Is this a dying breed of Airman / Pilot for airlines? [Archive]

TopTup

14th Dec 2010, 14:49

Gents....sorry for the thread you are discussing being closed, but please try to keep this one on target.

SNS3Guppy:
You have directly ridiculed a point I raised, and I gave a reference from where I drew my comment from: the CX Wannabe's Forum. You denied a FACT without researching it first. So, allow me to indulge the disbelievers: (as frustrating as it is to do the research to prove what I knew, hence the reference!)

QUOTE: (!!)
"Hi, a quick run-down of my flight experience:

At the time of my application I held a CPL, just got a grade 3 instructor rating, and had just began training for a MECIR. My total hours were 300 of which about 15 hours were from a one day per week part time job as an instructor.

I was a little nervous about my interviews as well, it's quite normal and I'm sure they know that. The staff did their best to make me feel comfortable. After my interview I wrote down as many of the questions I could remember. Here are some of the questions I was asked in my stage one 45 min interview:

Human Resource Questions:

1) Describe yourself
2) Do I play any team sports?
3) Why change careers?
4) What do I do in my spare time?
5) What did I like about Hong Kong? (I told them I'd been there before)
6) What did I do in Hong Kong?
7) What do I know about the cadet program?
8) What do I know about the SO?
9) Do I know what the living conditions are like in Hong Kong?
10) Why work part-time as an instructor?
11) What do my parents think of me being here at the interview?
12) What did my parents think when I decided to become a pilot?

Questions from Captain XXX:

1) What do I know about Cathay Pacific?
2) What fleet does Cathay Pacific operate?
3) Explain dutch roll?
4) How many nm in 1 deg of lat?
5) Explain how lift is generated?
6) Explain induced drag?
7) Explain how flaps work?

In my stage one interview I also did the multiple choice test based on the job knowledge information booklet - easy as. The reasoning test which I didn't know at the time is based on Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices. You can look this up on Wikipedia. It is basically a sequence of pictures and you have to choose the correct one from a possible 8 choices. It's easy to start with but gets hard quickly. I had no way of studying for this as I hadn't heard of this book until I found it on this forum by accident - after my interview of course!

I didn't have to give a presentation in any of the interviews. People may be referring to the group presentation from Stage 2. In stage 2 you work with a group to solve a problem, then one person needs to present the groups findings to the interviewing staff who will then ask questions to the group such as how we came to our conclusion.

Hope you find this helpful".

Refer: http://www.pprune.org/fragrant-harbour-wannabes/378978-cathay-pacific-cadet-pilot-programme-22.html#post5591779

Also:
"They basically want to see that you have an interest in moving to Hong Kong.

They ask the basics about the place like whats the population, main religion etc.

Know your aircaft that you are currently flying very well, for example whats the tire pressures, engine types, speed etc.

Most important thing to remember is to be yourself. Don't be cocky or arrogant. Give short answers as this will leave room for the interviewer to ask why after your answers. Don't leave any doubt in your answers either. If you get a questions wrong or don't know the answer don't stress, just simply say you don't know the answer.

Make your CV very presentable, have all your copies with and dress in a suit as this shows you are serious about the interview.

Best of luck and remember competition is stiff!!!" (refer: http://www.pprune.org/fragrant-harbour-wannabes/378978-cathay-pacific-cadet-pilot-programme-20.html)

This thread is about the diminishing standards or professionalism and airmanship. So please, when you state "Let's get real" then please argue from an informed position where FACT not (wishful) opinion is employed....

Lastly, note the Qf SECOND Officer's experience: 8000 hrs. In far, far too many airlines from what I have seen nowadays, hours like that without a commuter jet command would deem this pilot a failure. At QF he is still deemed an asset.

The AI FO in the Mangalore tragedy had just over 3600 hrs TT if my memory serves me correct and up for command as he was "highly experienced" (but not experienced or trained enough to take over control having his go around calls ignored).

So, the point still stands: are airline standards diminishing? In my opinion, YES. This is from my witnessed accounts and the trend of increasing incident rates at airlines like SIN (refer Airline accident ratings (http://www.planecrashinfo.com/rates.htm)), anecdotal studies show where younger, less experienced pilots are fast tracked into LHS / RHS without the previously had experience (that was needed to be respectfully & professionally paid for: reference is personal knowledge of internal SIN Safety Dept info, sorry can't give the source).

So, let's not keep confusing SAFETY with LUCK.

DADDY-OH!

14th Dec 2010, 14:52

Jabiman

I AM an EXPERIENCED CAPTAIN & I would rather have an EXPERIENCED G/A origin F/O than a CADET!!!

Can I spell it out ANY easier than that?

The ONLY people who love CADET pilots are the beancounters & FTO's that gobble up CADETS hard earned/inherited cash.

Jabiman

14th Dec 2010, 15:08

Unfortunately I am only a novice but where were you guys when i was being hammered on the other thread by this particular captain:

Unfortunately GA experience is utterly irrelevant when you're sitting in an airliner, it's a completely different type of operation.

Would you rather have a GA pilot with ten thousand of hours of irrelevant experience (but using your criteria 'experienced') and two hundred hours of relevant experience flying you around or a thousand hour airline pilot who has received quality training, has been subject to several simulator checks, ongoing assesments and gaining relevant experience for the job at hand?

Perfecting the art of wanging a puddle jumper around VFR is NOT relevant to operating an airliner in controlled airspace in one of the most highly regulated industries in the world.

soullimbo

14th Dec 2010, 15:12

I AM an EXPERIENCED CAPTAIN & I would rather have an EXPERIENCED G/A origin F/O than a CADET!!!

If only my dear old friend E. could read this. The guy was 32 when he finished his training. Did a lot of time as instructor and GA pilot on whatever would fly and pay. Was rejected by the Dutch airlines because too old, he didn't do the cadet scheme in Eelde, ... and eventually he gave up. Family, no solid prospect, ... The airlines and especially those idiots in HR convinced him that if you're not a cadet, you can't fly. He's got an office job now. This is the reality with lots of GA guys out there....

L337

14th Dec 2010, 15:33

I was happy to continue arguing the point but it got locked by an unsympathetic moderator.

No it was locked because you talked utter rubbish, and continue to do so.

This will all be deleted soon, but until then...

As a British Airways 747 Training Captain, I have trained and watched all sorts of pilots from all sorts of backgrounds. One of the best I have ever checked was from the GA Self improver route, and some of the most mediocre have been ex RAF. The very best I ever checked was ex RAF Harrier Pilot. The very worst an ex Hamble Cadet.

You cannot make generalisations at all about ability and background. To do so is demonstrably idiotic. It is like saying all Swedes are blond, or all Frenchman smell of garlic.

In the UK, every pilot has to pass his checks. If he passes he is good enough.

4Greens

14th Dec 2010, 15:51

I got a job with an airline with only 1500 hours. It did include 200 odd deck landings so maybe that helped.

p51guy

14th Dec 2010, 16:01

I think to answer the question of the title of this thread is, would your FO if he lost one generator and all automation during an actual instrument approach be comfortable continuing the approach manually? If the answer is no, he doesn't belong there. There are plenty of qualified pilots that can.

Jabiman

14th Dec 2010, 16:05

You cannot make generalisations at all about ability and background. To do so is demonstrably idiotic. It is like saying all Swedes are blond, or all Frenchman smell of garlic.
Ok, what about this. An airline needs to hire a FO, they have two applicants:
1) Someone who has just completed an integrated course and has no flying experience but has also done a TR and is willing to pay the airline for line training.
2) Someone who has a few thousand hours in GA and has also just completed a TR but who wants a wage better than he was getting in GA.

I know which one the bean counters will choose, so who is demonstrably idiotic now?

Intruder

14th Dec 2010, 16:11

would your FO if he lost one generator and all automation during an actual instrument approach be comfortable continuing the approach manually? If the answer is no, he doesn't belong there. There are plenty of qualified pilots that can.
If there are ANY "qualified" airline pilots who could NOT continue the approach on raw data, then they should lose their "qualifications"! Such a situation should be a non-event!

Border Reiver

14th Dec 2010, 16:34

To agree with L337,

It is not the starting point that matters but the path that is taken thereafter. The training and self discipline (all right old fashioned idea) and willingness to learn that individuals have.

I have come across, taught and checked good pilots from all backgrounds. Ditto bad ones.

We all bring something to the party however we enter this profession, the role of the good Capt is to use the strengths of his crew. As to preferring a cadet, or ex GA, or ex military I hope I look at the individual and how to make his contribution as relevent as possible.

To be controversial what really worries me are airlines that only recruit pilots from 1 type of background.

act700

14th Dec 2010, 16:36

Top Up,

YES!

Also, I propose airlines quit advertising for pilot positions, rather for "conductor" positions!

Your question is not easily answered, Top Up......

Everybody "wants" experience. Nobody, however, wants to "give" it to you. So, what to do?
Is someone, who started as a cadet, or as a 200 hour wonder not experienced after 5000, or 10000 hours in an RJ or 73, or bus?
I tend to think so, to a certain extent. Meaning, surely (that's right-I just called you shirley!), he/she has after a while seen crappy weather, equipment failures, etc.

On the other hand, and this is my strong belief, that person is lacking basic airmanship, ie. handling.

You can see this in the sims, and what newbees do, and how they react to certain situations/tasks. Right away you can see who's learned to fly, and who's just a system operator!

I have to agree with what L337 says about GA's....that's how you learn to fly....and the ones that didn't learn, well, they're no more!

In the end, I can say with a sense of certainty, that airmanship is dying, and fast.
I'm just glad that I had the chance to learn to fly-real flying, single pilot freight. And that sort of flying is becoming less and less, too. Partly because of market forces, partly because of improvements in technology.

Another great way of "learning to fly", is doing a stint as a (basic) flight instructor. There's no better lesson than someone else trying to see how close they can bring you to death, lol.

NigelOnDraft

14th Dec 2010, 16:51

jabiman (and others)

I think you will find company culture / policy, and regulator oversight, a better judge of relative safety i.e. you do not need to see the individual crews' experience - which anyway is a small sample / rather subjective. Instead look at the record of an airline / nationality, which to an extent some areas do anyway (the EU "banned" list).

If you do wish to persist in measuring safety by hours, I presume you would rather a 5000+hr F/O to a 500hr one? I might suggest that rather than a straight "yes", a better question might be "if (s)he has 5000+hrs, why are they an F/O"? There are plenty of good reasons - an employer might have a slow promotion process (typical in the 'majors'), the individual might have had a fair degree of bad luck, or just personal circumstances changing employers or whatever. But there are also some specific reasons which might mean your criteria is flawed... :=

NoD

act700

14th Dec 2010, 17:20

Nigel,

don't forget the fact that statistics can be twisted and turned any-which-way, so it suits the "speaker"!

If you look at incident reports, nevermind accident reports, a trend is clearly recognizable.

As for how many hours make one experienced? No straight answer. It's rather the type of flying, as oppossed to the number of total hours, I'd say.

con-pilot

14th Dec 2010, 17:23

You cannot make generalisations at all about ability and background. To do so is demonstrably idiotic. It is like saying all Swedes are blond, or all Frenchman smell of garlic.

That pretty well sums up my feelings on this subject.

In my career, 40 plus years, one of the worse pilots I ever flew with was ex-military and probably the best was all civilian, ie GA.

It's one of those you can't judge the book from the cover things.

Admittedly a military pilots does receive the best training, but sometimes the training is wasted.

But personally, when I'm forced to ride in the back of an airliner, I like to see gray hair in the front left seat.

You cannot train or teach experience.

alf5071h

14th Dec 2010, 18:25

Debating current standards of airmanship and CRM depends on how these are defined; previous threads (Safety & CRM) have toyed with several ideas. The comments below are based on a simple view that CRM is the application of human factors and airmanship represents personal qualities affecting behaviour in the use of skills and knowledge.

Both aspects are evolutionary; airmanship, since the advent of aircraft (or previously based on seamanship, etc), CRM, a relatively new concept, but again based on old ideas of human–system interaction. Evolution depends on the operational environment and is usually a slow process, but as seen with CRM many different forms can evolve relatively quickly and in parallel; perhaps similarly with airmanship.

Because these issues are evolutions, an instantaneous evaluation would more likely identify a mismatch with the current environment, there is always lag, thus it is more important to look at recent trends.
The operating environment is in transition with the use of high technology and highly automated aircraft. This is against a background of improving reliability, and thus less opportunity to use critical skills. The environment is increasingly more complex.
Many operations interpreted these as a reasons to reduce attention on some aspects of skill and knowledge with commercial benefit from reduced training content and/or duration.
More recently, commercial pressures are also affecting training directly, perhaps with significant impact where previously there was some resilience from an experienced pool of pilots.

Thus whilst there does appear to be a mismatch between the need and the actuality of airmanship and CRM, the greater concern that the trend is for an even greater mismatch driven by current commercial pressure and pilot shortage.

There are some significant exceptions to this as indicated by the QF 32 incident and several other notable safety successes. These appear to stem from an ‘investment in safety’, and/or national or organisational culture – ‘you can create your own luck’. On one hand these operators provide excellent role models, but on the other tend to widen the gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have not’s’. Unfortunately in safety the ‘have not’s’ often set the public scene.

Thus IMHO whilst airmanship and CRM may not be dying they are in decline, particularly at a time when there should be even greater focus on them to match the relatively rapid changes in the industry and likely developments.
One of the training difficulties is whether the critical aspects of airmanship and CRM can be taught or if there has to be personal exposure to situations in order to gain experience – the application of knowledge, the skills of using what has been taught.
I think that there is a compromise solution, but this requires a new way of looking at both training and operating to achieve an appropriate match between the current/future environment and those who work in it.
Identify the critical issues, invest in safety, train the trainers, Captains as mentors, and debrief!

protectthehornet

14th Dec 2010, 18:45

IF flying were thousands of hours of boredom, the cadet pilot would be fine and cheap.

BUT, flying is thousands of hours of boredom punctuated by seconds of stark terror.

I came up the hard way. GA, CFIIMEI, 3 regionals (all are now out of business), Bank Checks, corporate. And I got on a great airline that suddenly stopped hiring a year after I got on.

So, when things can be guaranteed as boring ONLY...fine, hire the other guy. But because it cannot be boring ONLY, hire me or someone like me.

Sunfish

14th Dec 2010, 18:55

What is concerning me is the interaction of automation and experience.

Automation invariably introduces dependencies, and these dependencies appear to be increasingly complex. For example it would appear that the cutting of one wiring loom in QF's A380 engine failure, plus the failure of one engine, generated 53 ECAM messages - and failed multiple systems.

Now less automated aircraft also have dependencies, but quite so many?

The concern I have is that with increasing automation much beyond the level it already is, there may be no point in requiring the levels of airmanship that were previously thought necessary, since the failures experienced, though infrequent, are likely to produce results so bizarre that superb airmanship and training will not be able to resolve the problem.

To put it another way; I am capable of resolving automotive electrical problems of the distributor, coil, points and plugs variety. My superb problem solving skills failed completely in the face of a Mercedes Benz engine computer. Even MB didn't have the skills. There was nothing to do but replace the unit.

To put it yet another way; I am led to believe that VH - OJA is still in Singapore, not because of the structural damage it suffered, but because there is considerable uncertainty regarding the integrity of its electronics, although I stand to be corrected.

oldchina

14th Dec 2010, 19:00

The Qantas A380 will be repaired in Singapore.

That's why it's still there!

Electronics???

AirRabbit

14th Dec 2010, 19:41

Ok, what about this. An airline needs to hire a FO, they have two applicants:
1) Someone who has just completed an integrated course and has no flying experience but has also done a TR and is willing to pay the airline for line training.
2) Someone who has a few thousand hours in GA and has also just completed a TR but who wants a wage better than he was getting in GA.
I know which one the bean counters will choose, so who is demonstrably idiotic now?
You say you “know” which pilot candidate would be chosen by the “bean counters.” Which do you believe they would choose? It’s not evident to me … but then, again, I’m not familiar with airlines that can hire pilots who they expect will “pay the airline for line training.” My anticipation would be that the pilot candidate selected would be the one who would be most likely to provide the services contracted and not cost more than the amount already budgeted to become trained and qualified to begin providing those services.

In the aviation world I live in, no one gets on board a line flight without having been adequately trained (which almost always means completing the required course of training – both ground and flight) having passed a proficiency check that, in some cases, results in the issuance of a government-issued pilot certificate, sometimes with an airplane type rating affixed. Perhaps you are referring to those sometimes-encountered circumstances where an applicant must have a particular license or rating to be interviewed, and the airline will offer that potential applicant the opportunity to purchase training to acquire said license or rating. Those circumstances do exist – and when they do, most often it is to provide the airline a slightly better opportunity to see the potential applicant in a training environment prior to their agreeing to put him/her on the payroll (not to mention having a lot more knowledge about what that particular applicant has learned regarding the subjects just completed) … but that is a far cry from “paying the airline for line training.”

I am also suspicious of the fact that there may be some organizations around the globe who advertise themselves as airline pilot training academies – graduating persons commonly referred to on this thread, at least, as “cadets” – where the quality of those graduates are, shall I say, suspect? However, the kinds of training organizations I have regularly referenced in my posts on these threads (primarily those with similar themes to this one) the graduates of which might also be categorized as “cadets,” are those organizations that function similarly to military flight training – commonly called Undergraduate Pilot Training – programs. As I’ve said on these forums, it takes a specified period of time for anyone to acquire the skills necessary to pilot an airplane – and depending on the route taken (civilian or military) it would most likely be in the neighborhood of 9 to 18 months with a logbook total of something like 250 hours of flight time entered and completing a considerable amount of academic training, discussion, and testing. I’m quite sure that there are those civilian schools that produce reasonably competent graduates – just as I’m sure there are those graduating less capable examples. Similarly, the military has a fairly good track record of producing competent pilots – and, of course, there have been those who have “squeaked by” when they probably should have been washed out. No organization is perfect – but, in my mind, the military approach is clearly a better bet to produce a quality product.

