sullenberger view. The change in mandated training minimums for pilots is necessary, has been in the works for years, and is not unreasonable. The airline industry will survive just fine. There are, and will be, enough pilots.

Next time I suggest the Wall Street Journal do a better job of reporting.

 

[Ty Webb]

That pretty much sums it up. Well done, Ms Hegeman.

 

[pilotyip]

That pretty much sums it up. Well done, Ms Hegeman.

Yes one way to look at it, but only time will tell what this will look like by 2015. True the upper end may never see a shortage of qualifications, but the lower end will see a much different picture.

 

[doh]

Yes one way to look at it, but only time will tell what this will look like by 2015. True the upper end may never see a shortage of qualifications, but the lower end will see a much different picture.

If the lower end can't find enough qualified pilots as you say, eventually that has to affect the upper end. If the lower end can't make money, they go TU. No place to get time equals no qualified guys for the upper end to poach. But I think it will just bring about a more rational price of labor in the industry.

 

[HA25]

. True the upper end may never see a shortage of qualifications, but the lower end will see a much different picture.

Exactly! And who cares if they do??

 

[pilotyip]

Exactly! And who cares if they do??

You do, there is an important part of the economy that lies in that lower end. The lower end it the breeding group for the upper end. An airline says "Well can not find any F/O's this month, so we are cancelling the scheduled upgrade classes" So you should care what happens on the lower end. There are unintended consequences to every action, we are only guessing at what is going to happen in the future. We will wait until 2015 and see what is happening.

 

[Flybywire44]

Instead of each airline having four flights a day from one or two hubs to a regional airport than just one or two airlines could have three mainline flights a day to one hub—Problem solved.

And Ty Webb I love your Avatar:

"Who was it this time Captain? It wasn't Trixy was it?" :smash:

 

[pilotyip]

Instead of each airline having four flights a day from one or two hubs to a regional airport than just one or two airlines could have three mainline flights a day to one hub—Problem solved.

And Ty Webb I love your Avatar:

Right the pax at LIT are going to love going to ATL instead of DFW to get to ABQ, PHX or LAX.

 

[Lear70]

Right the pax at LIT are going to love going to ATL instead of DFW to get to ABQ, PHX or LAX.

Too bad, they can suck it up. Hegeman's never been known for having a great track record on aviation subjects, about 50/50, but the quotes she gathered point out the issue quite nicely.

I'm not interested in financing their low ticket prices with my low wages. Time for the Regionals to reap what they have sown. Decades of slave-labor pilot wages have yielded them an entire generation of high school and college students who don't want to become pilots because it just doesn't pay enough.

That's the lesson they need to learn, and ALPA's quote from the article above summed that up nicely.

 

[Mud Eagle]

The fastest way to destroy an industry is through too much regulation and legislation.

Wait a minute...I thought the airline industry only started to self destruct after it was deregulated?

 

[pilotyip]

Wait a minute...I thought the airline industry only started to self destruct after it was deregulated?

Did not self destruct. It did great under de-reg, market forces prevailed eliminating the weak operators, competetion drove productivity and cost controls. The airlines have grown over 400% since de-reg. But now we have Congress starting to screw things up again, 1500 hour rules, FRAMP, and Part 117.

 

[Lear70]

The 1500 hr rule is a good one. You just dislike it because it affects you're airline negatively.

If I can have a guy in the right seat with 1,250 Hrs of making sure his student didn't kill him or flying freight at night in a Baron or a Lear versus some 250 he wunderkid who just got out of an "approved" flight school, well, let's just say that I think you're full of sh*t if you say the 250 hr pilot is just as experienced and, thus, just as safe.

If it wasn't simple logic, it wouldn't be becoming law.

 

[HA25]

Did not self destruct. It did great under de-reg, market forces prevailed eliminating the weak operators, competetion drove productivity and cost controls. The airlines have grown over 400% since de-reg. But now we have Congress starting to screw things up again, 1500 hour rules, FRAMP, and Part 117.

wait.... are you working in the same airline industry the rest of us are? Oh.. wait, no you're not, you're with a bottom feeder, with a ravenous appetite for underpaid and overworked pilots.

 

[pilotyip]

The 1500 hr rule is a good one. You just dislike it because it affects you're airline negatively.

If I can have a guy in the right seat with 1,250 Hrs of making sure his student didn't kill him or flying freight at night in a Baron or a Lear versus some 250 he wunderkid who just got out of an "approved" flight school, well, let's just say that I think you're full of sh*t if you say the 250 hr pilot is just as experienced and, thus, just as safe.

