What's the point of ARG/US?

[joelo88]

Agreed on all that's been said. The company I with has had aduits from both companies and it's a total scam. I think we might have gotten a few good ideas from them but the crap our CP and DOO go through just to get these stupid approvals is unreal. What a waste of time and money. At least it's not our money...

And of course, we all know that rating a pilot's qualifications based on their total time is a TOTAL joke.

 

[Seadogrun]

The whole "catch" is that we all know that the rating system is a joke, however charter brokers and ultimately charter customers like seeing the ratings. So if a company wants to stay competitive alot of times it makes sense to jump throught the hoops (pay a bunch of money) and BUY the top ratings.

If only there was a way to get the consumers to realize what a joke it is.

 

[AZ Typed]

Here is a funny story, about three years ago I worked for a arg/us platinum operator. One day we get a call for a trip in our king air 90 which required two pilots because it was a "platinum" trip. The normal guy we used for the right seat only had about 1200 hours TT with 700 in the king air. According to arg/us he wasn't qualified for the trip because he didnt meet there total time minimums. However they would have been perfectly happy with me in the right seat with ZERO time in type. I hadnt flown a turboprop in a about 5 years at the time and I probably couldnt figure out how to tune the radios, but I have a bunch of jet time.

EXACTLY!!!

Unfortunately, it will take a miracle to change this stupid system - maybe even, as much as I hate to say this, federal regulations of these "audit" companies.

Like many of you I'm sure, I know of operators, airplanes, and pilots who are "AR/GUS platnum" approved who have NO business anwhere near an airplane. I wouldn't put my family on most AR/GUS flights. If these rich people are so damn smart, they would spend 5 GD minutes talking with the crew before sealing themselves in a death trap with foolish morons at the controls. That 5 minutes can go a long way - but most don't even check IDs or our licenenses!!!

*sigh*

Gotta love 91 gigs!

 

[Seadogrun]

Remember the Challenger wreck at TEB. It was a charter. The captain was out of currency and I think the FO was also. They overloaded and mis-balanced the airplane. Then they went off the end of the runway, through the grass, through the fence, over the road, hit a few cars that were driving, through a parking lot and into a warehouse. After all that it caught on fire.

All this while AR/GUS approved.

 

[JJET44]

Remember the Challenger wreck at TEB. It was a charter. The captain was out of currency and I think the FO was also. They overloaded and mis-balanced the airplane. Then they went off the end of the runway, through the grass, through the fence, over the road, hit a few cars that were driving, through a parking lot and into a warehouse. After all that it caught on fire.

All this while AR/GUS approved.

There was a lot more to that boon-goggle than that.
There was no operational control. The airplane and /or crew were piggybacking on someone elses cert.
AR/GUS and Wyvern is just something to make pilots pencil whip time. See it all the time. An FO starts with only 1000 total PIC and 4 months later he has 1500 after he only flew 40 hours a month in the last 4 months. Nobody questions it and now he upgrades.