I am not shy about acknowledging my prejudices here … I quite readily admit that my preferences lean toward those having completed military flight school. What is more, over the years, I have been generally justified in exercising that preference. Military programs are known for some attributes for which at least some “for-profit” aviation training academies are not necessarily as well known. Those attributes are 1) an exceptionally good screening process; 2) an exceptionally good pilot training program; 3) the competence and dedication of the instructors; 4) the professionalism and dedication of those who develop and over-see the administration of the instruction, practice, and evaluation processes; 5) the level of fidelity and reliability of the training equipment; 6) the sequence and scheduling of the training program itself (a lot of which has to do with mother nature’s weather); and 7) the determination and dedication of the individual students, themselves. My continued advocacy is for civilian pilot training programs that are, for all intents and purposes, managed and conducted similarly to these military UPT programs. Regardless of the program path followed, it is almost a sure bet that the path that has these features in either limited quantity or provides them in “name only,” winds up producing pilot candidates of a lesser quality for the most part.

My concern, as addressed on these forums previously is the looming pilot shortage that is often recognized by some and dismissed as illogical by others. If a pilot shortage does not materialize, then the methods that have been used in the past (i.e., drawing on former military, former corporate, and former instructor pilots as the likely “new” candidates) will likely continue to provide an adequate number of reasonably competent “new-entrant” airline crewmembers. However, if the predictions that many are currently describing actually do come to pass, the methods on which the industry has depended for the past 2 dozen years will simply not meet the demand. At that time and without proper preparation, the motivation is likely to be “get whomever you can, as cheaply as you can, train them as best you can, in as little time as you can.” Rather than rely on this approach, I would much prefer to have in place a regulatory requirement that will mandate the kinds of competencies that are typical of the military-like programs, described above. I say regulatory because that specifically sets out the requirements that have to be met, and requires everyone involved to play by the same set of rules … essentially leveling the playing field. The problems with this approach are primarily the following: 1) the program to be used would have to be essentially “in place” and ready to be used; and 2) the program would have to be carefully built from a structured design of applicant screening processes; training program development and refinement; instructor selection and training; management commitment; training tasks built to support and be supported by the academic courses; training sequence determinations; and the encouragement for continuous and free-flow of instructor-student interaction. This takes time. Such a program cannot be put together in a shortened time frame, particularly if there is an urgency driving the endpoint of that time frame.

I don’t know whether or not my descriptions of what I mean when I refer to a pilot training program graduate described as a “cadet” are different from those with which others here may be familiar. If my descriptions are, indeed, the kinds of things for which some here believe leave competency at the gate and seek only a warm body in the other seat … all I can say is that I’ve done a poor job of describing what I am advocating. My point has been that while we are all (I hope) looking for a way to best ensure competency in both “window seats” in the front of the air machine, simply ensuring that the person we want has a minimum number of hours “penned” into his/her logbook (whether that is 250, 500, 1500, or 2500 hours), to my way of thinking, while that may be one measure, ensuring what was being done while those numbers were being entered is a lot more important in the ultimate achieving of our mutual goals.

safetypee

14th Dec 2010, 21:06

Sunfish – “What is concerning me is the interaction of automation and experience”.

The QF32 incident should alleviate your concerns. Not only did the crew make a skilful assessment of the situation - time and resources available, they used the automation (ECAM) wisely – as designed.
The failure was exceptional, but it did not present an impossible situation (unlike your MB). The crew’s activities provides a good basis for others to learn from - how to use / interact with automation, and also how to manage the consequences of a surprising event.
As an example for experience, it is not the incident, but the processes of managing which has to be remembered, this could be applied to future ‘untrained for’ situations. Perhaps it’s the learning associated with incidents – the transfer of knowhow - which is lacking in current concerns over airmanship CRM etc.

The interesting safety question is if all Qantas crews have similar airmanship/CRM standards – I suspect yes, but what if another operator was involved with a lesser capable (automated) aircraft. An example http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/428441-us-airforce-c17-4-engine-failure-2.html#post6027247
Although similar, this incident also had a safe result. The quality of airmanship and CRM may not have been the same as Qantas (we don’t know), but at that time it was sufficient (two Captain crew).

TopTup

15th Dec 2010, 01:52

Let's not get drawn into who is the better applicant or pilot: military vs GA, or whether highly sophisticated aircraft produced by Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier, (soon to be) Chinese Comac, etc, etc.... provide the gap of hand flown NDB sector entry approaches and raw data IF skills so they are no longer needed (cause when the crap hits the fan, these skills are required!).

CRM? How can you create a safe cockpit authority gradient of a Capt with, say 15000 hrs is working with an FO of 200 hrs? (I'm not saying it can't be done, but the theme of this thread is that such needs are dying!)

What we are talking about is the systemic and what's more DELIBERATE dumbing down of the profession. This is achieved in the deliberate hiring of less and less experienced pilots, ignoring the pools of applicants ready but not willing to work for unrealistic and insulting salaries.

Some comment that if the pilot passes the regulatory body's and airlines' checks then that should be enough. I used to be believe the same until I ventured into the contract world of other (ICAO) airlines....so please comment on this reality:

Rajasthan: Fraud pilots busted: Nation : India Today (http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/119735/Nation/rajasthan-fraud-pilots-busted.html)

Now, there are other such examples in western nations as well.....

So, let's NOT just look at the act, look at the SYSTEM that allowed such things to occur. How did a child of 22 hours pass his 73NG rating, route checks, line checks, etc? Those who signed off on all these so called checks should have their licenses stripped!

While the crew of QF32 were nothing short of exemplary, really in my opinion they only did what they were trained to do and their experience dictated. Like Sully and Skiles: they did the same. So, are those skills dying / in decline today? Again, YES from my recent experience. And deliberately so.

Please read the following from QF's LCC Jetstar (JQ): 100% owned by QF:

Fasten your seatbelts (http://www.theage.com.au/travel/travel-news/fasten-your-seatbelts-20101119-1817t.html)

The author (FO Joseph Eakins) was sacked for what he wrote. Good news is the unions are supporting his reinstatement aggressively.

Airlines wish to replace experience with self trained cadets. Where experience lacks training MUST replace it, as best possible (!!). Yet again, we see from evidence presented that such training is ignored, skipped around and or fraudulently completed to race a low cost and dangerous backside into low cost and dangerous seat.

Pilot shortage? Usually when a resource becomes scarce the value of it goes up, however we are seeing the complete opposite in aviation.

TightSlot

15th Dec 2010, 07:00

Jabiman will be spending more time with his family this week.

Yours sincerely

An unsympathetic moderator

nugpot

15th Dec 2010, 07:32

Lower time FO's and even captains are becoming the norm due to (for the time being) rapidly expanding airlines. I agree that experience is not particularly valued unless things go spectacularly wrong, but I also think that the situation has become even more complex with our highly regulated (through SOP) operations.

Some airlines do not allow an deviation from SOP - even if it makes sense. What does all your experience help if you are unable to use it to the advantage of your company because the SOP (written by a desk jockey) forbids it?

We are, despite our best efforts, becoming trained Pavlov button pushers, reacting to any stimulus by following an SOP action. It is not all wrong to do it this way - years of evolution has brought airline flying to this point, but it makes the inexperienced oddly more suited to the job.

TopTup

15th Dec 2010, 08:42

Still, my point is that the experience and qualifications are out there. They are victim to unscrupulous desk-jockey fools relying on God-like safety nets that are the automated systems of aircraft designers. And when that fails (QF32 or Sioux City where failures were unheard of or basically untrained for) pilot experience, judgement and expertise is not a want, but a minimal NEED.

I know I can train a person (simulator) who has never sat in a cockpit before to take a heavy jet off, fly a circuit and [auto]land it. No skill or finesse, least of experience or talent required. They'll learn things wrote. No idea "WHY" things are done but the result is still the same (safety vs luck). Mr BoeBus dumbed it down well enough and operators rely on this.

Regarding SOP's: Personally I have never operated under any SOP's whereby there wasn't a statement written somewhere along the lines of "Any deviation from standard procedures requires a special briefing...." So, for example:

PF: "I'm going to drop it down a little quicker and hotter than usual to get under that cloud band so we get visual earlier. Are you happy with that?"
PM: "Yeah, I see what you mean. No problem, I agree" ....OR.... "I know what you're saying but I'd rather just keep it along the normal flight path & speed. We can intercept from the radar vector. Is that OK?"

Problem solved AND all the while SOP's were adhered to. (Its called CRM). If company SOP's do not cater for such scenarios then truly this is a sign of the robotic can't-think-outside-the-box leadership style.

Growth and expansion are NEVER a reason to allow standards to slip. My argument again is that they are, and deliberately so. I say that because find me another reason why (major) airlines would take a kid with (barely) a shiny CPL and ignore the experienced operator: one is paid according to price norms and the other under a new guise of "cadetships" or other, offering 50% less in terms of renumeration as well as T's & C's. Just look at CX for example and what JQ (100% owned by QF!!) in Oz are also doing! (see previous posts for references).

tomkins

15th Dec 2010, 09:13

Experience and qualifications must count towards becomming a first class pilot however individual ability is surely the most important factor.Take two people with the same qualifications and the same number of flying hours, they will not necessarily fly a plane with the same competance?

clouddriver

15th Dec 2010, 09:26

Please do go on bashing the CADET F/O's like myself and tell me that the GA self improver is a way better pilot. Could you then please tell me why my GA self improver CAPTAIN last week was electing to fly the jet coupled down to minimum autopilot disconnect height at LBA last week and wanted to select the minimum landing flap setting (thus increasing our LDR by 200m) and making a long flare, very soft touch down and some aerodynamic braking on a wet runway with ice/snow ridges? (for those of you that don't know leeds, this aint the place to be doing it...)

I guess because if he could do it in a C152 then, heck, i can do it in a medium JET at night tooo.....:{

I also heard this guy faild a check ride because he was all over the place on his raw data approach....

So for all of you that just LOVE stereotyping the junior pilot group:

YOUR WRONG, experience says a lot, but not everything! And i am not god's gift to aviation and i do not want to become a Captain asap as i want some more experience (10+ years of med and heavy jet flying from the RHS that is), i always try to fly AP/AT off approaches before intercept and create the best working atmosphere there is in the flight deck.

and to finish off: i have great respect for my seniores and more knowledgabele collegae in the LHS and i suggest you do the same!

nugpot

15th Dec 2010, 09:41

This is a discussion without any end. The same way that we all thought the captain was an idiot when we were FO's and now know different - the same way only those with real experience and extra qualifications can know how much it means for a safe and efficient operation.

I cannot tell a cadet what he doesn't know, because I don't know where to start.

TopTup

15th Dec 2010, 10:24

Clouddriver: This will be the third post I've written to try and pull this thread away from the GA/cadet vs military debate.

The point of this thread is to question whether airmanship and professionalism is a dying breed (or in decline) in airlines, with reference to the superb job done by the crew of QF32.

Those arguing cadets vs military vs GA have missed the point of this thread.

For argument's sake though, some airlines only seem to offer cadetships as a means to cut costs of pilots' salaries: pure and simple. and again, refer to the CX goings on! EVERY person in almost ANY profession does an apprenticeship in some form. It is how that apprenticeship is treated by the pilot as well as mentor (ie training departments of airlines).

Please go back and read the posts in their entirety and not pick the eyes of some that hit a nerve - and I can appreciate your opinion.

AND ONCE AGAIN (!!!) I am arguing that airlines are [deliberately] hiring low time pilots who unfortunately will take lower salaries, T's & C's for that shiny jet job. They are knowingly and deliberately NOT hiring better qualified and better experienced pilots as a cost cutting means. FACT.

Personally, I don't give a damn where my FO or Capt under check comes from. Gradings and performance are done on the situation presented. Like many here, I too have flown with guys who I believe nothing short of professional airmen (now or in the making) and others with far more hours as minimilistic self opinionated sky-Gods.

It is the level of airmanship and professionalism in our industry that see declining rapidly, and what's more so deliberately.

Cadet, military, or cadet, or other is of no relevance to this topic. It is the standard of professionalism and airmanship that is being argued.

(Eg: how many have ever gone through your Jepps to leant correct and standard RT, or was it learnt on the go, from instructors, fellow pilots or over the airwaves? Bad habits passed on and on and on....ATC and pilot alike. Here is but one example. The others I've stated in previous posts).

ray cosmic

15th Dec 2010, 11:23

Could you then please tell me why my GA self improver CAPTAIN last week was electing to fly the jet coupled down to minimum autopilot disconnect height at LBA last week and wanted to select the minimum landing flap setting (thus increasing our LDR by 200m) and making a long flare, very soft touch down and some aerodynamic braking on a wet runway with ice/snow ridges? (for those of you that don't know leeds, this aint the place to be doing it...)
Did you prevent him from doing so? If not: what would you have told the investigators after an overrun? If the actions of PF in the other seat makes you squeeze your buttocks and do not make your discontent known, CRM failed.

A37575

15th Dec 2010, 11:58

I fly a lot with low-hour-cadets at our slightly orange tinted LCC, and I am surprised, how good they are. Most of these twentysomething-year-old guys are absolutely airline standard (and that is quite high, referring to the CAA...). They have good technical knowledge, good CRM, excellent hand-flying skills, just limited experience.

I find it quite intriguing that in the maritime industry there is absolutely no way a cadet graduating from a Maritime Training School would be immediately walk into a first mate (second in command position) job on a ship- whether a coastal or ocean going. He would need to have gained several years of sea-going experience before going back to school for more training before graduating with his First Mate ticket. Yet somone can be an airline pilot second in command of a bloody great jet transport within 15 months of first learning to fly.

if the sea can be terribly unforgiving of a mistake how much more for the skies and it's a long way to fall..

Intruder

15th Dec 2010, 12:22

That the corporate beancounters are attempting to fill right seats at the lowest possible cost is an undisputable fact. The latest(?) verification of this fact is the birth of the "MPC" certificate, which attempts to put pilots into the right seats of airliners with less than the previous minimum experience requirements than a CPL or IR. These pilots will have NO future as Captains based on that certificate, because even in the right seat of the airliner they will NOT build the requisite command time for a CPL, much less an ATPL! Also, given the types of airlines that will hire them, they are unlikely to have the time or money to pursue GA time on the side with which to build that time. While the idea is attractive to short-term-looking beancounters, it is an absolutely terrible idea for the long-term health of the airlines and our profession.

IMO, the US FAA proposal to require an ATPL for airline FOs is a good idea that is well overdue. Regardless of how or where a pilot gets hir experience, it is that experience that, well applied, will save the lives of hir passengers when the next turbine disk comes apart.

ray cosmic

15th Dec 2010, 12:32

The problem with all this GA flying requirement is how to obtain it?
In most regions of the world there simply aren't enough GA jobs to fulfill this potential requirement.
In my view, MPL is not idiotic, but the candidates would be better off with more coaching. I personally found that with increasing experience, training sessions in the sim are getting increasingly more interesting i.e. instead of merely hoping to pass the check, you start looking more in potential scenarios and discussions with colleagues.
Why wouldn't you let the MPLs get 1 session in the sim per month in order to stimulate the learning process?

protectthehornet

15th Dec 2010, 14:01

in this GLOBAL trading era, there are plenty of pilots here in the USA...we can export some to nations that don't have an active GA program. So don't cut your standards, hire the best pilots in the world.

AirRabbit

15th Dec 2010, 15:42

Let's not get drawn into who is the better applicant or pilot: military vs GA, or whether highly sophisticated aircraft produced by Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier, (soon to be) Chinese Comac, etc, etc....

You say you aren’t interested in being drawn into a discussion of how pilots are trained because you are simply interested in whether or not the industry is being “dumbed down” as a direct and, I think you believe, deliberate attempt on the part of airline managers who hire inexperienced and (I think you believe that means) “incapable” pilots because these managers would be forced to pay a higher salary to those with more experience and (again I think you believe) capable applicants. Let me say, at the outset, it would be hard to argue with the goal of hiring the most experienced persons available to perform the duties we expect a competent airline pilot to be able to perform. However, both of us should recognize that, for a substantial period of time, doing EXACTLY this was not a huge problem – at least in those countries having had established airline operations for decades. You describe your concern by saying airline managers today hire less and less experienced pilots while simply ignoring the “pools” of qualified pilots, claiming the levels of experience you believe should be a minimum, but refuse to work for the “unrealistic and insulting salaries” being offered.

I don’t desire, nor am I necessary qualified, to become embroiled in a discussion about what influence a particular set of skills, or specifically involved risks, or other such factors, should, or do, have on the “fairness” of the salary offered in exchange for services. When a Goal Tender, Clean-Up Hitter, or Golfer can command annual salaries of tens of millions of dollars and a Police Officer, Fire Fighter, Nurse, or Teacher can command only "one-one thousdandth" of that amount, the normalcy of salary structures are almost impossible to adjudicate. But, let me be clear … I am in no way saying that high-paid “entertainers” are not entitled to whatever salaries they can demand. I may be called altruistic, but I would prefer to believe that the professionalism and dedication of that baseball shortstop on every play and the professionalism and dedication of that surgical nurse during every heart transplant operation are essentially equal – I would prefer to believe that in their own minds they are “giving all they can” to the requirements before them at the time – and would do so regardless of the size of the paycheck they know they will receive at the end of the month. If that short-stop cannot muster the professionalism and dedication required of him fielding a “hot ground ball,” he should investigate changing jobs. If that nurse becomes sidetracked in the performance of his required duties and fulfillment of responsibilities because he is mentally comparing the disparity between his salary and the salary of the last winner of the British Open Golf Tournament, he should investigate changing jobs. By the same measure, a pilot should not take a job flying an airplane if the most important aspect of the job is the size of the paycheck. Today, I believe that way too much of our society’s motivation is centered on “purchased stuff” (or the capability to purchase stuff) and not on personal respect.