If it wasn't simple logic, it wouldn't be becoming law.

Everyone in the know; Flight Safety Foundation, ICAO, NACA, etc says this is a stupid rule. It makes the 1500 banner tow pilot from KMYR as the first choice for a 121 job over a 1000 hours guy who has been flying DA-20's at KYIP under 121 sub parts N and O for two years. Night IFR, icing, international expereince, simulator training in windshear, CFIT, and Low vis taxi mean nothing. The choice is made on a number not a qualification. BTW If the 1500 rule is so good, why are 750 hour military helo pilots allowed into 121 cockpits?

 

[HA25]

Everyone in the know; Flight Safety Foundation, ICAO, NACA, etc says this is a stupid rule. It makes the 1500 banner tow pilot from KMYR as the first choice for a 121 job over a 1000 hours guy who has been flying DA-20's at KYIP under 121 sub parts N and O for two years. Night IFR, icing, international expereince, simulator training in windshear, CFIT, and Low vis taxi mean nothing. The choice is made on a number not a qualification. BTW If the 1500 rule is so good, why are 750 hour military helo pilots allowed into 121 cockpits?

nope... it just makes it so you have to hire a 1500 pilot to get that 121 DA20 time for a dime.... thats all. And this will shift more experience into all of our cockpits, not just yours.

 

[laker4284]

The 1500 hr rule is a good one. You just dislike it because it affects you're airline negatively.

If I can have a guy in the right seat with 1,250 Hrs of making sure his student didn't kill him or flying freight at night in a Baron or a Lear versus some 250 he wunderkid who just got out of an "approved" flight school, well, let's just say that I think you're full of sh*t if you say the 250 hr pilot is just as experienced and, thus, just as safe.

If it wasn't simple logic, it wouldn't be becoming law.

Oh, man. You're killing me!

We're talking about the FAA, where rules and regulations are whipsawed and fought over for literally years before it finally is adopted (if it is adopted). In this case, the FAA was under some serious political pressure to make changes after the Colgan crash in Buffalo. Add to that the presence of a former ALPA President as FAA Administrator, and it was easy to see that one of ALPA's pet desires would likely become a regulatory success.

Of course, these changes really had nothing to do with the root causes of the crash. They will, however, result in all sorts of foolish work-arounds. Those have already started, by waiving military time requirements to a lower level to account for their quality of training and experience. There will be more changes, exemptions and waivers if the hiring pool gets shallow due to the 1500 hour rule.

Yeah, yeah. I know you think hours towing a banner might a great pilot make. However, as has already been pointed out, flight time is not necessarily a predictor of a good pilot; EXPERIENCE and TRAINING are. I'd take a military guy with 750 hours any time over a civilian guy with 1500 hours who has been doing a job that requires little or no instrument or night time, or no ops in difficult conditions.

The 1500 hour rule is a dumb as- rule and common sense or logic had nothing to do with its inception.

 

[HA25]

The 1500 hour rule is a dumb as- rule and common sense or logic had nothing to do with its inception.

well until the FAA gets rid of memorizable written tests for ATPs and Comm, and holds aspiring professional airmen to basic levels of aerodynamic and systems understanding, this will do.. it at least makes sure their stick and rudder skills are somewhat matured and honed before they get into a cockpit... That said, I agree with the gist of your post... Sadly the fact that the girl in the right seat of that Q400 didn't understand that sucking the flaps up during a stall recovery wasn't the right thing to do at that proximity to the ground, and yet had over 1500 hours proves that there is a MASSIVE gap in understanding of how an airplane flies in many circles of aviation..

I mean how many pilots have you flown with that REFUSE to use the speed brakes to slow down, or go down, but are the first ones in a hurry to drop the gear at 5000' or get slats and flaps out at Vlimit speed to get the same effect?

Flaps are a lift device, except there are enough "pilots" out there that seem to think their primarily a drag device and this is why we're sometimes the laughing stock of the interviewers at the Cathy Pacific interview, and rightly so..

 

[Lear70]

Oh, man. You're killing me!

We're talking about the FAA, where rules and regulations are whipsawed and fought over for literally years before it finally is adopted (if it is adopted). In this case, the FAA was under some serious political pressure to make changes after the Colgan crash in Buffalo. Add to that the presence of a former ALPA President as FAA Administrator, and it was easy to see that one of ALPA's pet desires would likely become a regulatory success.

