Why hire military over your competition?

[DCAA320]

They did well in the end, but they were nowhere near the runaway stars of the class.

I watched two military pilots struggle in my new-hire airline class.

WTF are you talking about, I pride myself in the fact that I will not ask one question through the entire ground school so how do you pick a star of the class?

I am calling Bull(hit on you saying military guys had trouble in training because you put a stack of books in front of us, say test on Friday, 99.99% will be ready for the test.

Like someone else said, I am not saying we are god's gift to aviation, but trouble with a crap, watered down ground school, no ********************ing way.

Military guys are trained for numerous lengthened memory items, they have taken most of them out or shortened them in the civilian world.

If a military guy doesn't make it through 121 training, he needs his ass kicked.

 

[livin'thesim]

I don't think anyone has stated that the military pilots are the absolute best. But they are uniformly good due to the, screening, weeding out, discipline, and continual training process. Unless you are in combat, you never fly without a training objective.

To a military pilot going into his next job wither it be 121, corp, 135, it is just another training evolution at which they will be successful. Airlines know this.

I know we will now have serious of posts about a military pilot that my brother's next door neighbor's friend at church knows who busted out of 121 training. It does happen but not very often.

If you've read my comments carefully, you'll note that I have very strongly stated that it "all depends on the pilot".

My amusement comes from those who want military pilot status to be a universal "end the argument" card.

See my response to DCAA, below.

 

[livin'thesim]

WTF are you talking about, I pride myself...

That is beyond evident.

I will not ask one question through the entire ground school so how do you pick a star of the class?

"Something to prove", eh? The best pilots I know would never use such a callow metric for self-valuation.

I am calling Bull(hit on you saying military guys had trouble in training because you put a stack of books in front of us, say test on Friday, 99.99% will be ready for the test.

Believe whatever you want to believe. It is funny that you have such a deep and abiding need to defend military pilots and military training against even the slightest suggestion that anyone who exits a military flight deck is anything less than perfection personified.

Like someone else said, I am not saying we are god's gift to aviation, but trouble with a crap, watered down ground school, no ********************ing way.

Military guys are trained for numerous lengthened memory items, they have taken most of them out or shortened them in the civilian world.

If a military guy doesn't make it through 121 training, he needs his ass kicked.

They both made it through, but with a few struggles. I know this because one of them became a friend of mine and candidly confided in me that he was feeling a bit overloaded.

Don't get too upset, because I DID point out that the worst pilot in the class was the civilian with previous time in type from another carrier. You should find that information to be quite savory.

I think you need to have a better perspective on this. First, very few people wash out from airline training except for some regionals with very poor training departments. Sure, every airline gets a washout here and there, but it is mostly rare.

I also think that you are failing to see the larger argument, and that is that the vast majority of military pilots are excellent, but it is unmistakeable that there are those who are GOOD pilots but are not necessarily the "star of the class". No prob, no one needs to be a star.

What I find tiresome is the defensiveness from some (not necessarily you), that borders on tribalism.

Let's put it this way, I'd rather hire a very high time regional captain over a freshly released military pilot if I was hiring street captains. The idea that military training would automatically make a low time military pilot superior to a 10,000 pilot who has been doing the job for years is absurd.


But those who desperately need to believe that should probably continue to maintain that belief, because it probably won't change things either way, and if it makes them happier inside, then who cares?


One more thing: It appears to me that some military pilots on this thread are looking to play a "power card". Essentially, you think that being a military pilot means that you automatically get to "end all debate on the subject". It's the same dynamic when some feminist insists that men are not allowed to have opinions on women's issues, or when minorities insist that whites are not allowed to have opinions on race.

Playing the gender card, playing the race card, it's all the same. It is a desire for social power more than anything else. It's a desire to feel oneself to be 'king' of the argument.

Well, I do not bow to anyone's pedigree. Sorry. You have to win those arguments all on your own.

 

[pilotyip]

My amusement comes from those who want military pilot status to be a universal "end the argument" card..

Get over it, the airlines know this if you do not, the military trained is nearly universal when it comes to training sucess. That is why they hire them. This not true of civilan background pilots. It is a known brand name as opposed to a generic.

 

[DCAA320]

Well at my airline, day one they say;

Know every switch and light,

Every Flow,

Memory Items and Limitations.

They give you the test.

That's 90% of your type oral, if someone has issues with that then they have other problems. As far as military, you need to know how to drop torpedoes and bombs, and how to shoot missiles in addition. I find it odd that military guys had problems with 121 systems.

Direct entry street captains, of course, you want a guy who has been doing it, agreed, but no majors have direct entry captains. We do have some junior 190 captains though.

As far as not asking questions in class, I just want to get the ******************** out after 8 hours, and have walked out at the departure hour because guys are asking stupid questions. The instructors are not pilots. That's just me.

The instructor will say you don't need to know that but the guy will still ask questions on the said subject.