The incidents you cite are most certainly examples of exercising extraordinary piloting skills. When extremely unusual circumstances develop and the result is either unbelievably successful (e.g., UAL232 at Sioux City, Iowa, 1989) or unbelievably tragic (e.g., UAL585 at Colorado Springs, Colorado, 1991), we do ourselves a disservice by applauding our foresight or denigrating our lack of foresight in the training that we required and accomplished. ANY accident, any incident, that is brought to the attention of those who design, construct, develop, implement, conduct, and evaluate pilot training programs should require each to busily involve themselves in looking at what may have caused and may have mitigated the factors that were involved. Unfortunately, more often than not, the breakdown is not in the training or the competency of the skill sets involved – but rather there is a breakdown in the diligent thought process about what is being done and why the decisions are made to take the particular actions that are taken. Unfortunately, there are a lot more examples of this kind of problem … e.g., AA1420 overrun landing, Little Rock, AR, 1999; SW1455, overrun landing, Chicago Midway, IL, 2000; Comair191, takeoff, Lexington, KY, 2006; DL191, windshear landing, Dallas, TX, 1985; AA331, landing overrun, Kingston, Jamaica, 2009; and the list could go on to a sickening amount. This comes back to the oft discussed attribute of “professionalism.” The FAA Administrator, in a speech given to the WATS Conference in Orlando, April, 2010, defined professionalism as “doing the right thing, at the right time, every time, regardless of who, or if no one, is watching.”

It is for THIS reason that I think it IS absolutely imperative that we address the training of those who are hired. I’m not going to launch into another description of the difference between civilian cadet programs and military cadet programs as I believe there is little doubt that a civilian program CAN produce quality airmen – they just have to be determined to do it – and do it correctly. I am also convinced that a simple series of log book entries are not, in themselves, meaningful of anything beyond the amount of ink that is displayed on the page. The vastly more important aspect of those logbook hours are the kind of operation behind the numbers … and what isn’t shown in those logbooks. That unknown aspect is the quality of, and the amount of, training that led up to that individual’s current level of competence and professionalism whatever that level may, or may not, be.

If you believe that hiring only those persons with some number (most are settling on 1,500 hours) in their logbook will satisfy the professionalism problem – please feel free to act on those beliefs. I, for one, am very skeptical that there will be anywhere near the amount of general aviation jobs that will allow each airline pilot vacancy to be filled by someone having already logged at least 1,500 hours of flight time. And if you find sufficient numbers of those who DO meet that requirement, I wonder if you believe that the training and experience those folks will wind up providing you with the professionalism that we both know is necessary to do the job we know has to be done. I wish you well.

big white bird

15th Dec 2010, 16:36

Top Tup, in order to maintain credibility would you mind amending your initial post to record Sully's event as being in an A320. Your post mentions a B757.

Uncle Fred

15th Dec 2010, 18:50

I find the devolution of these topics rather distasteful at best. What happened to the idea of mentoring? Should an experienced aviator and captain find that his first officer is doing something wrong then why not enjoy the rewarding process of mentoring and teaching? As a double bonus, those who take this attitude quickly realize that they can, and often will, learn just as much from the individual they are treaching.

The aviator, experienced or not, who is not striving for excellence in all he/she does, is doing themselves a disservice. Indeed experience teaches a host of lessons that cannot be learned anywhere else and I believe that irrespective of what type of cockpit one works in (highly automated or not) that fate has a million more lessons to teach. Just because we fly more with computers these days does not mean that those joining the piloting ranks will not have their hands full with challanges with problems that we can hardly envision. In other words their "dark and stormy nights" will be there for them but just in a different flavor.

Frankly I agree with one of the posters who said that the young F/Os that he flies with are sharp. I agree. Instead of moaning on about "how my generation did this and that" I relish what these young men and women will do and how they master the problems they are sure to face. So what if they have not flown an engine out full procdure turn NDB into Lusaka? They bring a lot of savvy and motivation to the game and it will serve them well. I look forward to working with them.

DADDY-OH!

15th Dec 2010, 20:39

Clouddriver

Respect for an F/O from a Captain is neither automatic nor a god-given right. We can all tell tales about what a particular pilot did and so forth.

overun

15th Dec 2010, 22:38

The point of this little story arrives at the end. Your patience would be appreciated.
Two years ago, operating as captain of an ageing jet, l was non-handling into 3k of runway.
My handling colleague maintained 250kts with both gs and loc starting to move at 5000ft, nil wind, and despite my requests to arm the flight director continued to hand fly raw data.
l armed it myself and insisted on flight idle.

Leaving the flight deck for a comfort call on arrival, l was told to wait because he wanted a word.

Somewhat surprised, l waited until he`d completed the plog, at which point l was told, in very direct terms, to touch nothing in future when he was flying until l was told.
l was starting to steam slightly and on explaining that it was l who signed to accept the aircraft, and it would be me in the courts if things went wrong, and as far as l know we don`t take turns at being " captain ",

he said " your trouble is, you`ve never done an mcc course, have you ?"

Since the credit crunch he`s still flying and l`m " resting ".

As a bit of a fraud really - l`ve kept up the rating and class one med, but not flying - l do find it difficult to comment but have to.

mary meagher

15th Dec 2010, 22:39

In addition to the basic skills and the technical know-how, the qualities I hope to find in anyone at the pointy end of my transport should be judgement, experience, and maturity.

Friend of mine is studying at a local air academy to achieve his ATPL. His background of 800 hours or so includes a lot of gliding, a lot of airtowing, a lot of instructing. Which means a lot of independent thinking, cross country flying with no help from either ATC or an engine, and a hell of a lot of takeoffs and landings.

I don't want to upset Air Rabbit, but the reason the military pilots are usually capable is that they have gone through an "exceptionally good screening process" which means only the exceptional are chosen. Alas, in the Uk, military pilots, with the possible exception of helicopter pilots, are facing reduced hours, bases closed, and number of aircraft severely cut.

overun

15th Dec 2010, 23:14

l`m sure you mean well.

protectthehornet

16th Dec 2010, 00:29

overun

I honestly wouldn't let him fly the plane anymore. Let him be the non flying pilot...maybe ease him into handling the plane on autopilot in cruise...

face it. there are good pilots and bad pilots out there....good luck.

TopTup

16th Dec 2010, 00:59

Big White Bird: You read me wrong. Please re-read my initial post. The reference to the 757 relates to the YouTube video of the engine failure (bird ingestion) on takeoff from Manchester.... (By coincidence I was in NYC on the day of the incident and have a pretty OK appreciation of the difference b/w any Boeing or Airbus!)

AirRabbit:
Thank you for your excellent post. This thread offers an platform for argument and discussion. A different perspective and opinion is always welcomed!

I am by no way stating I am right, but that it is my opinion based on witnessed accounts, experience and other related evidence. I have been [unfortunate] enough to have served a contract (loose term) at Air India as a TRE/I on the 777. I believe too many of us in the west from reputable airlines with steadfast, standardized and transparent training and safety systems find it hard to believe that children with 185 hrs TT are operating in the RHS of a B777 whereby they have little to no appreciation of terms like V1, Vmcg, Vmca, let alone the capacity of minimal raw data flying. They have obtained a job via [criminally] corrupt recruitment and training procedures. Their is IMMENSE pressure on the experienced expat pilots to be thrown out of the country to be replaced by pilots with 185-220 hrs TT and the Capts replaced by those with questionable log books indicating 1500 hrs TT. FACTS from personal witness and experience.

Some put airlines like CX and QF on a pedestal yet those names are nothing but brands generating a public opinion from a well earned past, but now lowering the entrance bar / salaries and T & C's in order to attract pilots with little to zero hours and as such discouraging those with experience and credentials.

I agree with you regarding your analogy that salary does not always correspond to effort or drive. However, we all know of the minimalist pilots not signing on till the second hand hit's the correct minute and those that exist by a the absolute minimal of professional means, take every sick day whether sick or not (and in so doing rely on their colleagues to work in their stead) & survive by a strong union backing. However my point is that the greatest of desires and will to learn and strive in this professional is becoming all too difficult. For example, a newbie FO whose passion is not up for question and determination admirable sits in the seat beside a belligerent Capt who hates his job, hates the airline, hates the aircraft, and so on and so on.....or that FO needs the extra training in the sim or mentoring in the briefing room on heavy jet flight planning, decision making, weather avoidance, correct use of the radar, correct RT in differing FIR's, airport categories and airfields.....who is going to offer it and pay for it? The airline's management culture of cut and slash costs wherever?? Hardly. Whereby the experienced pilot comes already armed with that knowledge and as such the salary he/she commands is representative of that.

Read the CX Forums whereby some 60 pilots stood waiting for the call form over 2.5 years ago. In that time management changed their recruitment process to only cadet pilots coming with little to zero hours. Upon employment these cadets receive zero housing allowance or educational allowance for their children (now or in years to come). This basically has cut the salary by 50% from the accepted normal expat allowances offered as part and parcel of the salary package. Apparently the 60 applicants waiting in the wings were called not long ago and offered a position based on these T's & C's and NOT those T & C's they interviewed and were successful for. All but one I understand turned the offer down. Well done to them!

In this instance CX have priced themselves out of the market for experienced pilots. Please re-read my post offering examples of the (now) interview process eye-witness accounts.

Look at QF, and then please read the article written by FO Joseph Eakins as referred to in a previous post. Please tell me that this is not evidence of a management culture striving to pay less and therefore accept lower experienced and qualified applicants. Now, can this be replaced with training and education? DEFINITELY! Will it or does it? i do not think so as this costs time and money.

I whole-heartedly agree with the definition given regarding professionalism and use it a lot when training myself. How often do we see stand-out performers in the sim or on line checks yet know through reputation or other that what goes on when critical eyes are not looking is something entirely different?

This also begs the question, how can one be BE professional without the tools to KNOW what professional behavior is? (Again, I use the present example of standards of RT we hear about the skies!)

A37575

16th Dec 2010, 04:29

In some countries it is a fact that first officers on airliners are not only barely out of flying school but have no desire at all to be flying aeroplanes in the first place. I well recall training some newly graduated CPL pilots in the 737 simulator for their type ratings. It doesn't matter here what countries they came from. All of the cadets were studying varying non-aviation related subjects in University. One day government officials arrived and directed all students in a particular class or year undergo the medical examinations required for pilots.

Those that passed were then streamed into potential airline pilots and military pilots. In short they were ordered into their new career regardless of their wishes. Readers are aware of the various Air Indian Express mishaps. A colleague of mine flies as an expat captain with that company. He told of his discussions with a female first officer who confessed to him she hated flying.

As she told the story, her parents had consulted an astrologer for his advice on a money earning career for their daughter. Apparently this was SOP in her part of the world. The astrologer's advice was for their daughter to become a pilot. So she was despatched to Miami where she obtained a FAA CPL and also a B737-800 type rating. A year or so later she was a first officer and with no interest in the job. She thus became the cash-cow for her family and said there were many from the sub-continent in the same situation she found herself in.

This then is the up-coming problem. Not only low experience but no desire to fly. I think this is the future and occasional hull losses will be seen as acceptable and the cost of doing business.

nike

16th Dec 2010, 10:59

TopTup,

this is a valid discussion.

One that it seems has taken some effort on your part to keep on track, unnecessarily so I think, as in reading your first post it was quite clear what the main thrust of the discussion was about.

You reference CX quite rightly.

The CX lads are right this minute anxiously awaiting the reports from their association who are currently meeting management to discuss pay (salary only, not expat allowances et al).

The history of contracts at CX is well known amongst those affected and the outcome of this pay review will truly be an example of current management practices and there disdain or respect of the modern aviator.

This pay review is overdue and necessary just to align the contract with inflation let alone reward employees for their efforts and loyalty.

Over and above this, the further concern with which you refer to is in fact the entry points into an airline.

CX has attempted to test the concept of a cadetship.
They now offer a cadetship but not a cadetship in the traditional sense of the word.
The cadetship has been reviewed and taylored to suit the experience of the individual.
Those with experience, and historically the Direct Entry Second Officer with full expat package to afford one the opportunity to survive in Hong Kong would typically have 3000-5000 hours from a variety of backgrounds.

These individuals (should they accept the job offer) will now fly light aircraft for a certain period of time so as to tick the box of having completed a cadetship.

These same individuals (as you mentioned) were offered the same "end" position, aka Second Officer, as those prior to the financial downturn of roughly 2008, but now minus the necessary allowances that one needs to survive in Hong Kong.

This is a classic example of not only reducing terms and conditions by attempting to attract less experienced individuals, but in fact in some cases seeking to attract the same experienced individuals but devaluing their skills and knowledge by offering majorly reduced contracts.

Surely that is the clearest example yet of what direction management have been going and intend to continue in with regard to pay versus experience.

AirRabbit

16th Dec 2010, 16:48

Hi TopTup

It appears that perhaps I may owe you an apology, as I was not immediately putting your comments in line with non-US or non-European airline operations. While I’m not privy to what happens in many of these countries’ airline operations, I have heard about and am familiar enough with some such countries to recognize the inherent problems that cultural differences may well spill out into the open. As an example, I can readily understand that teaching the finer points of departing a holding pattern to intercept an arc that leads to a localizer approach, with the intent to land on a 5500 foot runway, has its own unique complications when the person to whom you are teaching this exercise can claim a life-long history of man-machine interaction and energy management understanding that consists solely of bicycle riding – and that only for the last 3 of his 21 years. However, and surprisingly, I will admit to being quite surprised to learn that organizations like Cathay Pacific or Qantas might be plagued with the kinds of maladies you describe. Fortunately, I guess for me, I am not terribly familiar with the operations of airlines operating in in those kinds of “other environments.” However, I do understand, and unfortunately acknowledge, that it is also true that once-proud aviation name plates can be overcome by circumstances and, for a lack of a better descriptor, greedy people … I give you Pan American World Airways as a US example.

Admittedly, my own interests have been primarily focused on European and North American applications – but, and I’ll go into more detail shortly, I think the process I am advocating may have the best chance of addressing the concerns you are describing – at least that is my belief at the moment.

As you have no doubt recognized, I am more than a little serious about finding a way to better address the needs of the aviation community – primarily in the form of pilot training and evaluation. My background and experience tells me that if this exercise is done properly, there is a very good probability that those completing a program developed to do this will be considered, by any measure, to be capable of occupying the right seat and fully contributing to an airline operation. OK. Now … how should this effort move forward? I am of the opinion that while I’m only one person – any size group starts with one – and I have been committed to finding a way to start, to join, and/or to participate with, a forum whose goal is to specifically address the issues confronting the training of airline pilots. And, I’ve found one.

The United Kingdom’s Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS) has recently provided to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), headquartered in Montreal, a recommendation for the international standardization of the structure and likely the application of flight simulation equipment, including all the technical criteria and testing requirements, that address equipment all the way from basic, introductory kinds of devices to the most sophisticated of flight simulators … and quite meaningfully … ICAO has now officially published that document.

Just recently I have learned that the RAeS is now planning to host a conference late next year (2011) where the primary goal is to establish a second international working group that will develop an internationally harmonized set of pilot training standards – very likely using these recently published ICAO simulation standards, to their maximum extent, and relying, at least to some degree, on the ICAO developed (together with the International Air Transport Association – IATA) description of a newly developed pilot training regimen referred to as Multi-crew Pilot License or MPL.

Because of my previous interests in this area and the fact that I’ve been actively searching and researching this subject, I am aware that there have been several instances of “beta testing” of this MPL format. But, I’ve wanted to be sure that such testing was being conducted by, or at least involved, reputable participants. I don’t have the time or the space here to go into details of that research, but I can say that Boeing has been involved with some of these efforts and so far, the results have been, at worst, promisingly interesting, and more often they have been quite impressive.

OK – I am now satisfied that this has at least a potential for success that I think warrants increased scrutiny and probably some detailed analysis. This brings me back to the RAeS plans. Interestingly, the overall effort, as I have been able to understand it, will not simply address pilot training standards … but that it will also include a set of equally harmonized standards applicable to instructors and evaluators – who will be dealing with the pilots for whom we have the serious concerns expressed here. This sounds more like what I wanted to see. Should this effort result in a coordinated set of standards for pilots, for instructors, and for evaluators – where simulation is introduced and used to its logical maximum extent – and is supplemented with reasonable use of actual airplane exposure and training (which the MPL process provides) and the technical requirements of the simulation planned for use has already been examined – through an international review – and published by ICAO, it seems to me that this effort just may be what we all would like to see. Will it be the absolute epitome of excellence? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But, with the level of scrutiny applied by the world’s aviation training and operations experts – at least those with the most experience – it certainly has a shot at being the best that mere humans can develop – at least at this time.

You asked a beautiful question in your last post: quoting you, “How can one BE professional without the tools to KNOW what professional behavior is?” IF, and I recognize the potentials of such a small word, but IF this program takes the responsibility as seriously as was taken in the development of the simulation standards, I have good reason to believe that the result will directly address the necessary knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are undoubtedly required to operate today’s airliners in today’s airspace system. This would undoubtedly provide each student going through the process not only an opportunity to find out what professional behavior actually is – and how to recognize it in themselves and in others - it should provide for the development of an appropriate skill set to exercise that professional attitude in a professional manner. The jewel in the crown is the plan to submit the finished product to ICAO for publication (and I understand that ICAO personnel will be involved from the outset) as a PANS Training document that would then be available for the world's aviation programs.

