Originally Posted by 421dog
On the other hand, if I had to pick one of the above who would be most likely to think that pulling against a stick shaker was a good idea, it would have to be pilot number one.
The only problem with choosing pilot #1 on the basis that he or she would certainly know not to fight a stick pusher, I’d remind you that such an instructor would likely never have flown an airplane with a stick pusher until he or she qualified on the aircraft operated by the airline – just like the Colgan pilots.
Originally Posted by p51guy
I can not imagine a pilot with 250 hrs to be able to handle the responsibilities of flying passengers in an airliner without a lot of supervision from the captain making his job a lot harder.
I’d call your attention to US military flight training – graduation at just over a year with just over 200 hours of flight time. Of course some go on to fighters, but many go on to transport aircraft – some of which fly the self-loading cargo – and they seem to do reasonably OK.
Originally Posted by 742
IMO you put too little value on instructor time.
Not at all. Some instructor time is very valuable … but I’ve seen more than my fair share who take an instructor’s job simply to log the flight time – which can mount up fairly quickly, leaving a relatively inexperienced pilot with an ATP. Also, I happen to share your concerns about the only folks winding up in the right seats of airline cockpits being the sons and daughters of only the very rich. Not that all such youngsters are bad apples, but it does cut down on the universe of potentially good pilot candidates. Of course, there are exceptions on both sides of the fence.
The fact is that we see today may very well be due to airlines simply wanting to pay the least they can get away with … and perhaps if those wages were bumped to a more livable rate there would be no shortage of pilot applicants … but all applicants aren’t necessarily good candidates, while, surely it does open the universe a bit. In the research I’ve seen … both regarding the ages of the US pilots (now postponed for 5 years) and their pending retirements ... and the increase in airframes the major manufacturers are touting for the next 15 years – even if the current economic slowdown continues and a portion of the “new” machines will go to replace older, less efficient machines … there is
still a significant potential for the airline industry in the US to need something like 400 pilots a month, every month, for a 12 year period. Sorry, but if that is anything close to accurate, the viable candidates that emerge from the weeds for a better salary won’t begin to cover that need.