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Airline fears of pilot shortage spark Congress fight over required training
Good article to read. I want your options with the pilot shortage and the mandatory hours required by the FAA. I am a student at a 4-year college for Aviation with approximately 325 hours of flight time. (www.usatoday.com) Más...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
Whatever pilot shortage there might actually be is directly attributable to the low pay and dismal benefits at regional airlines. Add to that, the low quality of life. Airlines have been using pilots' love of flying to screw them over for eons. As they continue to do that, they can be sure that only the most dedicated (and perhaps most masochistic) will apply.
You're right John. I began my commercial flying at age 45 in a Jetstream 31. I finished in the Do328. At age 60--pop! You're a cindrella. Love of flying is the only thing that kept me there.
Maybe if the airlines, FAA and congress would stop trying to destroy GA we would not be in quite as bad of mess...... maybe.
The fear is not of a pilot shortage. It is a fear of a shortage of pilots who will work for $19,000 per year.
Exactly! Jackass management.
Well, both pilots in the Colgan crash were well above 1500 hours. The other thing as noted in the story is that the rule emphasizes quantity over quality of training. If I read the rules right, both people in the pointy end must have ATP's. That can put a very inexperienced right seat in place. To me a right seat should be for some learning under an experienced left seat. I think 250 hours as it was is probably too little but 1500 hours is way too much. That said, other than the Colgan crash in which quantity of hours was not a factor, there weren't any serious accidents related to low hours in the right seat. I think the mandatory retirement age should have been done away with although it did not have that much bearing on the regionals. IMHO
I agree 100%, Preacher. As I have stated to anyone who would listen, that build-up time from Commercial license (250 hrs) to ATP (1,500 hrs) is usually gained by becoming a Flight Instructor. That's the way I built up my time to ATP and can speak from experience I learned more about flying by going from A to B than by teaching people how to fly. Captains are there to guide that inexperienced FO. Instructing just doesn't do it. Quality not quantity determines the capabilities in the pointy end. Beef up the cross country and instrument time requirements to maybe 500 hrs total time. Then the airline, regional, Part 135 charter companies need to do their part with a very detailed and intense training program to weed out the ones that just cannot cut it. Let the FO grow in the position - not build up hours teaching.
Most of the guys I know who instructed say they learned a lot from it. It certainly gives you a knowledge base from which later decision making stems from.
Captains are not there to guide the inexperienced FO. That's what it devolved to, but is not the intent in the modern cockpit. He is there to be the final authority on the safe operation of the aircraft. Not to wet nurse an inexperienced FO though his first cloud.
Certain airline training departments proved themselves incapable of "weeding out" the pilots who were weak. What would you expect the feds to do? Continue status quo?
Captains are not there to guide the inexperienced FO. That's what it devolved to, but is not the intent in the modern cockpit. He is there to be the final authority on the safe operation of the aircraft. Not to wet nurse an inexperienced FO though his first cloud.
Certain airline training departments proved themselves incapable of "weeding out" the pilots who were weak. What would you expect the feds to do? Continue status quo?
I certainly don't have all the answers but to me the CFI route, if one is not careful, can be like the blind leading the blind. I don't think a Captain is made to wet nurse either but 10-15000 hours is certainly a bed of information to learn from and a lot more than one may get from a training department.