I don’t know about anyone else … but … I think this program offers the most objective and most promising set of possibilities that have been brought to light anywhere on the planet up to this point. I am going to try my best to have my company allow my direct involvement with this effort – and if that isn’t possible, I just may have to find a way to finance my own involvement. At the very least, I want to be there … I want to see what is being discussed – what is being decided – and at the very least, I should have an opportunity to insert my little bit of thought, experience, preference, caution, etc. If there are any others on this forum, or similar forums, with similar interests, I would suggest - heck – I would plead - that they contact the RAeS to learn more about the specifics of this upcoming conference – and do everything possible to get involved – right up to the neck! It’s kind of like we here in the US say about our elections … you can’t really complain about who is elected unless you vote as well!

Thanks for reading through yet another of my rambling thoughts …

Lonewolf_50

16th Dec 2010, 17:57

overun, in re your short story:

I get the feeling that you have indeed gone through an mcc course (likely more than one) and your cockpit partner was missing some of the lessons learned in an mcc course.

Do I read you correctly?

Intruder

16th Dec 2010, 18:13

In my view, MPL is not idiotic, but the candidates would be better off with more coaching. I personally found that with increasing experience, training sessions in the sim are getting increasingly more interesting i.e. instead of merely hoping to pass the check, you start looking more in potential scenarios and discussions with colleagues.
Why wouldn't you let the MPLs get 1 session in the sim per month in order to stimulate the learning process?
You can put the MPLs in the sim all you want. The fact remains that they will continue to accumulate ZERO PIC time in the airplane, so they will NEVER attain a CPL, IR, or ATPL based solely on their MPL flying. All they will become (or remain) are reasonably competent FOs who may or may not be able to react properly in an emergency or during a non-normal situation. The airlines who hire them will NOT be grooming future Captains!

Denti

16th Dec 2010, 19:08

Actually, that is wrong. MPL students are hired as future captains, same as their peers that did go through a normal abinitio course before them. After 1500 hours on the line, around 2 years, their MPL CPL will be converted into a normal frozen CPL and in the course of a normal upgrade/command course will generate enough PICus hours to issue a normal ATPL.

Dunno about other schemes, in ours the core phase ends with a normal, which requires a few PIC hours anyway as solo flights are of course part of the training. From the basic phase on(Seminole hours, FNPT and MCC on either Bus or Boeing) however everything is done using multipilot procedures. Other airlines like LH for example use a jet for the basic phase, in their case a CJ1.

I doubt doing 1500 hours traffic patterns will much improve their skills relevant to line flying, 300 hours simulator training however can provide quite an intense and varied training environment. Of course to be able to get into the training one needs to pass quite rigid testing to select the best applicants available.

misd-agin

16th Dec 2010, 19:57

2 yrs commuter experience, 2 yrs corporate, 8 yrs military, 25 yrs major airline. Seen all types - the background of the pilot doesn't matter. Lousy military trained pilots as well as excellent ones. Lousy G/A pilots as well as excellent ones.

Flying with 10,000+ hr FO's, that have flown, 3, 4, 5, or more airliners, beats the heck out of flying with an inexperienced guy. However, everyone is new when they switch aircraft.

Last FO had approx. 25,000 hrs, flown 4 airliners, 3 corporate jets, ran the flight department at the corporation, owned a flight school, AP mechanic, served on multiple NBAA committees, etc, etc. Trade him for a cadet? Never.

misd-agin

16th Dec 2010, 20:01

Sim time? They have their purpose. However, no one is ever scared in a simulator. The real world is waaaay different, and more effective, than any simulator for inducing pressure.

Hypothetical this, hypothetical that, sim B.S. walks when you're in the airplane.

p51guy

16th Dec 2010, 20:22

What worked 30 years ago when we were hired for qualifications is now not required because of automation. At least that is management bean counters thinking. Let us see what happens to the airlines that took the cheap low hour cadets safety record when their single pilot operations with an apprentice copilot have to do some serious crosswind landings on wet runways. Airplanes and people are more expensive than cheap copilots.

Denti

16th Dec 2010, 21:11

Major international airlines use abinitio fast-path trained pilots for the last 60 years, there is not much new about it. And what experienced pilots can do on wet runways was very aptly demonstrated this year by american airlines...

Rananim

16th Dec 2010, 22:55

There are airmen and there are pilots: the first being part bird whose view from aloft is normal and comfortable, a creature whose brain and muscles frequently originate movements which suggest flight; and then there are pilots who regardless of their airborne time remain earth-loving bipeds forever. When these latter unfortunates, because of one urge or another, actually make an ascension, they neither anticipate nor relish the event and they drive their machines with the same graceless labor they inflict upon the family vehicle.Ernest Gann

A few airlines still employ airmen(most notably SWA) but most look for SOP automatons or that dreaded word "flight manager".I would say the old breed is probably just about dead or retired out by now and the automatons have taken up permanent residence.The Stepford push-button pay-for-everything-yourself type is meek and subservient and shows good crm.Hes popular with the beancounters because he plays by the book,minds his p's and q's and knows theres no place in todays world for a real pilot.They are sheep in sheep's clothing,perfectly contented with and attuned to the "graceless labor" of todays flying.

I would be very surprised if Qantas does not cherish airmanship and traditional stick-and-rudder.I believe they still look for a pilot, not a suit.Someone tell me Im wrong.

Anyone can do the job when things are going right
Ernest Gann

A pilot,ok system operator.may go a whole lifetime without a single emergency.Such is the reliability of todays machines.So yes the beancounters can get away with employing suits who push buttons and fly by rote.That makes the professional airman redundant,a figment of our imagination.We have the FMC and magenta line so who needs navigation?Can you see todays pilot doing what Gordon Vette did over the pacific ocean 30 years back when he saved a lost GA pilot?We have FADEC so who needs flight engineers but the skies were much safer with them.Sophisticated autopilots and FD's(great tools) quickly dull your senses and make you very dependent if you let them.But Im no Luddite and agree you have to change with the times.Ill attend the crm classes with the politically-correct chat and try not to quote Gann and Ill try not to grimace when they say a pilot is a "flight manager" or that experience is over-rated or that a cadet with 200 hours sitting in the right seat of a commercial jet is perfectly viable and not there because it lines the pockets of the beancounters.Ill do it because I love the view from the office..But Im not happy about it.

protectthehornet

16th Dec 2010, 23:03

SWA doesn't hold a monopoly on airmanship. We had lots of guys who could fly a crowbar approach etc.

But our managers bought planes (and got rewarded with a villa in the south of france...if you know what I mean) that are less flexibile in their flying.

I remember one small airline I flew for, that later grew into the largest regional there is...the ticket counter girls kept on saying: we can run this airline without pilots by just selling tickets on other airlines.

Management is kicking our asses...any union out there should consider changing the railway labor act (in the USA) to allow all pilots to walk off the job simultaneously

Intruder

16th Dec 2010, 23:30

Actually, that is wrong. MPL students are hired as future captains, same as their peers that did go through a normal abinitio course before them. After 1500 hours on the line, around 2 years, their MPL CPL will be converted into a normal frozen CPL and in the course of a normal upgrade/command course will generate enough PICus hours to issue a normal ATPL.
I have seen 2 MPL syllabi, and neither of them contained enough PIC time for either a CPL or an IR. They were WAY different than a traditional ab initio course, with MANY fewer airplane hours!

Please forward a link to the relevant regulation that says an MPL will be converted into a CPL.

Maybe the JAA recognizes PICus hours as PIC time, but the US FAA does not. Do any other authorities recognize it? I don't know that the FAA recognizes PICus as anything other than SIC time...

AirRabbit

17th Dec 2010, 01:52

Wow! After reading a few of these most recent posts it would seem that a lot of the current pilot’s pilots are just about ready to give up on the profession that they claim to love and profess to miss should the current trends continue. I was brought up on the concept of being able to recognize when something wasn’t as you would desire, determine what would be necessary to make the appropriate corrections, and begin work to see that those corrections are made.

Here, it is unlikely that the pilot vacancies that appear to be on the horizon are going to be able to be filled with the same sort of back-grounded pilots that originally filled them back when they were last vacant. Some have said that only the same type of pilot applicant will be acceptable. What they don’t seem to recognize is that particular course of action is simply not going to be an alternative. So … now what? Join the “oh poor me” club? Grumble your way to retirement? What?

Sorry folks – I am a bit more “pro-active” than that. I’m going to see what the forward thinking proponents of the aviation system may have to offer – and I’m going to offer my two cents – for whatever those guy may think it to be worth. So … sit on the side lines … offer your criticisms if you choose … complain to whomever you care to … make your remaining time in this industry as painful as you care to … that’s your choice. However there are some who believe that attempting to make a difference will make a difference. It is that group of professionals with whom I will choose to exchange ideas, offer suggestions, listen to objections and other ideas. There is little doubt that such effort will produce something more worthwhile than what may be achieved by simply complaining about what the industry used to be.

Denti

17th Dec 2010, 07:09

Intruder, of course i was speaking about JAA stuff here, or rather EASA as JAA is now a thing of the past.

Our students do get issued an MPL which is limited to multicrew operation in their training airlines (MPL is always restricted to one airline only), after 1500 hours experience they can apply and get issued either a normal ATPL or CPL, depending on additional training, with a command course they will get an ATPL as a command course contains enough PICus hours. Not likely in our case as usual time to upgrade is somewhere around 10 to 15 years or more and they do not need to get a PIC typerating until then anyway, we might introduce a senior FO position for augmented crews which would need a PIC rating and ATPL, but currently we fly without that.

The one thing even their CPL will have is a restriction for multicrew operation if they would do a minimum MPL course, to get around that you can simply allow a few more airplane hours and a full PPL during training or require them to get additional training. However MPL training has to be done in the environment of a specific airline and can not be offered without guaranteed flying in that airline for at least 1500 hours. Traditional "open" ATPL training providers can not offer a MPL unless they partner up with an airline. There are not all that many MPL schemes around in europe, i know of Lufthansa, Swiss and a few others who do it, but the majority still needs an integrated course.

A normal integrated course will usually give 200 airplane hours, the MPLs i know of do around 70 to 120 airplane hours plus around 300 to 400 full flight simulator hours, of which there are none in a traditional integrated course. A required element of the MPL course is upset recovery training, which has to be done on a real airplane, in our case that's 2 hours on an aerobatic plane, students have the opportunity to pay for a few more hours and get their aerobatic rating as well and many do that, there is no requirement for that in a traditional course.

So on one hand we do have the "traditional" integrated course which requires around 200 hour of airplane training plus a few hours FNPT but allows single pilot flying, on the other hand we do have the MPL with around 70 to 120 hours in airplanes plus a few hundred hours in full flight simulators and additional training steps which allows single pilot ops on SEL (via the integrated PPL) and multi crew flying for anything other than PPL and who was trained within the airline he will be flying for using their SOPs and training philosophy after a very very thorough selection process.

A37575

17th Dec 2010, 12:33

From the basic phase on(Seminole hours, FNPT and MCC on either Bus or Boeing) however everything is done using multipilot procedures

In New Zealand, cadets from various Asian operators were trained to operate as a crew on Seminoles. One cadet would be nominated as "captain" and flew from the LH seat while his colleague in the RH seat would be the copilot or PNF. The PNF would raise and lower the gear, run the radios, haul the flap lever manually up or down, read long checklists and generally do what copilots do. The Seminole is designed to be flown as a single pilot trainer yet this was not permitted by the flying school. Every flight was two crew because that what was what the sponsoring airline demanded. So procedures were invented to give the copilot something to keep him busy and checklists arranged to look like airline checklists. All this in a simple trainer like a Seminole.

. When the students were practicing for their forthcoming instrument ratings, an instructor would be in the RH seat and act as the PNF. Very few command decisions were made by the PF since some had language difficulties and could not communicate effectively with ATC.

The instructor also effectively did everything as described previously. All the PF had to do was flying headings and maintain speed. Mostly the autopilot was used. The instrument rating route was flown several times until the student knew it off by heart. Basically it was a triangular cross country flight. During the actual instrument rating test (flown as a two crew exercise) again the testing officer acted as PNF doing all the radio work and basic navigation, tuning navaids, doing the gear and flaps etc.

The end result was at no point did the student make all the decisions required of a single pilot operation. They were rarely truly in command because the flying school did not trust them to go out of the circuit area without an instructor. Within a few miles radius of their aerodrome two cadets could fly as two crew but it was the PNF that did all the radio etc.

Training cadets to use two crew procedures in a single pilot trainer was nonsense. Far better to bite the bullet and if the cadet was competent then he should have been flying solo and making real command decisions rather than playing airline pilots in a Seminole...

Golf-Sierra

17th Dec 2010, 14:10

But didn't you say that one cadet would play the role of PF whilst the other would play the role of PNF? So assuming they switched every cadet would have learned both roles?

act700

17th Dec 2010, 15:17

Golf Sierra,

if there is an instructor on board, there is never, ever that feeling of "self reliance" on part of the student. Because the student knows, that the instructor will fix it.

A37575,

what about the requirements of solo flight time, pic time, etc....or do they not have those requirements for a license/rating?

ECAM_Actions

17th Dec 2010, 15:53

I'll take the pilot with 3000 hours who has experienced serious in-flight emergencies and survived to fly another day than the guy with 10000 hours who hasn't (unless the 10000 hour pilot rectified a problem on the ground before it became a problem in-flight :ok: ).

ECAM Actions.

acbus1

18th Dec 2010, 07:12

What matters is whether a guy/gal is 'switched on' (to use a rather coarse description). I've flown with low hours pilots new to airline operation who exhibit far more ability, skill, resourcefulness, intelligence, human cooperation, composure, planning, foresight, caution, thoroughness and normal, predictable behaviour than many very high hours 'pilots' with vast airline experience. In fact, some of the latter category shouldn't be allowed anywhere near an airliner cockpit.

So don't tell me how many hours a pilot has, or how much airline experience, or whether they know what Reynold's Number is. Give me a (often surprisingly short) time operating with them in a two-crew cockpit; that's by far the best test of their basic, most important qualities, as listed above. Such an assessment is also remarkably resistant to the test of time.

That's not so say you give them an airline command position without sufficient experience. Regardless of innate abilities, command does require a decent spread of exposure to a range of situations. Again, however, there are a surprising number of long-established Captains with vast hours who should be shown the exit.

To answer the thread question more directly, there isn't a lack of decent airmen/pilots. There is, however, a lack of decent recognition of who they are. As a consequence, many poor airmen/pilots are recruited and allowed to prevail.

Greenpilots

18th Dec 2010, 07:40

Very well said!

A37575

18th Dec 2010, 11:31

what about the requirements of solo flight time, pic time, etc....or do they not have those requirements for a license/rating?

It was few years ago so I don't have that info.

A37575

18th Dec 2010, 11:40

Regardless of innate abilities, command does require a decent spread of exposure to a range of situations.

Fortunately with the excellent reliability of modern jet transports, engine failures, systems failures and even weather radar failures, are things of the past and the "decent spread" of situations is relegated to nothing more serious than an FMC failure. Although, I must say that to todays pilot, an FMC failure is sometimes enough to raise a sweat on furrowed brow on a pilot brought up on the marvels of automation.

L337

18th Dec 2010, 13:30

Fortunately with the excellent reliability of modern jet transports, engine failures, systems failures and even weather radar failures, are things of the past

No they are not.

overun

18th Dec 2010, 18:04

l remember 3 mayday calls l made in 5 flights, fully signed off as airworthy aircraft. The fleet type was being changed and money could not be "wasted" on parts renewal for someone else`s benefit.

Anyway, Lonewolf l thankyou for your interest but you are wrong.

Should this be on Rumours and News ?
Terms and Endearment more likely.

aerostatic

18th Dec 2010, 23:29

Dr. Bru

19th Dec 2010, 03:14

The more experience, the better.

DADDY-OH!

19th Dec 2010, 10:12

Here! Here!

two green one prayer

19th Dec 2010, 12:14

There is all the difference in the world between a pilot with ten years experience and a pilot with one months experience one hundred and twenty times. This is why someone who came up the hard way through instructing, crop dusting, biz jets, and so on, is likely to be a better airline pilot, when something goes wrong, than an ex cadet with 250 hours. You would not hear, "what's it doing now", on the CVR. What you would hear is, "expletive, expletive, turn the bloody lot off I'll fly the expletive ship". This attitude is far more likely to leave to a good outcome even if it results in a river landing than have all attention focussed on a computer screen at the expense of less entrancing tasks like looking out of the window.

SNS3Guppy

19th Dec 2010, 13:33

SNS3Guppy:
You have directly ridiculed a point I raised, and I gave a reference from where I drew my comment from: the CX Wannabe's Forum. You denied a FACT without researching it first. So, allow me to indulge the disbelievers: (as frustrating as it is to do the research to prove what I knew, hence the reference!)

QUOTE: (!!)
"Hi, a quick run-down of my flight experience:

At the time of my application I held a CPL, just got a grade 3 instructor rating, and had just began training for a MECIR. My total hours were 300 of which about 15 hours were from a one day per week part time job as an instructor.

I was a little nervous about my interviews as well, it's quite normal and I'm sure they know that. The staff did their best to make me feel comfortable. After my interview I wrote down as many of the questions I could remember. Here are some of the questions I was asked in my stage one 45 min interview:

Human Resource Questions:

1) Describe yourself
2) Do I play any team sports?
3) Why change careers?
4) What do I do in my spare time?
5) What did I like about Hong Kong? (I told them I'd been there before)
6) What did I do in Hong Kong?
7) What do I know about the cadet program?
8) What do I know about the SO?
9) Do I know what the living conditions are like in Hong Kong?
10) Why work part-time as an instructor?
11) What do my parents think of me being here at the interview?
12) What did my parents think when I decided to become a pilot?

I didn't deny any "facts."

The fact is that you have no experinece, and weren't interviewing for a pilot position. You were interviewing for an entry-level training cadet position. Not at all the same as the former DEFO type positions. Of course you can be expected to be asked what your parents think of you being at the interview. You can also be expected to be asked if you want milk and cookies at the break, and what color your favorite crayon is.

