VENTUS45
I have to say i agree with most of what you say. Sadly, however, you are directing your comments at VERY egotistical, spineless, eunuchs for that is the demographic that makes up the Pilot community.
You only have to go back a few posts in this thread to see that one guy here trains the candidates that are on a really s**t deal and doesnt really like it but as soon as the prospect of contract pilots affect him, is calling for the strike papers to be sent.
This is why its an absolute disgrace that Pilots blame CEO's and accountants for the demise of their terms and conditions. Its the Pilot community thats to blame. The only thing the CEO's and the number crunchers are guilty of is taking advantage of the naivety, selfishness and utter stupidity of the aforementioned demographic. Sadly its easier to Bitch about stuff like this than to grow a set of gonads and actually do something about it.
There also happens to be difference of opinion as to whether having these (P2f, P4T xyz, bbc, whatever) chumly-warners in the flight deck erodes safety or not. Im firmly of the opinion that it does. Those that are Training Captains training these guys have said that it isnt, but to be honest, a TC is NEVER going to admit that his product is unsafe. If you go to pap2f.com and read the accident reports, you will read that these accidents happened literally in the final seconds of the flight. Too late for the TC to do anything about it. Its generally accepted that an accident is a series of failings that manifest themselves at the same point in time, a chain of events if you will. My feeling is that having these guys in the RHS of airliners is a broken link in that chain. Training a 250 hour chap all day, day in day out, over 2,3,or 4 sectors is less safe than a flight where training isnt conducted. Yes an airline will always have to conduct airborne training sessions but the closer that candidate is to just having had his licence issued, the more dangerous the flight.
I know one guy who has just finished his MCC course and had his frozen ATPL issued and is now in the CTC holding pool, waiting for some one to give him an F/O's job on a shiny jet. When i asked him how much it had cost him already, he said "i dont want to think about that" When i asked him why he doesnt go sniffing around the air taxi operators, or to the turbo prop operators, or what about instructing, parachute dropping, crop spraying, Glider towing, aerial survey companies, what about enquiring into Pilots assistant vacancies on single pilot jets, what about working as a handling agent at an exec jet airport FBO etc etc, he looked at me like i was from mars and told me nothing short of a commercial airliner would do and that he would never consider "selling" himself to an air taxi operator. So when i asked him what he intentions were, he said to go on holiday and wait. He displayed an arrogance that i hope results in him waiting for a VERY long time.
I started a thread on the SLF forum, asking them what they thought of flying on an aircraft with HIGHLY inexperienced Co-Pilots and to be honest, i shouldnt have been surprised by the overall tone...... "if he's qualified, why not?" Ignorance i guess is bliss.
So Ventus45, there you have in a nutshell what the problem is........
P2F =
Egotistical,
Spineless
Eunuch's (ESE)
the
Arrogance of the
Inexperienced
Newbies (AIN)
the
Blissfully
Ignorant (BI)
ESE + AIN
------------ = Happy CEO's and Number crunchers
BI
For the mathematically challenged, such as myself, thats;
Egotistical, spineless eunuch's + the arrogance of the inexperienced newbies flying around the blissfully ignorant = Happy CEO's and Number crunchers.
Safety is being eroded.
Companies are making money as a result of it
FTO's are making money as a result of it
Training Captains are making money as a result of it
Terms and conditions are being eroded as a result of it
The travelling public are being treated with contempt as a result of it
We have already had incidents as a result of it
The USA has now mandated minimum experience levels to try and combat it
Sadly we will wait till people are killed to stop it
Until people admit they are part of the problem, they cannot play any part in the solution...... they just bitch about their terms and conditions being eroded instead!!!!