I tell the instructor later, no disrespect, but they aren't paying me to be here.

My Air Force buddy got a ration of ******************** because he fell asleep in the DC-9 sim, that's how exciting 121 is.

 

[maru657]

The problem with Yip's argument is that military trained pilots are not by any means the best for airlines. That problem is that military trained pilots always gravitate towards management positions and as such set the standards. Being so, I always recommend to younger guys to keep very quiet about this. Remember, pretty much every airline will have military pilots making these decisions and if your not part of the ex-officer club, your a communist.

 

[livin'thesim]

DCA-

It wasn't systems that was getting to him.

And yes, unless you are doing direct to left seat, it doesn't matter.

With regard to Yip's comment, if I had to hire a pilot knowing only ONE thing about that pilot, without any meaningful interview or evaluation, then I would pick a military pilot, based on the knowledge of military training and screening.

However, if I am permitted to know their total experience, kinds of operations flown, types of aircraft flown, put them in a sim, ask a lot of technical questions at the interview, etc, then I am going to make the decision based on who I think the better candidate is.

And in addition to flying skills, I am going to consider their management skills, interpersonal skills (for dealing with pax, flight attendants, maintenance, ramp, etc.).

I would also try to measure how 'elite' they think they are - I would be looking for a team player who doesn't have a sense of entitlement.


And that brings up one thing that some military pilots have tough time relating to: The guys and gals who scraped through flight school on their own wages, occasionally working long hours at other jobs to pay for flights.

Let me tell you, the civilian training process can wash you out of training on COSTS with remarkably ruthless efficiency.

True, a fair number of poor pilots get by on lots of money from loans or from rich parents, but civilian training is not an automatic picnic just because the pressures are different.

I had to make the most of every nickle I spent on training. I could not afford a couple extra tenths on the hobbs meter because I was not completely prepared. I prepared and studied for most lessons as though it was a checkride, because for me, it was a financial checkride almost every flight. I earned each rating in almost the minimum possible time because I had no choice but to do so.

Now, some Richie Rich at Embry Riddle being funded by wealthy parents who can afford to screw off, well, that is another story.

 

[Boxboy]

Livin',
Pot calling the kettle black comes to mind, when reading your posts.

I don't believe that any one group of pilots is better than the other. It's up to the individual. I've flown with plenty of "ham fist" military pilots as well as "Mr. Chuck Yeager" civilian types. But then, airline flying doesn't demand a whole lot of flying skills, especially in this day and age.

I believe what most ex-mil types on this board are saying is this. Every training program, whether civilian or military, has set standards. It is a fact that military training standards are significantly higher than those of any civilian programs, for obvious reasons; military flying isn't just point to point flying, no matter type of aircraft. Every military pilot must prove (no matter what airframe they've flown) proficiency in contact flying (including advanced acro), low level navigation, formation flying and of course, instrument flying. There's a reason why there is a very selective selection process. There are always a few who slip through but for the most part, I'm pretty confident that we pick the right pilot candidates.

I believe that most anyone can be taught to fly in the military. For a very few, the light will never come on. That's just fact of life. As always, some will be better than others. The military has a set budget that they are willing to spend on an individual. One gets a certain number of rides to meet the standards until he/she washes out. It comes down to the needs of the military and most of all, the budget. Bottom line is, the airlines know what kind of a pilot they are getting when hiring a military pilot. They are a "known". Once in a while, there are a few that slip through the weeding out process, but they are few and far in between IMO.

One way to determine pilot skills is to put each candidate through a sim check, like the airlines used to do. Again, it's all about the bottom $. Until this process returns, it's all about the resume and the interview process.

Is the military trained pilot better qualified than a 10,000 hour civilian pilot? I think not. None of us set the hiring criteria. It's done by the HR folks, which in itself is a whole new subject for debate. I think it comes down to odds and matrix for the hiring department/HR. They are choosing the "known vs. unknown", as it has been beaten to death on this board.

I don't discount the civilian training program. I had my PPL and instrument rating (some acro lessons) before I went to UPT. The 2 training environments are apples to watermelon, if you know what I mean. If you haven't flown in the military, it is safe to say that you have nothing to compare-no credibility. I'm not saying this out of arrogance. They are just facts. It is my opinion that the hiring folks believe that the odds are very good that a ex-mil pilot will make it through the training program successfully and that they are getting a well rounded individual. Again... a "known vs. unknown".

 

[livin'thesim]

What in the world are you talking about? I mean, disagree if you want, but how on earth do you get a pot-kettle-black out of that? Are you sure that is the idiom you meant to employ here?

 

[Boxboy]

What in the world are you talking about? I mean, disagree if you want, but how on earth do you get a pot-kettle-black out of that? Are you sure that is the idiom you meant to employ here?

Extreme pro-civilian=you
Extreme pro-military=xxx

Pott-kettle-black... Get it?