You're not being hired at that stage to be a front line pilot, inflight relief pilot, or even a qualified coffee-maker. You're being hired to be a student, and most who hire into that position are going to be young enough that asking what their parents think is a legitimate question. HR typically asks a variety of questions which are entirely unrelated to one's flying background or skills. Psychological tests extend as far as questions such as "If you had to kill your mother or your father, which one would you kill?" Being asked questions about honesty, preferences in sports, and other topics outside aviation are common tactics, and are designed to explore your personality, your ability to think on your feet, your consistency in your answers, and so forth.

You'll note that all the questions you cited in the group involving your parents were of the same nature, and all unrelated to flying. In fact, the questions regarding your parents were the most closely aligned with flying, of any HR questions asked. Your post, then, was deceitful. You attempted to suggest that CX (et al) today prefers to ask questions not about flying, but rather about your parents. In fact, to quote, you said "Interview questions used to be along the lines of "How did you accrue your hours? What lessons did you learn? Tell me about Vmca / Vmcg (piston vs twin jet).... How does the IRS work (then strap down gyros, etc...) Nowadays it's: "What do your parents think of you becoming a pilot?" (refer CX Wannabes forum)."

This is tantamount to a lie, then, because you go on to tell us that you were asked questions regarding dutch roll, lift generation, induced drag, and flap operation. You've attempted to assert that airlines are more interested in mindless, unimportant information, when interviewing a candidate, than in the candidates qualifications. This is smoke, and a lie.

Did you not pass the interview? Are you upset? Do you feel you were asked questions that weren't the "right questions" to get you in the door? Or were you hired, and still not satisfied? Let me stop you right now: if you weren't hired, then whining about it will only be a case of sour grapes. If you were hired, then whining about it is poor form and will likely result in some grief from your employer. If you weren't hired, then join the throng of others who haven't been hired, be happy for the experience and education, and move on. If you have been hired, then be happy for the job, learn all you can, and move on.

You're not by any chance taking potshots at betpump5, the uninformed philipino troll, are you? If so, that's a very poor comparison to make with the rest of the pilot body, and you know it.

This thread is about the diminishing standards or professionalism and airmanship. So please, when you state "Let's get real" then please argue from an informed position where FACT not (wishful) opinion is employed....

In the US, standards are being raised, insofar as the minimum, and insofar as airline operations are concerned.

This isn't wishful thinking, but fact. That it will have any bearing on safety is largely questionable, as hours mean nothing; experience, more, and training well received, the bottom line.

Lastly, note the Qf SECOND Officer's experience: 8000 hrs. In far, far too many airlines from what I have seen nowadays, hours like that without a commuter jet command would deem this pilot a failure. At QF he is still deemed an asset.

To which airlines do you refer that would suggest eight thousand hours deems a pilot a failure? Not having flown for a commuter deems a pilot a failure? Utter claptrap. What of the military pilot with two thousand hours (high time, for many military pilots) who seeks and obtains a position? What of the corporate pilot with five thousand of those eight thousand hours as pilot-in-command of turbojet high performance airplanes?

You have a problem with an eight thousand hour pilot being "deemed an asset?" Why, pray tell?

The AI FO in the Mangalore tragedy had just over 3600 hrs TT if my memory serves me correct and up for command as he was "highly experienced" (but not experienced or trained enough to take over control having his go around calls ignored).

Your point here is what, exactly?

So, the point still stands: are airline standards diminishing? In my opinion, YES. This is from my witnessed accounts and the trend of increasing incident rates at airlines like SIN (refer Airline accident ratings), anecdotal studies show where younger, less experienced pilots are fast tracked into LHS / RHS without the previously had experience (that was needed to be respectfully & professionally paid for: reference is personal knowledge of internal SIN Safety Dept info, sorry can't give the source).

I don't know singapore and haven't flown on them, and won't therefore comment on them.

In the US, training is taken seriously, with substantial oversight. To make an attempt at suggesting that a pilot's ability to perform is tied to his total hours is ridiculous. Training, aptitude, background, attitude, experience, intelligence, judgment, and so forth determine the pilot's value in the position. Total hours are relatively unimportant. For the pilot who comes to a company without a full pedigree and 30 years in the cockpit, there is training. For the pilot who comes to a company with a full pedigree and over 30 years in the cockpit, there is the same training. You understand this relationship? Both parties must pass the same training to the same standard of performance.

In my initial class at my present employer, about half the applicants who started the class made it to flying the line. That class was composed of a wide variety of backgrounds, ranging from regional operations to military to firefighters to corporate to extensive airline. Of those who interviewed for the position, the initial class makeup, having passed interviews and sim checks, was but a fraction, and half of those completed the training successfully and were hired. Of those who did complete the training and go on the line, there was no question that they could perform to the standard, and were therefore acceptable for the job. Once on the line, an unyielding line training program took place.

I'm no slouch. I grew up flying formation under powerlines as a kid, crop dusting. I have been there and done that, quite frankly, and I'm sure I took the longest out of any in our initial hire class to complete the initial operating experience training and get released to the line. I can assure you that I wasn't given a pass, and that any one of the check airmen with whom I flew in the airplane or the simulator wouldn't have hesitated to wash me out of the program, as they did others.

Historically our captain upgrades have run at about a 50% pass/fail rate. That is to say, up to half of the applicants from within the company, every one a fully qualified line pilot, generally with several years experience flying for this company (as well as any others in their past), haven't been able to pass the training, line training, or checkride. That isn't indicative of poor pilots, but an unyielding program that gives no quarter. In other words, the company is serious about their training program. The company has put punishments in place that include penalties for failure to upgrade, to put a curb on those who apply who aren't absolutely ready for the training that follows. Applicants who don't make it are seatlocked, can't bid out, must acquire an additional five hundred hours in type before thinking about it again, and still can't apply until their seat lock period is up. Two training failures, and they lose their job. No recycling people repeatedly through the pipeline.

Perhaps this sounds to you like a decrease in the quality of pilots and training, but it sounds a lot to me like a training department that takes itself seriously, and a company that takes it's pilot standards equally as seriously. As I have watched the evolution of the training programs, company approach to safety, and the line checks and quality assurance that goes on, I have only seen a gradual improvement in the tone, effort, design, and nature of that program. Additional line spot checks have been implemented, additional simulator training, and thorough reviews and oversight by the FAA, by company personnel, by a professional standards committee, by internal monitoring programs, by pilot feedback, and by roving check airman have served to elevate the bar.

Rest assured, we're not alone.

Now, if you want to hold up CX as indicative of diminished standards, bear in mind that by reputation, CX has always had the toughest interview, and had always held a high reputation for being a tough training program. You may be barking up the wrong tree, particularly if you're attempting to draw a parallel between the cadet program and any airline's program of hiring actual pilots. There's a gulf of difference between hiring a cadet (a trainee) and a line pilot.

So, let's not keep confusing SAFETY with LUCK.

I really don't think anybody here is doing that. Upon what rocky foundation to you base this myth?

misd-agin

19th Dec 2010, 14:41

SNS3Guppy - 50%??? Fail a portion of the upgrade or completely fail and get fired?

Max Angle

19th Dec 2010, 16:09

Historically our captain upgrades have run at about a 50% pass/fail rate.

If that is the case you either have a big problem with initial selection or a big problem with your training department. If you hire the right people, train them well to start with and continue to train them so they are adequately prepared for a command course then the vast majority should pass. 5-10% wash out would be more normal I would think.

SR71

19th Dec 2010, 17:00

Two training failures, and they lose their job.

With respect, that seems a crazy approach to me.

So by virtue of the fact they can't pass the upgrade, they're deemed to be incapable of performing the (S)FO role as well?

Which begs the question, with a failure rate of 50%, who would take the risk of upgrading?

Whats the logic behind this?

:confused:

RetiredF4

19th Dec 2010, 20:55

@SNS3Guppy

If your statements are true, --- and i myself have no doubt about it---, your company and your training departement has my highest respect! The system reminds me of military flying training systems of several western countries.

There is no use to train people in an endless process of hours and time, that way you can get anybody to the RH or LH seat. There has to be a given timeframe reflecting the ability and the willingness of the individual to learn and to adapt to new tasks. Even a car mechanic has to finish his job training in a given time, if he fails and refails, he is out. Why the hell should it be different for piloting 400 PX around the world?

When the sh*t hits the fan, there might not be enough time available for slow thinking and learning.

In my (longretired) oppinion the main human resources problem of the modern flying industry.

franzl

SNS3Guppy

19th Dec 2010, 23:49

SNS3Guppy - 50%??? Fail a portion of the upgrade or completely fail and get fired?

Depends. Fail the second time, and the company has the option of dismissing them entirely. Fail any training event (not only an upgrade, but any training event, such as bust an item on a recurrent sim ride), and one is seat locked for a year, must fly 500 hours additional in type, and can't bid out of that seat for that year long period. If two training failures take place in two years, that's the magic axe.

So by virtue of the fact they can't pass the upgrade, they're deemed to be incapable of performing the (S)FO role as well?

A flight engineer who doesn't make the grade as an FE goes back to being an FE. A FO who doesn't make the grade as a captain goes back to being an FO. Second time it happens in a two year period, goodnight gracie.

If one can't pass the ride, one can't pass the ride. The same standards are applied to the right seat, as to the left.

Which begs the question, with a failure rate of 50%, who would take the risk of upgrading?

About half the applicants, right?

Whats the logic behind this?

Ask the applicants. There are a million stories in the naked city. In a seniority-based system, an applicant who has the seniority to upgrade will be given the opportunity; it's his or hers to win or lose. Applicants are strongly urged by the company to be prepared when they apply, because they know the consequences in advance.

In the past, that policy was not in place. Given that the seniority system allows those who have the seniority to bid, and receive an open position, and given that simply because one is senior doesn't mean they can cut it, the result was far too many bidding who weren't ready, who wasted training resources and company time, and consequently washed out. Enter penalties to reduce the number of frivolous applications for upgrade positions.

The point isn't the number or the stat. I don't know what the current value is. I know that the training department continues to evolve and improve and I just went back through, and I liked what I saw. I felt that their attitude in the sim, in the classroom, and in the training department was considerably more progressive than it once may have been. In other words, good things are happening. I can't quote the current statistics, and don't concern myself with them. The actual numbers are superfluous; the point is that the company isn't hiring idiots, does care about whom they hire, and does care about who passes the training. It's never a "gimme."

greybeard

20th Dec 2010, 01:10

SR71
The failure to upgrade and the subsiquent relegation to PERMANENT F/O is a blow not many can absorb and remain an effective crew member.

I was involved in the training dept that witnessed this process in an Asian carrier and the lack of interest, willingness to operate as P1 on sectors and general interest in most tasks was noticably lacking in most who went this path.

The initial selection of upgrade canditates and the monitoring of their training progress is vital to a sucessful conclusion for all involved. How far you take this back to actual initial employment is assuming beyond what most mortals can know.

I and others recommended termination for a particular Cadet in jet training, were ignored/overuled and watched him battle his way into the larger fleets with difficulty. However 10 years later, 4 bars up and away on the 777.
There is now magic bottle to rub, just good training and hard work on the canditates behalf seems to work the trick

:ok:

protectthehornet

20th Dec 2010, 03:40

sadly, being a good airline pilot cannot be taught.

certainly you can learn many things from other people, however there is something, somewhere in the mind that must come from within and WANTING to be better.

for someone to NOT want to upgrade is a clue that you will not do a good job as a copilot.

you must constantly want to improve as a pilot...it sharpens the mind...playing the ''what if'' game, even to yourself is a great brain challenge and training device.

being a ''cadet'' can teach you only so much...being out there, confronted with the dozens/cubed real life situations is just the start.

I still remember the time ATC gave me a fouled up holding instruction...I questioned it and it was obvious the controller didn't know the format, or that his instructions would do precisely the WRONG thing.

Now, how many times in the cadet simulator program do THEY practice getting poor holding instructions and correcting ATC?

Or how many times do you request a clearance through a restricted area, receive it, and when precisely in the middle of it have ATC say: sir, are you aware you are in a restricted area?

really, how can a cadet in a simulator learn something like that?

bubbers44

20th Dec 2010, 06:56

I've been there. You know you can't leave the cockpit and know everything is under control so you hold it and pee just before shutting the door. Didn't use to be that way.

SinglePilotCaptain

20th Dec 2010, 10:47

What a sad little place PPRUNE is....anyone who has spoken up for more experienced pilots as an obvious solution for increasing safety has been banned....

The term 'sell out' isn't quite strong enough to define the type of person who supports practices that put kids in the seats of airliners at the expense of the passengers in back.

SR71

20th Dec 2010, 12:09

greybeard,

I'm not sure I'm any closer to understanding SNS3Guppy's company policy...although I like his sense of humour.

A FO has a go at a Command upgrade and fails. He/She have another go at a Command upgrade, fail, and are now deemed to be unable to perform their role as a FO as well, whereupon he/she is fired?

We are not talking about a proficiency check here, merely a "hoop to jump through" designed by the company in question. On what basis are they fired? Their ability to function in the right hand seat is not being tested in a Command upgrade, is it?

I like the sound of the rest of the stuff.

A seniority driven system in extremis is useless. Add some performance criteria to the selection pool - good. I'm all in favour of an applicant presenting themselves in a fit state for the job they expect to be able to do. Spoon feeding is out.

But my guess is that the ex-mil fraternity who respond better to the "Beat me with a stick and I'll up my game!" are a minority, and that a more symbiotic relationship between candidate and Training Department is likely to extract the best out of them. That is what the airline wants right?

When I passed the pass rate was 10% but I don't think the pressure did me any favours. We all go off the deep end at some point.

I like the sound of studi's outfit...but then who wouldn't.

:ok:

misd-agin

20th Dec 2010, 15:53

Up or out policy. F/E to FO, fail the upgrade, you're fired.

FO to CA, fail the upgrade, you're fired.

It's a long process to get fired. It doesn't occur often but it happens.

protectthehornet

20th Dec 2010, 22:59

some people don't seem to understand this bit about not being able to upgrade to captain.

its this simple...an FO can instantly be a captain if the regular captain is unable to perform his functions.

how can someone who demonstrates they can't upgrade to captain with simulator sessions and an instructor be expected to takeover if the captain eats the fish (read is incapacitated).

no airline worth its salt hires permanent FO's.

if there is a minor medical problem prohibiting obtaining a first class medical and this is the only thing that prohibits upgrade, there might be some wiggle room. but this is a rare thing.

SNS3Guppy

21st Dec 2010, 15:59

A FO has a go at a Command upgrade and fails. He/She have another go at a Command upgrade, fail, and are now deemed to be unable to perform their role as a FO as well, whereupon he/she is fired?

Failed to read, or failed to comprehend?

Whether the FO is capable of performing as an FO is irrelevant. The stakes are set before the applicant before the application is made: be sure you can make the grade: your job is on the line. Take it seriously. If you bid frivolously, you stand to not only lose the upgrade, but your job. How serious are you about making this move? This isn't a question of competence as an FO, but a question about ensuring that those who bid take the full gravity of the matter in hand.

It's a matter of policy. Not at all a matter of being unable to perform as an FO. There are many things that will get a pilot fired. This is one of them. Fail two training events (doesn't have to be an upgrade attempt) in two years, any two training events, and the company has the option to dismiss.

We are not talking about a proficiency check here, merely a "hoop to jump through" designed by the company in question. On what basis are they fired? Their ability to function in the right hand seat is not being tested in a Command upgrade, is it?

Merely a "hoop to jump through?" You see upgrading as merely a hoop through which one must jump? Hardly. The company doesn't see it that way, either. The assertion at the root of this thread is that standards for pilots have dropped; my assertion, based on my example, is that they have not; they are strict and they are tight.

We are talking about a proficiency check. We're talking about a recurrent check. We're talking about an upgrade check. We're talking about a type check. We're talking about any training event, bar nothing, which the applicant fails or fails to complete. The company in this case is staunch enough that even if one leaves the training event for personal reasons, it's considered a failure to complete that training. If one bids for a position and then changes one's mind, it's still considered a training failure. If one drops out of class half-way through and doesn't ever take a checkride, it's still considered a training failure. Two such training failures, in any form, in any combination, in a two year period entitle the company by policy and by union contract, to terminate the employee.

Does this always happen? No.

But I will admit your trigger happy attempt to make that out as the case is amusing!

Mate, I use only your quotes and respond only to your examples. If you want separation from your own words, then plan accordingly when you write them. If you feel you get lumped in with your examples, because you failed to clarify, that's your problem. It's no fun to get hung with your own words, but there you are.

I mentioned the type of questions that were being asked at the [now] CX interview as examples of lowering standards, and you attempted to ridicule it.

I certainly did, because you tell a lie.

You attempt to assert that a cadet applicant, fresh from his mother's breast, signifies the type of questions being asked to pilot applicants. A wannabe learner cadet is not the same as a professional pilot being hired into a pilot seat. A cadet being hired into a training program, a school, isn't the same as a pilot being hired into the cockpit.

You also attempted to cloud the issue by insinuating that HR questions provided an example of lowering pilot standards, and went so far as to suggest that they represented the basis of hiring these days. When drawn out a little more, you were finally revealed in that two sets of questions were given: one was HR. The other involved pilot questions which did, in fact, include technical interrogatives.

Specifically, in your opening post, you stated: "Interview questions used to be along the lines of "How did you accrue your hours? What lessons did you learn? Tell me about Vmca / Vmcg (piston vs twin jet).... How does the IRS work (then strap down gyros, etc...) Nowadays it's: "What do your parents think of you becoming a pilot?" (refer CX Wannabes forum)."

You failed to provide a citation for these CX Wannabe Forum posts, and not until called out later did you provide detail. We know for a fact that Cathay leans heavily on technical questions. You mixed HR questions with examples of what you think should be technical questions, and attempted to draw a parallel. This is deceit at best, and frankly, a lie. Given that HR questions frequently run the gamut from "tell me about a time" to "how does your wife feel about," it's no surprise that an applicant to a cadet program will be asked familial questions. Let's face it: Cathay has long used the cocktail party with the spouse as part of the interview process, and this certainly isn't a technical interrogation, either.

