stupidpilot
Registered Moron
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- Sep 6, 2005
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Most of my time is fixed wing but I flew formation, NOE, did air-to-air refueling, night vision goggles, slingloads etc. Its just as difficult as yours just different. It is true that you guys have a better network. You just aren't running around in our circles so it is very difficult to even meet FDX guys let alone get to know them enough so they are comfortable enough to give you a rec. There's plenty of challenge flying cargo. Just look at some of the hair-raising stories out there. Bad radar, blundered into a t-storm. Failed engines, tires, brakes, single pilot hard IMC uncontrolled fields etc. There are enough operators out there with questionable maintenance to make it plenty interesting. Sometimes you don't have the luxury of refusing to go & keep your job. So yes, we have also proven we can do the hard stuff. And I'm not judging either. Ask anyone who is not a military fighter or heavy guy and they will tell you about the perception that military pilots are better than civilian pilots. In some cases this is true and in some cases it is not. But there is a built in bias toward mil fixed wing drivers. Flying helo's is almost no different from FW. There are some diffs but the vast majority of the procedures are the same. Flying is flying. By the way isn't youor time multiplier becaue your time is measured wheels up to wheels down and not block to block?
AdlerDriver said:I’m quite relaxed. Had a nice cocktail in my hand for the last post and rather enjoying our little debate here, thanks.
:beer:
I know you were a military aviator. You’ve said so in past posts. You flew CH-47Ds for 18 years. Unless you flew fixed wing aircraft for the USAF or Navy/Marines, you didn’t complete the “whole program” that I’m talking about. I’m assuming you completed the Army’s flight school that qualified you to eventually fly the CH-47D (you can correct me if it was some other path). All military pilot training is not the same and I’m sure you know that.
I know it’s not the same for a variety of reasons. One way I know this is the ex-US Army Cobra pilot in my UPT class who tried and failed to complete that training. If the schools were all the same, they would have just given him his wings and let him go on his way. The guy couldn’t think faster than his Cobra used to fly and he was dumb as a post so he washed out. I digress. My point is…. The fact that you were a helo pilot and completed that training does not qualify you to pass judgment on the USAF/Navy/Marine training and the day to day flight experience of the fighter pilots in those services. You’ve never done it.
Therefore, you have no business making statements like these:
“It has to do with chief pilots that have this attitude that a 2000 hour air force guy coming straight off of active duty is as qualified as a guy that has actually been flying boxes on a heavy with 6000+ total time. This attitude is a farce and it is reflected in the hiring pool.”
“Flying broken down, beat up, poorly maintained aircraft in hard IMC dodging bad weather so you can gain the type of time you need to get on to the next step is just as, if not more valid than the good training you received free and got paid for it from Uncle Sam.”
“But some companies roll out the red carpet for you guys and because you get hired with so little time you think you are better.”
I don’t come on this forum and pass uninformed judgments on your training. I don’t know squat about CH-47s or the training…. and I’m a military pilot…. well, what do you know about that?I would never state that your helo training didn’t qualify you to get whatever job you got after you got out. Frankly, it looks like it would be hard as sh!t. Not to mention having to think about those inter-meshing rotors over my head – hoping the gear system does its job. Good on you – 18 years of that is something to be proud of. Why is it, you seem to think your rotary wing training qualifies you to judge the worth of 2000 hours of fighter time?
So what? The trend I see in your statements is that you are infatuated with a pilot’s total flight time and little else. You just need to come to grips with the fact that some flight hours have more experience “packed” into them than others. Fedex knows it, SWA, UAL, AA, UPS, etc, etc, etc, all know it. Look at those company’s apps. Why do you think it is that they break down flight time and have a fighter category? They know they can’t just arbitrarily compare flight hours. Why?
First, let’s call a spade a spade. Where is the “challenge” in flying civil cargo aircraft or pax airliners? The taxi, takeoff, the approach and landing and emergencies, right? If a guy flew 500 flights from the US to Asia at 12 hours a pop – would you value his 6000 hours as much as an RJ pilot hopping around the US for 6000 hours? Considering both guys are probably only going to get half the landings (maybe less for the long-haul guy), I’d take the RJ pilot. Why? Because he has had more exposure to what most people consider the most challenging facets of flying those aircraft. If you disagree with this logic then you might as well stop reading because we obviously don’t have common ground.
So, on to fighters. Do you realize a fighter pilot probably averages 200-250 hours per year? That’s a good year, too. On a fighter sortie we start engines, taxi out, talk to ATC, takeoff, level off, navigate, descend, fly approaches, land, taxi in and shutdown (all the “challenging” stuff I mentioned above). Guess what? That’s the job the airlines are hiring us to do.
In the middle of all that stuff we stop for a while and do stuff to accomplish our mission. You know, stuff like fly formation, air re-fueling, air-to-air combat training, bombing missions, low-levels, and the list goes on. The airlines know that stuff is wayyyyyyy harder and more complicated than the first list of stuff. They also know that if we can do that hard stuff, we can probably manage to fly from A to B for them when they hire us.
They also know that all that stuff – the easy and the hard- all happen over the course of an average sortie length of 1 hour (maybe 1.3). So, when they look at a 10 year fighter pilot with 1500-2000 sorties (all which have takeoffs, approaches, landings, etc that they flew single pilot – no sharing
The Chief Pilot thinks the 2000 hour fighter pilot is as qualified as the 6000 hour pilot “already flying boxes” because, in fact, he is. Better? Not necessarily – that’s where the whole “individual pilot” comes in and you and I finally find some common ground.
But………The fighter pilot knows someone at Fedex and the cargo pilot doesn’t. That’s just the way it is. Life ain’t fair.:bawling:
That’s because flying job #1 for guys like me was an F-15 at age 24 and lasted for the next 12 years.
Most of my time is fixed wing but I flew formation, NOE, did air-to-air refueling, night vision goggles, slingloads etc. Its just as difficult as yours just different. It is true that you guys have a better network. You just aren't running around in our circles so it is very difficult to even meet FDX guys let alone get to know them enough so they are comfortable enough to give you a rec. There's plenty of challenge flying cargo. Just look at some of the hair-raising stories out there. Bad radar, blundered into a t-storm. Failed engines, tires, brakes, single pilot hard IMC uncontrolled fields etc. There are enough operators out there with questionable maintenance to make it plenty interesting. Sometimes you don't have the luxury of refusing to go & keep your job. So yes, we have also proven we can do the hard stuff. And I'm not judging either. Ask anyone who is not a military fighter or heavy guy and they will tell you about the perception that military pilots are better than civilian pilots. In some cases this is true and in some cases it is not. But there is a built in bias toward mil fixed wing drivers. Flying helo's is almost no different from FW. There are some diffs but the vast majority of the procedures are the same. Flying is flying. By the way isn't youor time multiplier becaue your time is measured wheels up to wheels down and not block to block?
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