Of course, these changes really had nothing to do with the root causes of the crash. They will, however, result in all sorts of foolish work-arounds. Those have already started, by waiving military time requirements to a lower level to account for their quality of training and experience. There will be more changes, exemptions and waivers if the hiring pool gets shallow due to the 1500 hour rule.

Yeah, yeah. I know you think hours towing a banner might a great pilot make. However, as has already been pointed out, flight time is not necessarily a predictor of a good pilot; EXPERIENCE and TRAINING are. I'd take a military guy with 750 hours any time over a civilian guy with 1500 hours who has been doing a job that requires little or no instrument or night time, or no ops in difficult conditions.

The 1500 hour rule is a dumb as- rule and common sense or logic had nothing to do with its inception.

Laker, I don't disagree with you, or the example that YIP listed, but that's not what we're debating.

We are debating no minimum experience requirement beyond a wet CMEL versus the new minimum of 1,500 hrs. Period.

Of course is rather have a Kalitta guy with 1,200 total time and 900 right seat in a Lear or Falcon versus a 1,500 he banner tower, but there's not an easy way to write that into a reg. How would you PRECISELY define equivalent experience, or even better experience than another?

For the record, I do NOT agree that training can equal experience. Military training? Arguably, because the passing standards are so much higher than the civilian world, but in the pure civilian route of training? Not a chance.

Thus, since it's almost impossible to write different scenarios of experiends which would be just as good or better than a blanket 1,500 hr requirement, it's the best solution of a host of imperfect solutions, and certainly better than no restriction at all.

 

[Abernathy]

So a Lufthansa pilot was the "Father of MPL"? I wonder if this was one of his shining examples: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja1LCCuDgfI

 

[dalav8tor]

The 1500 rule is not just a FAA reg, it is now also law. Google HR 5900.

 

[HA25]

The 1500 rule is not just a FAA reg, it is now also law. Google HR 5900.

Section 217 -
Directs the FAA Administrator to conduct a rulemaking proceeding to modify minimum federal requirements for the issuance of airline transport pilot certificates. Requires a pilot to have at least 1,500 flight hours to qualify for a certificate.
Authorizes the Administrator to allow specific academic training courses, beyond the minimum required, to be credited toward total flight hours, if allowing a pilot to take such courses will enhance safety more than requiring full compliance with the flight hours requirement.

loop holes so big you can drive a Mack truck thru them....

 

[laker4284]

The 1500 rule is not just a FAA reg, it is now also law. Google HR 5900.

My bad. I focused on the FAA writing the reg, as opposed to the law directing the Feds to do so. The Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Administration Extension Act of 2010 is the name of the bill, sponsored by Rep Oberstar, a hard-core ALPA supporter. The end result is the same - a bad bill, with foolish requirements, in part passed to give ALPA an item it has long wanted.

If you haven't followed this part of ALPA's want list, they have for many years supported anything that artificialy might create pressure on pilot availability, i.e. working to create a pilot shortage. The ALPA mag had a large article about just that, using a shortage to enhance contracts, somewhere back around 2004ish.

Regardless, it unfortunately comes back to logic and common sense having far too little to do with a final rule.

The irony is that this is the same logic that provided a potent weapon for APAAD, SWAPA et al when working to change the age rule: If newbies are popping straight out of college and into the right seat of an RJ, then it makes sense to keep more experienced pilots in the cockpit. APAAD ran a wickedly effective ad lampooning 250 hour new hires in The Hill, the primary Capitol Hill newspaper. It got lots of attention, which added to the cosponsors of the age change bill.

The further irony is that CAPA and ALPA pushed for this new bill/reg and got it. High hiring reqirements might bring better contracts. But...these same requirements also might, down the road a piece, bring another extension of the retirement age.

I wonder if they figured that in?

 

[Lear70]

Yes, but it leaves it up to the FAA, not Congress or another ruling body, to determine what academic training courses and how much it reduces those flight hours.

For instance, if someone were to take a course that put someone with 1,000 hours in a multi-crew environment in a simulator for 30 hours (not a Frasca... there's a couple MD and 727 sims out there in the University environment), teach them a FULL systems course in that aircraft, basically giving them the equivalent of a type rating without really giving them a type rating, and letting them reduce their 1,500 by 100 hours, I'd be OK with that, but only once, not multiple reductions.

Again, the idea that training equals experience is ludicrous. You can't replicate being tired after being up all day then getting called for a night flight to an airport served by an NDB in a snow storm, get a crappy runway report from some 19 year old idiot, then landing and having no braking action when you weren't expecting it, or a hundred other similar abnormal scenarios when tired and not expecting them.