The world does not begin and end at your backyard.

Of course it does. My back yard circumnavigates the globe. Yours too, I imagine.

Hey, if what you write is true then a) if you're happy, good on you! and b) from my experience I would be questioning both recruitment standards and training standards to have a 50% failure rate: something you boast about??!

I haven't boasted in the least. You asserted that standards are low and dropping. I assert that they are not. For your example, you used deceit and a lie. For mine I used an example of strict standards which give little quarter and certainly don't suggest a lowering level of acceptance. If you find the fact to be a boast, you quite possibly see arrogance in a blank sheet of paper. Facts are facts, and the fact is that quality assurance tends to increase.

You strike me as the grizzled antique captain that really does think he's God, who runs the good old-fashioned cockpit with an iron fist, and who believes CRM is for sissies. As training has evolved, we see integration, improvements in views, attitudes, and perceptions, and the trend is toward safer, better training and higher standards. Individuals who used to cut it in the old world won't cut it now, and are either slowly weeded out, or simply retire into oblivion.

Then I pointed out examples of someone elses' post to prove you wrong.

You sure failed there, didn't you? (You did) The problem for you is that you attempted to use deceit to make your point at the outset of the thread, going so far as to suggest it's all mommy and daddy questions these days, not technical questions, then showed us that you referred to two different and distinct groups of questions...which did in fact include technical questions. You stepped on your own anatomy there, mate. What I find comical is that you continue to pound the desk and hold it up as an example. You screwed up.

You put this thread out in a section frequented by non-flyers and the media, some of whom are hungry for a story. What better story than the dizzying downward spiral of pilot quality, and the hapless public that hangs by a fraying thread at their mercy? Your assertion, of course, is in error and a lie, but it didn't stop you not only from putting it out there, but defending it, adamantly, insultingly, and incorrectly. That you continue to do so isn't surprising, because let's face it, you used very little integrity to float this crap in the first place.

I'm not sure I'm any closer to understanding SNS3Guppy's company policy...

Not really that hard to understand, you see. One and one, equals two, and all that. Even a caveman could get it.

A seniority driven system in extremis is useless. Add some performance criteria to the selection pool - good. I'm all in favour of an applicant presenting themselves in a fit state for the job they expect to be able to do. Spoon feeding is out.

I agree whole-heartedly.

But don't you think 50% pass rate on the upgrade is a little low?

I would think so, but that was really the point. The seniority system allowed individuals to bid an upgrade if they had the seniority to do so. It was then their training event to win or lose. They didn't have to be ready, they didn't have to be up to the task, they just had to have the seniority. A number of individuals took a shot, and didn't make it.

I will add that I know a number of those individuals who are now captains, having given it some time, some preparation, and having returned ready to go. Some of them had failed in the simulator, a few didn't make it through the ground school (hard to fail the ground school, both because it's strictly a learning environment, and because that program has some top-flight instructors), and some didn't make it during their line training. Whatever the case (and it's not my place to evaluate who did or didn't make it and why), their failures relegated them to a seat lock position, a long wait, more time in type, and the opportunity to retry after a year, if they desired. If they had elected to try again (for whatever reason) and failed (for whatever reason),then the company would have had the option of sending them packing.

This is company policy. This is also the policy to which the pilot union agreed and which was written into the contract under which the pilot body operates.

Are you seriously that polarized?

No, except insofar as my correct assertion that you're in error, and that you're promoting a lie.

I will grant you that some nations and some companies offer lower standards in training, maintenance, etc. This is the reason that some nations or airlines can't fly into the EU, for example, and the reason that some operations (in some cases) see more problems. We've recently seen a lot of material on pilots in India with false credentials and experience: certainly this represents a lowering of the bar. It's not an indictment on the airline industry, or the aviation industry on a global basis, however, and is related to a select few.

From what I hear it should be more in the region of 90%, everything below is a show of poor initial selection and insufficient training. Or does your company not hire F/O's to be CPT's one day?

I don't know what the current pass or fail rate is among applicants. I know what it's been in the past. I suspect that due to improvements and changes, it's substantially different than what it was, as numerous factors have changed, from personnel to programs to volume; many aspects of what goes on are different. I don't work in the training department, I don't speak for them, and I'm not privy to the statistics today, this morning, right now. I don't know what they should be relative to those whom may apply: shoulda, woulda, coulda. The applicant makes the call; either he cuts it, or he doesn't.

In my initial hire class, the reasons people didn't make it were their own and I won't speculate as to their rationale. I know several didn't make it through the ground school. Some dropped out, some didn't actually pass. One was an experienced airline captain with a major operator who was experiencing a divorce. That individual elected to separate during the class, without any notice. I can't say I blamed them. Another found the material was just too much, and left or was dismissed. I knew two very knowledgeable individuals who were upgrading to the right seat, who didn't make the upgrade. Both knew the airplane well. Both prepared; both went out and rented sim time at great expense, both studied hard Both had years of experience in type. Both had very low pilot time, however, and while they met the company requirements to bid the upgrade, neither were able to make the grade in the simulator. Both had a previous training failure; one due to a family emergency, and the other for unspecified reasons. I still fly with them regularly; neither lost their job. And so on. As I said before, a million stories in the naked city; each an individual case.

I don't think the company presumes one way or the other here, and I think everyone is treated on their own merits.

The individuals who do the hiring are very experienced, and dedicated. They do not hire anybody who walks in off the street. In fact, they've been quite selective. I've recommended a number of individuals thus far, and haven't had any success yet.

I think there's a sense of entitlement with goes with the affirmation "we hire captains." I've had first officers in the past who assured me that my job was to make them a captain. To them I said what I'll say here: my job is what I'm assigned at any given time. If I'm a first officer, my job is to be the best first officer I can be. Nobody owes me an upgrade. If I'm a captain, my job is to be the best captain I can be. I don't owe anybody mentorship or an upgrade. Now, I'll bend over backward to help someone, and I'll study and work hard to upgrade...but nobody owes me the upgrade and nobody will assure me one. If a company hires me as a copilot, then I'm a copilot.

The notion that the company hires captains and that a first officer seat is a transitional job through which one will naturally pass, transcending to the glory of the left seat, is philosophical at best. An individual is hired, and hopefully all will progress and upgrade. Some may make it on the first try, some may not.

One need not be a natural-born captain right off the bat, even though one may hold the seniority to make the attempt.

The company may hire a very competent and qualified pilot who does a wonderful job in the right seat, but who hasn't the international, heavy, or widebody experience to be in a command position yet. Given that upgrades may become available in short order, and given that pilots in other areas may take ten or twenty years at other companies to have that same upgrade opportunity, it's not surprising that an applicant might reach for the stars a little too soon. This doesn't mean that the individual won't make a great captain later, but when seniority allows the employee to reach up before he or she is ready, it's not an indictment on the company. The company hasn't failed to hire someone who will eventually make captain. The employee has failed to wait until he or she is ready, and this is the critical distinction.

Rather than ballyhoo the company that has a high failure rate, look to the employees who run before they should walk, or who try, and who fail to keep in mind the wise advice that simply because one can, doesn't mean one should.

SR71

21st Dec 2010, 17:58

SNS3Guppy,

Failed to read, or failed to comprehend?

Not really that hard to understand, you see. One and one, equals two, and all that. Even a caveman could get it.

I'll let my flying do the talking not my keyboard but I would suggest you lose some of the attitude.

Were my original questions unreasonable? Is your condescension really necessary? Is it impossible your explanation ever lacks clarity? Is your keyboard persona anything like your flightdeck persona?

Just curious.

Not one of us knows the answer to the original question posed in the thread title because we all occupy only our own little corner of the phase space.

Whereupon no need to be dogmatic about it eh?

Merry Christmas.

;)

TopTup

22nd Dec 2010, 02:01

SR71: My sentiments exactly.

I've oddly gone from be accused of being a wannabe/failure of a cadet to deceitful aggressive, assertive Capt. Am proud to say neither.

As this thread draws to a close at the very least "most" managed to contribute to a constructive & professional argument. Others chose a self indulgent means to express and belittle thus highlighting the theme of this thread.

Merry Christmas to all. Have a safe & professional 2011.

Rananim

22nd Dec 2010, 06:08

You asserted that standards are low and dropping. I assert that they are not.

I dont concur but it depends on whats important to you as a pilot.Theres too much automation-reliance and SOP fixation in todays flying and I wouldnt mind so much if it wasnt at the expense of airmanship and good stick-and-rudder skills,but it is.I too have seen pilots who just wont take the automation out or who cant fly a simple ILS manually without any aid.And if its anything more complex like an arc or hold,then forget it altogether.I see pilots who are so rote-oriented that they'll actually blanket out an ATC call or something else important so that a piffling procedure thats supposed to be performed at a set time can be accomplished instead.KInd of reminds me of that Swiss Captain who told his FO to watch his speed in the descent when the plane was burning.Or the Turkish crew who forgot to just fly the aircraft and monitor basic parameters on approach.Rules and procedures in the cockpit are fine and I'm not making light of them.But rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.Corny but absolutely true.I think its sad when I see a pilot that can quote the SOP manual verbatim but cant actually fly the plane except via the AFDS.To me thats a clear case of priorities gone haywire.

You strike me as the grizzled antique captain that really does think he's God, who runs the good old-fashioned cockpit with an iron fist, and who believes CRM is for sissies.

Very emotive language and a complete exaggeration.Is Sully grizzled?Because believe me,you cant do what he did without a very high level of airmanship borne of years of exprience.His decision to immediately exclude a landing on terra firma wasnt based on anything you find in a book or manual on how to fly.Plus apparently he was fighting complex Airbus laws on what pitch he could command in the final seconds.HOw about them apples?You think you get through something like that with an SOP manual and flying by numbers?

I remember a post from SNS3Guppy a while back about returning for a cat 3 landing when only cat 1 qualified to save the life of a passenger.His opinion was if the card said cat 1,you were cat 1 and thats the end of it.Didnt matter that you may have had years of experience of cat 3 approaches and that your authorization may have just lapsed.If you are experienced in cat 3 approaches and can genuinely save the life of someone aboard by returning immediately instead of flying one hour to find a cat 1 field and have the passenger die,then to me the answer is clear.Its an emergency and you are the Captain,you make a command decision.Thats old-school and thats the way I like it.

SNS3Guppy

22nd Dec 2010, 06:16

Because believe me,you cant do what he did without a very high level of airmanship borne of years of exprience.

You can't make a forced landing off-field? Better pack it in now. You're not worth a grain of salt.

I remember a post from SNS3Guppy a while back about returning for a cat 3 landing when only cat 1 qualified to save the life of a passenger.His opinion was if the card said cat 1,you were cat 1 and thats the end of it.Didnt matter that you may have had years of experience of cat 3 approaches and that your authorization may have just lapsed.If you are experienced in cat 3 approaches and can genuinely save the life of someone aboard by returning immediately instead of flying one hour to find a cat 1 field and have the passenger die,then to me the answer is clear.Its an emergency and you are the Captain,you make a command decision.Thats old-school and thats the way I like it.

That's not what was said, but if you can't bother to link it, don't say it. You might try sticking to the subject, but you appear to do what most eventually do; with nothing intelligent to offer on the subject at hand, introduce irrelevance and hope it smokes and clouds the issue.

His decision to immediately exclude a landing on terra firma wasnt based on anything you find in a book or manual on how to fly.

Sure it was. Student Pilot 101. There's even a checklist for ditching. Go figure.

It wasn't "terra firma," incidentally.

Is it impossible your explanation ever lacks clarity?

Nearly anything is possible, but not very likely.

Is your keyboard persona anything like your flightdeck persona?

One, and the same.

Old Fella

22nd Dec 2010, 07:49

At last Guppy has admitted he is a keyboard pilot!!! Still waiting for your admission that you don't know how an Allison T56 reduction gearbox is lubricated Guppy. Nothing in Tech Log or an e-mail.

Jabiman

22nd Dec 2010, 09:14

SNS3Guppy and others make some solid arguments which are hard to argue with (especially if you don’t want to be ridiculed).
So for the sake of argument, let us accept the points that he is making:

1) Airmanship is irrelevant and following CRM and SOP’s is enough to avert disasters.

2) Training is enough to bring even novices up to acceptable FO standard, prior GA experience is irrelevant.

3) Those who cant make the grade will be cut by those airlines which maintain a high standard.

On the other hand we must also consider the consequences of this line of thinking. It is indisputable that cost control is a strong force acting on management and the current trend has been to cut T&C’s in order to generate maximum profits in what is after all a cut throat industry.
The trend of pay to fly line training, where candidates use money to jump the queue and gain experience in the RHS may therefore result in the following outcomes in SOME airlines (not necessarily Guppys airline which seems to be beyond reproach):

1) The candidates which should have been culled out due to lack of ability instead remain in the RHS till the completion of their line training hours due to the profit motivation of management (and maybe beyond if they are prepared to accept even lower T & C's).

2) Once T&C’s has been cut to the bone then the next facet of cost cutting might become the training itself.

3) Conceivably this cost cutting could eventually extend to the LHS where Captains who are highly renumerated are replaced by the promotion of someone who will cost less (for as Guppy said, all that is required is training and adherance to SOP's, experience counts for nothing so why should airlines pay for it?)

Tee Emm

22nd Dec 2010, 12:50

Not at all a matter of being unable to perform as an FO.

And how about the recalcitrant F/O in a large domestic airline who has been the subject of at least five reports for insolence and deliberate smart-arsing back to captains yet management has a policy of not sacking pilots. The inference from management to those who went to the trouble of writing detailed reports on this character was DEAL WITH IT and don't come to us with your problems. :mad:

SNS3Guppy

22nd Dec 2010, 13:09

At last Guppy has admitted he is a keyboard pilot!!!

You, with the reading comprehension problem, again. I saw your PM, fishing once more for material. Forget it. Don't waste my time.

So for the sake of argument, let us accept the points that he is making:

1) Airmanship is irrelevant and following CRM and SOP’s is enough to avert disasters.

2) Training is enough to bring even novices up to acceptable FO standard, prior GA experience is irrelevant.

3) Those who cant make the grade will be cut by those airlines which maintain a high standard.

I said nothing of airmanship being irrelevant, nor of CRM and SOP's being "enough to avert disasters." Put words in your own mouth, not mine. If that's what you believe, fine, but it's not what I said, nor what I believe, and it's incorrect and untrue.

I said nothing about training being enough to bring novices to a standard, nor about irrelevancy of prior general aviation experience. Again speak for yourself, if you can.

If an airline elects to cut an employee who fails to meet specified standards, so be it.

(for as Guppy said, all that is required is training and adherance to SOP's, experience counts for nothing so why should airlines pay for it?)

I said no such thing. Again, can you think and speak for yourself, or must you attempt to build on the words that others didn't say to make the point you don't have?

Experience is everything. Hours are without meaning.

And how about the recalcitrant F/O in a large domestic airline who has been the subject of at least five reports for insolence and deliberate smart-arsing back to captains yet management has a policy of not sacking pilots. The inference from management to those who went to the trouble of writing detailed reports on this character was DEAL WITH IT and don't come to us with your problems.

What has this to do with the price of tea in China?

This is neither a training issue, nor a competence issue.

More over, you've introduced it in response to a comment I made regarding a policy of terminating pilots who fail training events. You're trying to compare contractual policies regarding training with a pilot who makes sarcastic comments? Not an apples-to-apples comparison at all.

Not really related to the thread at all, either.

misd-agin

22nd Dec 2010, 21:10

"Experience is everything. Hours are without meaning."

Zero hours = zero experience. You need hours to get experience. There's a balance.

Jabiman

22nd Dec 2010, 21:48

Experience is everything. Hours are without meaning
So if experience is not defined by hours, how can it be done, not by flight simulator training by the looks of it:
Boeing 747 and Airbus A380 Aircraft News from Flightglobal (http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/06/29/343714/nasa-airstar-taking-the-simulator-out-to-play.html)
Airline pilot training today is largely based on full-flight simulators that are calibrated to a fairly limited flight-verified and windtunnel tested envelope. Since there is typically no data on which to model handling characteristics in extreme attitudes and post-stall regions, simulators and the pilots flying them can not train in that regime, creating a situation where pilots may experience a condition in flight for which they have not previously trained.

protectthehornet

22nd Dec 2010, 22:57

$$$$ and the GA route.

When I was paying for my first ''license'', the quote rate for a private pilot certificate was about $1000.00 us...that's one thousand dollars.

gasoline was pretty cheap at about 35 cents a gallon. a chevy automobile was about 3000 dollars. now a days, gas is about three dollars and thirty cents a gallon, a chevy is between 27,000 and 30,000 dollars...or more actually ( I am comparing camaro to camaro!).

i earned $1.65 an hour working in a crappy hardware store to earn enough to fly.

I really don't think flying is all that expensive if you look at it from all other inflation changes.

And there were not any friendly financing for flight lessons then...it was cash on the barrel head.

if you want to fly, its hard...if it was easy, everyone would do it and there would be alot more crashes.

Old Fella

23rd Dec 2010, 01:09

SNS3Guppy. You, Sir, are one of the most self-opinionated individuals I have ever encountered. Your only response to being told that you have erred is to ridicule those who KNOW YOU ARE WRONG. At least have the intestinal fortitude to admit that you made a mistake, if not publicly, at least with a PM. As for "fishing for information", I will seek authoritative information on a subject from the manufacturer if I need it. In the case I cited your response was "You're Wrong". Well Mr Guppy, I know I was not wrong and, I suspect, so do you. I am amazed that the Moderators allow you to be such an arrogant old man on a public forum. A common aspect of most of your "lectures" is to belittle anyone whom has the temerity to question anything you say. I would guess that I could count your friends on one hand, if not on one finger.