That's what makes a good pilot. Experience that teaches you to always be vigilant and to stay current on the systems even when it's not checkride time and sharp with hand-flying skills.

(sorry about the post above yesterday. Posting from my iPhone always makes for spelling errors - putting the wrong word in and I don't catch it).

 

[Lear70]

My bad. I focused on the FAA writing the reg, as opposed to the law directing the Feds to do so. The Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Administration Extension Act of 2010 is the name of the bill, sponsored by Rep Oberstar, a hard-core ALPA supporter. The end result is the same - a bad bill, with foolish requirements, in part passed to give ALPA an item it has long wanted.

If you haven't followed this part of ALPA's want list, they have for many years supported anything that artificialy might create pressure on pilot availability, i.e. working to create a pilot shortage. The ALPA mag had a large article about just that, using a shortage to enhance contracts, somewhere back around 2004ish.

Regardless, it unfortunately comes back to logic and common sense having far too little to do with a final rule.

The irony is that this is the same logic that provided a potent weapon for APAAD, SWAPA et al when working to change the age rule: If newbies are popping straight out of college and into the right seat of an RJ, then it makes sense to keep more experienced pilots in the cockpit. APAAD ran a wickedly effective ad lampooning 250 hour new hires in The Hill, the primary Capitol Hill newspaper. It got lots of attention, which added to the cosponsors of the age change bill.

The further irony is that CAPA and ALPA pushed for this new bill/reg and got it. High hiring reqirements might bring better contracts. But...these same requirements also might, down the road a piece, bring another extension of the retirement age.

I wonder if they figured that in?

I'm guessing you never had to sit left seat in an RJ with some wunderkid child of the magenta in the right seat trying to keep up with the airplane and either doing multiple things that make you question who gave them their CMEL or outright panicking the first time you get an abnormal and trying to do something REALLY stupid where, in both cases, no matter how much you try to talk them through it, you basically have to take the airplane, tell them to sit on their hands and shut up, and deal with the situation.

I had the dubious pleasure of being at PCL when they hired a TON of those kinds of pilots and it made life rather irritating, and made me start watching what airplanes my family got on when a wunderkid got paired with one of our near-obese older pilots that were coronaries waiting to happen.

I shudder to think what would have happened in an emergency with one of those crew pairings if the CA checked out (stroke, heart attack, whatever) and the new-hire 250-hr wonder was left to deal with it. Probably something like the Colgan accident. Or what happened with PCL 3701.

Having directly experienced what happens when you put a 250 hour pilot in the right seat of an RJ (serious degradation in safety), I've been advocating an ATP for ALL 121 airline pilots for about 11 years now (go back and research my postings, you'll see it pop up once every year or two when this topic comes up).

I guess at 41 I'm just an old-school, 3rd generation pilot, been around this all my life. Fly the Wing and Aerodynamics for Naval Aviators is sitting over here on my shelf, well-read and studied, not because it was required in a course, but because someone in my career shoved it under my nose and I wanted to be a better aviator. You give that kind of training to ALL pilots, make them UNDERSTAND the aircraft they're flying, HOW it works beyond just pushing the buttons and following the pretty magenta line, then make them develop stick skills that PROVE they can handle the plane, not just a rote checkride and a question and answer bank they can memorize, then MAYBE, just MAYBE I'd be OK reducing those hours now required.

Otherwise, no. They need the experience. Personally I believe the ATP course should REQUIRE mandatory understanding and oral testing on Chapters 1-5 of Aerodynamics for Naval Aviators and the entire book of Fly the Wing. The testing standards for the FAA for the CMEL and ATP are laughable; that's part of the problem.

Any idiot can memorize 1,000 multiple choice questions enough to get 70% and flying a Duchess through maneuvers isn't exactly equivalent to blowing an engine on takeoff so badly it catches on fire, kills half the hydraulic system, and makes the obese Captain stroke out from the sudden shock and stress, leaving the F/O to deal with all of that on his own.

Show me a training course that can teach that successfully and I'll gladly retract my position.

 

[jmreii]

Maybe some US airlines will sell their assets to foreign investors and all these problems will be a memory.

 

[laker4284]

I'm guessing you never had to sit left seat in an RJ ...

Not in an RJ but, yes, I've had some totally unqualified co-pilots gracing the left seat of cockpits I occupied. Never a pleasant experience.