SNS3Guppy

23rd Dec 2010, 07:01

So if experience is not defined by hours, how can it be done, not by flight simulator training by the looks of it:

10,000 hours of 747 experience is not the same as 10,000 hours of Cessna 152 experience.

Experience is everything. Hours are not.

Croqueteer

23rd Dec 2010, 08:23

:ok:Wear heavier boots.

timzsta

23rd Dec 2010, 09:14

in my last - well I am just an FI - but I think the problem lies with your FO, not you! I would have expected in the very early stages of his training - ie when he did his night qualification which he needed to do to get his CPL, he would have had it ingrained in him to have two suitable torches and spare batteries.

Sulking when you know you have done wrong. Not very mature.....

Flatface

23rd Dec 2010, 09:14

and suggest that he start his walkaround from the beginning, if he makes any remark besides an apology for coming ill equipped to perform his duties, take his iPhone and call the flight safety manager and request his advise on the matter.

Old Fella

23rd Dec 2010, 09:32

IMLA, are you for real? As the PIC you don't need to worry about your incompetent F/O complaining about you. You should have given him a dressing down on the spot and told him YOU would request he not be rostered with you again. A walk around at night using an iPhone as a means of illumination is almost so stupid as to be unbelievable. I don't know for whom you work, but if your annual appraisal would be adverse because you pulled the F/O into line you should find another employer. Are you sure you are not looking for a "wind up" here?

Tinribs

23rd Dec 2010, 10:32

Your experience indicates a range of problems in your workplace

Why did this FO not have a suitable light with him and why did he not use it or ask for yours. How many of your flights have departed after poor walkrounds by him or others

Using the administrative route how about suggesting at your next training meeting that the company installs suitable torches on the aircraft for walkrounds as some FOs don't seem to have them. The company will, off course, refuse and issue a crew notice reminding all pilots to carry a suitable torch and in the fullness of time a note will appear in your ops manual requiring them to be carried. A suitable simulator scenario inject could make a light handy. word would soon go round.

It might be worth discussing tax allowances with your problem FO and, in a helpfull way, point out that the annual agreed allowance includes such items of personal equipment.

There are a small minority of FOs, and even some captains, who think they win by minimising their part of the job. Usually such an attitude is it's own reward in the long term

Having recently retired after a long and generally uneventfull career I sincerely applaud your attitude in seeking to correct a problem in the most acceptable way. Of such attitudes is good crm and safe flight made

DADDY-OH!

23rd Dec 2010, 10:50

'In my last airline',

I can do better than that.

I was PM with a '200hr Boy Wonder' who has established in the Company Inner Circle for a couple of years, down to the Eastern Med' last summer when we encountered the expected CB's over the Balkans. I could see a nasty looking chunk about 100-150 miles ahead over an FIR boundary waypoint. I adjusted my weather radar display until the blob announced itself. I glanced across at my colleague who was examining something on his iphone. I assumed he had spotted said build up & was photographing it.

Then over the r/t traffic ahead of us started asking for deviations upwind (to the south or right of track) of the cell(s) & their adjustments were visible as they were contrailing.

We were now down to around 60-80 miles from the CB's & I was keen to see what 'Boy Wonders' plans to avoid would be so I gently prompted with a "...looks like a bit of weather ahead...". He grunted, glanced up from his iphone, pressed the HDG SEL button & wound it a random amount of degrees to the left, or north or downwind of the cells. I watched him do this & he never checked his radar display, what action other traffic was taking, never asked me to advise ATC or gave me a determined amount of degrees deviation from track. I was stunned.

I simply said "No, *****. I have control", turned the HDG SEL button to a suitable avoiding heading based upon a practical EXPERIENCED BASED ASSESSMENT of what was required & announced to ATC our action.

When I was satisfied we were safely avoiding the CB, I glanced across at the FO to cut him a "I'm very f*****g p****d off with you!" glare only to meet a face of indifference coupled with an iphone earphone trailing out of his right ear & a motor racing game still running on his phone.

Then it spoke. "Don't you ever do that to me again!" I had been warned.

It was checklist items only for the remainder of the flight & subsequent sector & I had no qualms about insisting that rostering/crewing NEVER put us together again. I also told some good friends of mine in the company about this who are Trainers. Apparently his subsequent LPC/OPC was 'interesting'.

I then flew a few weeks later with a very experienced F/O from the self improver route. We were coming back to the UK from the Canaries. Overhead SW Portugal just about to go through the motions of gaining the Oceanic clearance for a Tango route when a cursory check of the systems showed a rapidly reducing level of Crew Oxygen (400psi & falling when should normally be around 1200psi, 1000psi min.downroute despatch). We called Company on HF & they said they would support what ever action we deemed necessary. I suggested the best plan of action would be request a re-route overland & to make best speed to destination with a threshold absolute minimum level of O2 if reached then a diversion.

I was PF & advised the PM that I wanted the radio in order to advise ATC the nature of our problem whilst asking the PM the call company on HF & advise them of our intentions. By the time I had relayed our situation to ATC, copied & confirmed an initial re-route to the next FIR, the PM had retrieved & opened the relevant part of the MEL & PartB, found the required NAV charts & found time to make 'proud' a few agreed potential 'Alternate' Airfield booklets in the NAV bag on my side.

I would never fly with the 200hr Boy Wonder again if I could possibly help it but the experienced self improver I would fly with anytime & hope he was with me if I ever encounter a problem again.

There really is no substitute for experience regardless of what the accountants say & as the bean counters have no operational licence or relevant airmanship experience, I pay scant regard to what they say.

I'm sure if people dug enough, they would discover a correlation between the relative inexperience (against an industry average) of Ryanair crews & their unusually high number of incidents.

Jabiman

23rd Dec 2010, 11:14

10,000 hours of 747 experience is not the same as 10,000 hours of Cessna 152 experience.

Experience is everything. Hours are not.
Agreed.
So as this hypothetical Cessna pilot would have had a much more 'eventful' career, may we assume that he would, in all probability, also have much greater airmanship skill?
And can we also agree, that subsequently, if he was to get a 747 TR, he may not be a better FO than a 200 hour cadet in routine operations but his prior 'experience' would, in any emergency situation, give him a capabality far beyond that of the cadet?

in my last airline

23rd Dec 2010, 11:23

Folks it was a true story. However, my sarcasm was with the industry best practice way of getting the message across to your colleague without him bursting into tears, or telling his mummy or suing you or the company. It just seems that our hands are tied somewhat and that this poor excuse for an aviator is becoming more apparent. A little bit of stick won't hurt will it? Or shall we just keep stuffing them with carrots? I won't mention FO's turning up with make-up on or ear rings, thats another days work.

The FO's who 'play' with their iphones and sit there in perfect oblivious tranquility with their $1000 noise cancelling headset on are not really pilots are they? What to do?
;)

Tee Emm

23rd Dec 2010, 12:58

He grunted, glanced up from his iphone, pressed the HDG SEL button & wound it a random amount of degrees to the left, or north or downwind of the cellsIn my day we never gave a first officer a leg. As captain you are fully responsible for choosing to give your first officer a take off or a landing. But never a leg. When the time eventually arrives for the F/O to reach command line training in the left seat, then he can make the decisions under the watchful eye of his training captain and fly the legs as directed.
The flight deck is not a democracy. Too many captains forget that, and bend over backwards to accommodate the first officer while inwardly gritting his teeth when he sees the F/O is not doing what the captain would do himself if he (the captain) had done "the leg".

Sharing responsibility for storm avoidance as in waiting patiently for the copilot to make up his mind which way to turn off track, is a classic example where the captain is abrogating his command responsibility. If the captain has chosen to permit the copilot to fly the complete leg, that is fine. But the captain directs the flight path to avoid storms en-route. He does not ask his copilot which way would he like to turn.

Like his counterpart on an ocean going liner, the captain of an aircraft has reached that rank based upon his maturity and experience. One day his first officer will reach that rank providing he passes the required legislative tests. In the meantime his primary task is that of copilot.

This does not automatically grant the captain the right to act in an arrogant one man band manner. But the time is long overdue when captains should not be overwhelmed by political correctness in terms of fawning to first officers just to be thought the nice guy. . Familiarity breeds contempt on the flight deck as we have seen in this thread where the first officer plays with his personal electronic game during his "leg". Captains need to lift their game and not play "mates" to their copilots. Only then will captains earn the professional respect demanded of their position and responsibility.

protectthehornet

23rd Dec 2010, 13:56

in my last airline:

simply point out that if he drops his ipad/ipod or whatever it is, it will cost XXXX to replace. If he drops and damages aflashlight it will cost a couple of bucks to replace.

then do a walk around with him with your normal flashlight, hopefully a big one and that if a stowaway in the wheel well attacked him, you could use your flashlight as a club to defend yourself.

And then do a walkaround and use the superior illumination of your flashlight to discover a problem that he missed.

I could spot a missing rivet at 100 feet...the modern copilot walkaround is: walk under plane, walk away from plane...check to see if you are dirtier or have pieces of plane on your uniform.

check complete.

remember, pilots are cheap and he will want to save his ipad

DADDY-OH!

23rd Dec 2010, 15:05

Tee Emm

I sincerely hope you're not insinuating I'm a weak Captain. To assume you know my standards, operating style & cockpit manner when you know neither me nor anyone who has operated with me could be construde as arrogant.

"In my day we never gave a First Officer a "leg"...." speaks volumes... Mayte.

White Knight

23rd Dec 2010, 19:23

Sorry daddy-oh, but Tee emm makes a very reasonable assertion:ugh: Don't EVER take backlip from an F/O:E

And yep - I'll choose when the F/O gets a leg or not. MY decision and it's final:ok: Same for weather avoidance... I'll decide which way to go having listened to the F/O's ideas first - but left or right will always be MY call...

Reverserbucket

23rd Dec 2010, 19:44

Very shocked to see an FO doing a walkaround at night using his iPhone as a flashlight!

Probably the same guy who as a student used his mobile phone for timing purposes "well I don't have a watch do I - the school never gave me one" for navigation sorties, or who doesn't wear a belt with his uniform "cos the company doesn't issue one" etc.

There's a lot to be said for basic grooming and conditioning of young people today compared with the past and without meaning to sound like an old fart, I work with a lot of these 200 hour jet-cadets and am frequently surprised at the level of arrogance and lack of self-discipline exhibited in a once proud and highly professional industry.

Is it society and the education system that has given many of them such a strong sense of empowerment which, paired with mediocre technical and communication skills leads to this less than desirable situation?

oldchina

23rd Dec 2010, 20:01

"Is it society and the education system that has given many of them such a strong sense of empowerment"

No, it's management that doesn't manage.

An annual interview process by a manager telling the truth would sort it out pronto.

Too many "managers" think their job is to be cuddly with their staff, lest they complain.

bubbers44

23rd Dec 2010, 20:01

Probably the ease that these 200 hr wonders with their Daddy's money slid into the jobs with little personal effort make them like that. In the past you had to earn the FO seat with a lot of experience flying lowly jobs flying freight at night, instructing, etc. Now after Daddy puts you through college he can pay to make you an airline FO with minimal personal effort. Of course he won't respect his captain or feel he needs to do a professional job. He has never done it in his past so why now?

oldchina

23rd Dec 2010, 20:05

As I said:

WHERE'S THE MANAGEMENT?

stuckgear

23rd Dec 2010, 20:05

so perhaps bubbers, you could be paraphrased to 'it takes time and experience to respect the right seat position also'.

Denti

23rd Dec 2010, 20:55

Over here the 200 wonder cadet is a thing that has been normal for the last 60 years in airlines, so nothing new at all about it.

Reverserbucket

23rd Dec 2010, 22:22

Denti,

Agree entirely that the cadet system is not new however the attitude of a number of these young men and women (not all) has changed in the years I've been flying. I recall a more motivated, enthusiastic and focussed individual than many of those today who appear to have entered aviation by default rather than through desire for a good career and ability.

oldchina,

Yes I'd agree with that to a point as well - weak management right from selection through to the line.

Old Fella

24th Dec 2010, 01:23

I know I'm an old codger and not a Commercial Pilot, but some of what I read leaves me cold. I have spent tens of thousands of hours as a F/E flying with pilots from both Military and Civil backgrounds. Gentlemen, management is not the sole province of the Administrators. Cockpit management dictates that the Captain is in command, no matter who the Handling Pilot is and, ultimately, it is he/she who bears responsibility for the safety of the aircraft and passengers. To read that some with a Command are concerned that they may upset the F/O by pointing out his/her shortcomings and that to do so may reflect adversely on the Commanders annual evaluation is indicative of the whole society in which we now live. When will someone have the balls to say that the "softly softly" approach does not work? I know I would be much more comfortable flying with a Commander who is not afraid to assert his/her authority when required than flying with one who is fearful of upsetting the "petals" under his/her command.

ILScat3c

24th Dec 2010, 04:19

Total time in excess of 1,000 hours
Excess of 500 hours on B747-400
Last flight on B747-400 within the past 90 days, ideally with 3 take offs and landings (including one at night)

I guess this clearly answers our question. AIRMAN is DEAD.

protectthehornet

24th Dec 2010, 05:38

note, no navigational experience is requested

korean air...well, their planes are a nice shade of blue...but I wouldn't want to fly for them

SNS3Guppy

24th Dec 2010, 06:09

Agreed.

No: you missed the point by several wide miles.

So as this hypothetical Cessna pilot would have had a much more 'eventful' career, may we assume that he would, in all probability, also have much greater airmanship skill?

Why on earth would you assume the Cessna pilot would have a "much more eventful career? Why would you assume that the Cessna pilot would have greater airmanship or skill? Assumptions are ridiculous, but in fine, these particular assumptions are particularly ridiculous.

The pilot who flies a thousand hours has not the same experience as the pilot who flies the same hour a thousand times.

And can we also agree, that subsequently, if he was to get a 747 TR, he may not be a better FO than a 200 hour cadet in routine operations but his prior 'experience' would, in any emergency situation, give him a capabality far beyond that of the cadet?

We cannot agree. We do not know the experience of that pilot. A thousand hours means nothing. The experience he gained in those thousand hours is everything. A thousand hours, or ten thousand hours does not imply experience. It implies ink in a logbook and numbers. Not experience.

in my last airline

24th Dec 2010, 06:29

Old China and Old Fella - you are both spot on. Management are to blame and do to are the labour government for introducing their education bill where 'everyones a winner' box ticking standard lowering policies designed to make the population think it's getting smarter, and the Legal system for pandering to the 'Claims' that go through the court system to the bonus systems that make management focus on getting bums in cockpits at all costs (without getting sued) to mummy and daddy who don't want their kids playing competitive sports. That is why my FO thought I was wrong to chastise him for using his iPhone to do the walkaround. If I had adopted a stronger stance there is every chance that bloke, if he went on to fail the course, would somehow deem that the catalyst was created by me at that point and his subsequent poor performance was due to his confidence being lost. In essence he would be blaming ME! That may well turn into a disciplinary meeting. No problems there if you handled the student in a polite, friendly, relaxed, positive (you know, all the buzz words) way. Management would then bend over backwards to help him, not because that's the right thing to do but, because they dont need a court case and they do need a pilot.
My rant is over. That feels better. And don't worry Old Fella I will continue to address these issues head on rather than the shrinking violet approach!

SR71

24th Dec 2010, 10:25

"Experience is everything. Hours are without meaning."

Yeah I'm sure Freyholtz and Holland thought the same thing as they piled their hundred million dollar plus aircraft into the ground.

Nearly anything is possible, but not very likely.

Yeah I'm sure Freyholtz and Holland thought the same thing as they piled their hundred million dollar plus aircraft into the ground.

Experience is nothing without the commensurate attitude as these pilots demonstrate.

Keep on trucking.

Centaurus

24th Dec 2010, 13:24

I've been there. You know you can't leave the cockpit and know everything is under control so you hold it and pee just before shutting the door. Didn't use to be that way.

On an allied subject, there has been considerable Pprune discussions on the problem as perceived by some of the older correspondents, of lack of manual flying skills in cadet or low hour pilots who have been brought up on a steady diet of all automatics.

The recent Air India Express B737-800 debacle re-ignited that debate on another forum. That was where the captain went for leak and the first officer (who first flew the 737 on graduation as a new pilot) succeeded in losing control of the automatic pilot (now that is a hard thing to do of course). The aircraft did all sorts of unusual attitudes under the temporary command of the panic driven first officer while the captain hammered on the cockpit door trying to get in.

Discussions on the subject of manual versus automatic skills, has been going on in the industry for a few years and more recently where Loss of Control has become the prime common factor of accidents. It used to be CFIT but sophisticated GPWS and other navigational goodies seems to have fixed that problem on most occasions.

A few days ago I picked up a December 1987 Flight International at a garage sale. Lo and behold I found this at page 34 under the heading of the Go-Minded Pilot. It was one of several lectures at the 1987 Flight Safety Foundation's Seminar Tokyo Seminar. Edited for brevity.

Capt Heino Caesar, Lufthansa's GM flight ops and safety said "we have to retrain our crews with advanced simulators to ensure mastery of basic skills and the ability to fly by hand and raw data." Caesar is concerned about the low number of manually flown take-offs and landings in typical long-range operation. The circle pf professionalism began with handling some 30 years ago, and has gone through standard operating procedures, cockpit management, automation and today complacency. We must get back to proficiency again, said Caesar.

Captain Ashok Poduval of Indian Airlines, said automation has led aircraft into unusual attitudes. Quoting the manufacturer of an FMS about "exploiting digital technology to the full", Poduval regretted that while no effort is spared in the development of hardware and softwear, "liveware" issues are often relegated. Poduval is concerned that the pilot systems manager, having done nothing for hundreds of uneventful flights as a "passive, uninvolved watcher," might be suddenly confronted by an emergency requiring him to become an active participant instantly.