I'd say you and I areto a large extent, on the same page.The newbies popping out of college and into the right seat are clearly lacking experience, which cannot be replicated. On the other hand, 1500 or so hours boring a hole through the sky in CAVU weather isn't doing much for anyone either. It comes back to experience, training AND training source.

In that respect, we differ as I don't think an ATP is the answer either. It mandates 1,500 hours and a new license. While that ensures an adequate or better pilot is in the right seat it sets the bar VERY high. And it ignores the mix aspect, i.e. the military pilot who has excellent training, high bars which if not crossed result in termination and, by the time that pilot separates from the military, enough time to have seen the real world (1,000 hours for a fighter jock, for example). These guys have proven themselves over and over so 1,500 and an ATP is simply overkill. As noted, the feds are already doing work arounds. We can expect those work arounds to grow, no lessen over time.

The new regs missed the target: Instead of using a mix of experience, flight time and training source they went for the easy score. Now they've set up a whole new problem which they are already being forced to address and will be forced to further address.

Washington is disfunctional. There can be no better proof than this.

 

[HA25]

I'm guessing you never had to sit left seat in an RJ with some wunderkid child of the magenta in the right seat trying to keep up with the airplane and either doing multiple things that make you question who gave them their CMEL or outright panicking the first time you get an abnormal and trying to do something REALLY stupid where, in both cases, no matter how much you try to talk them through it, you basically have to take the airplane, tell them to sit on their hands and shut up, and deal with the situation.

I had the dubious pleasure of being at PCL when they hired a TON of those kinds of pilots and it made life rather irritating, and made me start watching what airplanes my family got on when a wunderkid got paired with one of our near-obese older pilots that were coronaries waiting to happen.

I shudder to think what would have happened in an emergency with one of those crew pairings if the CA checked out (stroke, heart attack, whatever) and the new-hire 250-hr wonder was left to deal with it. Probably something like the Colgan accident. Or what happened with PCL 3701.

Having directly experienced what happens when you put a 250 hour pilot in the right seat of an RJ (serious degradation in safety), I've been advocating an ATP for ALL 121 airline pilots for about 11 years now (go back and research my postings, you'll see it pop up once every year or two when this topic comes up).

I guess at 41 I'm just an old-school, 3rd generation pilot, been around this all my life. Fly the Wing and Aerodynamics for Naval Aviators is sitting over here on my shelf, well-read and studied, not because it was required in a course, but because someone in my career shoved it under my nose and I wanted to be a better aviator. You give that kind of training to ALL pilots, make them UNDERSTAND the aircraft they're flying, HOW it works beyond just pushing the buttons and following the pretty magenta line, then make them develop stick skills that PROVE they can handle the plane, not just a rote checkride and a question and answer bank they can memorize, then MAYBE, just MAYBE I'd be OK reducing those hours now required.

Otherwise, no. They need the experience. Personally I believe the ATP course should REQUIRE mandatory understanding and oral testing on Chapters 1-5 of Aerodynamics for Naval Aviators and the entire book of Fly the Wing. The testing standards for the FAA for the CMEL and ATP are laughable; that's part of the problem.

Any idiot can memorize 1,000 multiple choice questions enough to get 70% and flying a Duchess through maneuvers isn't exactly equivalent to blowing an engine on takeoff so badly it catches on fire, kills half the hydraulic system, and makes the obese Captain stroke out from the sudden shock and stress, leaving the F/O to deal with all of that on his own.

Show me a training course that can teach that successfully and I'll gladly retract my position.

VERY well said.... too bad more don't think and behave like you do... I can't imagine how this profession and job market would look if the FAA required at least this level of "professional" involvement to get a license.

I mean if the Medical Certification boards were as relaxed about issuing licenses to doctors, we'd have an epidemic of medical mal practice... the difference is that Airplane technology, ATC and the fact that there are ALWAYS two pilots in the cockpit today makes it so easy to mask a weak pilot...

 

[pilotyip]

Again, the idea that training equals experience is ludicrous. You can't replicate being tired after being up all day then getting called for a night flight to an airport served by an NDB in a snow storm, get a crappy runway report from some 19 year old idiot, then landing and having no braking action when you weren't expecting it, or a hundred other similar abnormal scenarios when tired and not expecting them.

That's what makes a good pilot. Experience that teaches you to always be vigilant and to stay current on the systems even when it's not checkride time and sharp with hand-flying skills.

(sorry about the post above yesterday. Posting from my iPhone always makes for spelling errors - putting the wrong word in and I don't catch it).

Sounds like a sales job for one of those fantastic jobs at KYIP!