He said accident investigation has revealed that very often there is a reluctance on the part of the flight crew to uncouple an automated flight system and take over manual control - even when the automatic system is approaching or operating beyond the system limitation.

Prolonged and error-free functioning by electronic marvels induce boredom and monotony, said Roduval. This leads to complacency and excessive dependance on systems. The pilot expects the automatics to perfom as they always have done, and this aggravates his role as a poor monitor.

Poduval does not think that modern technology can alter the fundamentals of flying. To view it on flat screens "much akin to a realistic 3D video game would be most undesirable and unsafe".
............................................................ ....................................

And that was in 1987. Nothing has changed much, except loss of control accidents have increased. But still airlines and manufacturers continue to push full use of automation without the balance of manual flying to keep up basic flying skills. With the continued introduction of low hour first officers especially into low cost carriers,and their training accent on automation rather than equal accent on manual raw data and automation, watch this space for the next Loss of Control report.

Denti

24th Dec 2010, 13:56

And now rethink a bit, as you so aptly quote Cpt Caesar was most concerned about the lack of manual flying in its companies long-range operation. Lufthansa always supplied most of its entry level pilots via its own school, aka your typical 200 hour wonder (back then probably 450 hours, nowadays 70 hours). He wasn't concerned about them, he was concerned about his experienced long-range pilots. Of course very strict selection and training provided a pretty good entry level pilot and still does, same for other companies that take it as serious. Not all do though, and those are the ones we all have to be concerned about.

SNS3Guppy

24th Dec 2010, 18:48

Management are to blame and do to are the labour government for introducing their education bill where 'everyones a winner' box ticking standard lowering policies designed to make the population think it's getting smarter, and the Legal system for pandering to the 'Claims' that go through the court system to the bonus systems that make management focus on getting bums in cockpits at all costs (without getting sued) to mummy and daddy who don't want their kids playing competitive sports.

Congratulations! You have mastered the run-on sentence. After editing it several times to make it intelligible, I strongly suggest a correspondence course in punctuation. You'll be glad you did.

Yeah I'm sure Freyholtz and Holland thought the same thing as they piled their hundred million dollar plus aircraft into the ground.

Experience is nothing without the commensurate attitude as these pilots demonstrate.

Keep on trucking.

Neither one was particularly experienced. Only in the self-celebratory world of the military conceit were they remotely experienced.

As I said, if one flies the same hour a thousand times, it doesn't equate to experience. Hours mean nothing.

protectthehornet

24th Dec 2010, 20:09

oh boy

ok

if you make 1000 landings at the same airport over a period of two years is one landing any different than the next?

HELL YES IT IS DIFFERENT...the wind is different, the sun angle, the weight of the plane, your fatigue factor

there are all sorts of things to learn for every hour in the air...if you know how to learn

White Knight

24th Dec 2010, 21:06

In essence he would be blaming ME! That may well turn into a disciplinary meeting.

Sorry mate - but you've been taken for a PC ride:mad: YOU as captain should TELL IT LIKE IT IS:=:=

If I'd had an arsy F/O like that he wouldn't even get to use the radios....

The BUCK stops with the skipper..... PERIOD! As our Yankee cousins would say

SNS3Guppy

24th Dec 2010, 21:28

If I had adopted a stronger stance there is every chance that bloke, if he went on to fail the course, would somehow deem that the catalyst was created by me at that point and his subsequent poor performance was due to his confidence being lost. In essence he would be blaming ME!

So what?

You're the captain. Think about it. Do you really care which underling blames you? Ultimate responsibility for the safe outcome of the flight rests with you, not your subordinates. Listen to them, cooperate with them, comfort them, teach them...but when it comes to correcting them, do you really give a whit if they like it, or not?

Jabiman

25th Dec 2010, 09:02

Hours mean nothing.
You keep saying that, like a broken record, but offer no alternative or method of measuring experience, training....airmanship.

SNS3Guppy

25th Dec 2010, 09:17

Really? It bears repeating again, then. Hours mean nothing.

Jabiman

25th Dec 2010, 09:23

And yet most, nay all, air operators specify minimum hours for any flight crew vacancy. Go figure?

SNS3Guppy

25th Dec 2010, 09:30

And yet most, nay all, air operators specify minimum hours for any flight crew vacancy. Go figure?

Certainly as a HR function, yes. The published minimums are really quite meaningless, however, as it's the competitive minimums that rule the day.

A company that advertises a published minimum of 1,500 hours, but which is hiring pilots with ample international heavy experinece and 15,000 hours for example, hires at the competitive minimum established by those applicants competing for the job.

SNS3Guppy

25th Dec 2010, 09:37

An aircraft captain worrying about what an FO thinks when being corrected for a safety issue, becomes a safety concern himself.

The "beancounters" have no bearing on the issue.

We make professional decisions based on what is right and correct. Not what a subordinate may think.

odericko2000

25th Dec 2010, 10:40

Somebody on this thread is bashing every one and is now looking ridiculous contradicting himself.
If the competitive minimums set by applicants goes up to 15,000 hours and ample wide body experience, whereas the published mins. Were 1500hrs. then the HR department of the said airline bases it's minimum cut off for their interviews based on the types of heavy machinery and experience whereby in this case is going to be quantified in hours of flight.
Remember the recruiters doing the shortlisting of the 'applying candidates' have neither met nor flown with these wannabes, so their shortlisting is largely based on 'ample experience' which in this case can only be established by looking at types and hours provided on candidates resume.
Somehow the mr. Know it all is still going to try and convince us hours count for jerk. Go on kidding yourself, the argument that hours count for nothing can be argued very broadly as has been said on this thread severally, it all depends how, where and doing what or in this case flying what but generally speaking a 5,000 hour rated co pilot isn't the same as a 250 hour straight from flying school F/O. Remember I said generally speaking.
Your rants are now welcome, go on!

Jabiman

26th Dec 2010, 07:40

Certainly as a HR function, yes. The published minimums are really quite meaningless, however, as it's the competitive minimums that rule the day.
A company that advertises a published minimum of 1,500 hours, but which is hiring pilots with ample international heavy experinece and 15,000 hours for example, hires at the competitive minimum established by those applicants competing for the job.
And this is where your argument falls apart.
Airlines are in an extremely competitive environment with massive oversupply of pilots. A lot of airlines are losing money and struggling to survive, while most others are on razor thin margins.
The beancounters have figured out that by cutting crew T & C’s by 10% they can increase profits by 50% or more.
As this also results in bonuses for managers, and as this is one of the few controllable expenses then it is the trough to which they will continue to go to.
These experience pilots are going to be forced to work on ever decreasing salaries and if they refuse then there is someone less experienced willing to take their place.
From another thread on these forums:
i have the same problem as cuvcap but on A320.
Ttl hours 8.000, valid CPT ratings on A 320 but no flight on aircraft since february.
Does anybody have an idea where i may have the possibility to get flights, i would go for three month without any salary to compensate costs for the company.
http://www.pprune.org/terms-endearment/435040-recency-type.html (http://www.pprune.org/terms-endearment/435040-recency-type.html)

And the tail spin to the bottom is what this thread is all about.

SNS3Guppy

26th Dec 2010, 13:53

"Beancounters" is a term which keeps coming up here, suggesting as the original post alleges, that airlines are seeking to reduce the experience base and professional competence of the typical cockpit crewmember.

This is, of course, patently untrue.

And this is where your argument falls apart.
Airlines are in an extremely competitive environment with massive oversupply of pilots.

Quite an observation, given that all the talk is nothing but the so-called impending pilot shortage. I agree with you, however: we have no shortage, never have, and never will. We presently have ample qualified pilots seeking work. We are not seeing an influx of inexperienced aviators. Operators have an ample base of significant experience from which to draw, hence the high competitive minimums. Accordingly, my "argument" does not fall apart. It's consistent, and correct.

These experience pilots are going to be forced to work on ever decreasing salaries and if they refuse then there is someone less experienced willing to take their place.

I don't believe I've ever worked for an employer that cut my wages. It's come up, and I've been asked to make wage concessions. I've refused. Consistently, my career has seen a salary increase with time, and with employment. While I've taken new jobs, contract assignments, temporary work, and other duties that have paid less, I've not seen a decrease with any given employer over time. My wage has either been consistent in accordance with a contract, or has increased with longevity.

If you're talking about pilots who lose their employment and seek other employment, it's certainly possible that they may be forced to take a lower paying job. Don't blame that on the beancounters; not every employer pays the same, and let's face it: if furloughs and layoffs are in progress, the economy is down. The economy is down, expect the market to become employer-driven. The market becomes an employer's market.

This does not diminish the professionalism of crews. Lower pay does not equate to lower professionalism, or diminished airmanship. Your parallel is non-sequitur.

And the tail spin to the bottom is what this thread is all about.

No, the thread is built on a lie, and serves as fodder for the hungry media specialists out there seeking to build a story. In this case, a story about nothing.

If the competitive minimums set by applicants goes up to 15,000 hours and ample wide body experience, whereas the published mins. Were 1500hrs. then the HR department of the said airline bases it's minimum cut off for their interviews based on the types of heavy machinery and experience whereby in this case is going to be quantified in hours of flight.

No. Competitive minimums increase where more experienced pilots are available to compete for a given position. In nearly all cases, competitive minimums are well above published minimums.

Competitive numbers aren't necessarily flight hour numbers. The possession of a type rating, prior experience in the desired line of work, previous experience in type, command experience, etc, all serve as factors to make a pilot more desirable.

I tend to hire into positions with specialty experience. Often when I'm hired for a job, it's not based on my hours, or certainly not on my hours alone. When I take a job, it's not based on who is paying the most. In some cases, I'm hired based on my experience in a particular type of flying operation, or in a particular type of equipment. My dedication to a particular assignment, be it temporary, long term, contract, direct employment, or otherwise, is not contingent on what I'm getting paid. It's not contingent on the type of equipment I'm flying. I have gone from large turbojet to small piston and back, single to multi, multi to single, turbojet to piston to turboprop to turbojet, and back and forth. My own dedication to the assignment, my level of attention, my professionalism, and my effort have not diminished between assignments.

You would suggest that as airmen lose a position or move from one job to another and find lower wages, that professionalism diminishes? Airmanship decreases? CRM is somehow less? Hardly.

Remember the recruiters doing the shortlisting of the 'applying candidates' have neither met nor flown with these wannabes, so their shortlisting is largely based on 'ample experience' which in this case can only be established by looking at types and hours provided on candidates resume.

No. I can tell you that my employer looks at far more than hours. Most employers do. Employers look at past experience and job history; it's there on the resume. Employers look at the experience of the pilot. It's not a matter of he-who-has-the-greatest-hours-wins. Not at all.

A pilot with prior command experience and check airman experience may have less hours than others at the interview, but may make a better, more desirable candidate. Thus, hours don't necessarily trump experience.

I arrived at an interview session many years ago in which I was the highest time pilot present. The job involved twin turboprop aircraft. I had four-engine experience in large piston airplanes, which was counted by the interviewers the same as single engine time. The employers weren't interested in total time, but specifically experience.

Go on kidding yourself, the argument that hours count for nothing can be argued very broadly as has been said on this thread severally, it all depends how, where and doing what or in this case flying what but generally speaking a 5,000 hour rated co pilot isn't the same as a 250 hour straight from flying school F/O.

Precisely; the 5,000 hour rated copilot has greater experience.

TopTup

27th Dec 2010, 12:58

Guppy....Possibly against better judgement I'll respond.

You call this thread I started based on lies. In your opinion & your interprationation. It appears no one else has followed your opinion. You alone incorrectly interpreted my post & you alone jumped the gun to attempt to ridicule a point I gave, failing to check the reference given. I then quoted the reference yet still you write later none was given. Your retort? Baseless accusations borne from self-righteousness & failure to thoroughly read or comprehend before mouthing off.

Your tact of ridicule & constant berratement against anyone daring to offer a different opinion defines & is the epitome of poor charactor, lack of common courtesy & of course professionalism or airmanship. What agony & frustration you must be to share a cockpit with if your colleague offers a differing perspective or interpretation!!

All you've done is rant from your own cocoon. Ask the many UA drivers if their lifestyle suffered under dubious [unscrupulous] beancounters. Ask the many, many RAL contracted pilots about their cut in salary. Open your cycloptic view to the REAL TERM salaries of pilots since derregulation in the States. Ask the CX pilots & / or their AOA about their appreciation of the new "C-Scale" being arranged....... Ask the wider pilot body if their salaries benefitted from paying for endorsements, ratings, uniforms, accomodation, tea/coffee refer to RyanAir). Since as you claim YOURS never has then how can anyone else's possibly??!! Arrogance in the extreme. Then again as the doyan & sole benefactor of all that is right & true you can answer all these with utter denial because your one-eye chooses not to look there, least of all posess the professional fortitude to read, study or comprehend more of the world outside your one man band. Like believing there's no hunger in the world since you're not the one going without.

You alone have bought this dislike of you from not only me but others here seeking an intelligent debate on real issues we see as important. Most of us welcome an open & informative debate where we accept others' opinions & inputs. You haven't the charactor nor integrity to participate but for your arrogance & utter lack of professional courtesy.

All the world is stupid but you, eh?

Many EXPERIENCED airman have offered true accounts & opinions based on their long careers. The theme still appears the same. One can't be a part of the change if unable to accept the need for it.

SNS3Guppy

27th Dec 2010, 14:29

You alone incorrectly interpreted my post & you alone jumped the gun to attempt to ridicule a point I gave, failing to check the reference given.

Among your failings in this thread, aside from the creation of the thread, was your failing to provide a reference. You still haven't done so. No link, no citation. What you did finally do is provide a partial quote, out of quotations (not in), addressing a portion of the post to which you referred. The best you could do, a lazy and poor approach was to refer the reader to the CX Wannabe Forum. Did you assume someone would go read the tens of thousands of posts there in the hopes of finding your material? This isn't the first time you've stated you provided the reference. You failed to do so. Therefore, there was no reference to check.

Once you did copy some of the information you deemed relevant, it turned out that the only thing this information did for you was reveal your lie.

You opened with the clear attempt to state that interview questions today are no longer technical, but instead revolve around questions such as "what do your parents think of you becoming a pilot?"

As we have already clearly shown, this was your lie.

You later produced some of the questions from the CX Wannabe Forum, showing two distinct groups of questions: one, technical, the other, HR. You attempted to suggest that technical questions have been supplanted in pilot inteviews by questions about parental consent...when in fact the very information you provided showed that technical questions were asked. You attempted to confuse the issue and deceive by mixing the question bases and types of interviews. Your post, and your efforts to support it, were a lie.

Your only links and citations, in fact, were to reports concerning experienced airmen who performed well under pressure. You provided no links, no citations, to anything else. In this you failed, just as you failed to make your point, and then failed to support your point by providing information which contradicted what you said. This has already been clearly shown, ad nauseum.

Your tact of ridicule & constant berratement against anyone daring to offer a different opinion defines & is the epitome of poor charactor, lack of common courtesy & of course professionalism or airmanship.

You confuse "berratement" with the truth. You lied. You deceived. You picked a forum which is frequented by the press and the media and dangled a lie, and it's been shown to be what it is. Held up to the light, examined without any great need for care, it's clearly deceit and a lie. You made a blanket statement condemning what you see as a spiraling downward trend in the industry, supported it with falsehood and lack of citation, and were revealed. You're clearly unhappy about this, but don't confuse that with ridicule and "berratement."

Your assertion that revealing the truth about your comments is the "epitome of poor character, lack of common courtesy, and of course professionalism or airmanship" doesn't really deserve much reply. What revealing your lie has to do with airmanship, one can only guess. You shouldn't have attempted to deceive and lie.

All you've done is rant from your own cocoon. Ask the many UA drivers if their lifestyle suffered under dubious [unscrupulous] beancounters. Ask the many, many RAL contracted pilots about their cut in salary. Open your cycloptic view to the REAL TERM salaries of pilots since derregulation in the States. Ask the CX pilots & / or their AOA about their appreciation of the new "C-Scale" being arranged....... Ask the wider pilot body if their salaries benefitted from paying for endorsements, ratings, uniforms, accomodation, tea/coffee refer to RyanAir). Since as you claim YOURS never has then how can anyone else's possibly??!! Arrogance in the extreme. Then again as the doyan & sole benefactor of all that is right & true you can answer all these with utter denial because your one-eye chooses not to look there, least of all posess the professional fortitude to read, study or comprehend more of the world outside your one man band. Like believing there's no hunger in the world since you're not the one going without.

Wow, that's quite a rant. I'm one of those US pilots receiving a "real term" salary since deregulation, by the way. No particular need to tell me what I make, seeing as it's my paycheck. Thanks for your concern, though, however much it may be none of your business.

Doyan. There's quite a word. I had to look it up. You assert that I'm the senior in my profession, do you? Interesting.

No, my salary has never been cut by an employer. I've been asked to take pay concessions, and have refused. I've quit and gone elsewhere, and I've had paychecks "bounce." My answer was to seek other employment. If pilots are so busy sucking at the big tit that they can't see it's dry, and can't move on to find better work, then perhaps they deserve to stay and shrivel away.

What the salary has to do with professionalism and airmanship, however, is at best a weak association and directly, a lie.

If your airmanship is a function of your salary, then you indeed display no professionalism or work ethic.

Do I fly less precisely if I'm paid less? Of course not.

If the pay is indeed cut or a lower tier introduced in the pay plan, does that mean training is done to a lower standard? Of course not.

Do you really think that airlines seek out the least experienced and least competent pilots they can find? Of course not.

You've failed to provide citations in your initial post, save for two; one to the Qantas event, and one to the US Air event. Neither represents inexperienced aviators or poor airmanship.

You alone have bought this dislike of you from not only me but others here seeking an intelligent debate on real issues we see as important. Most of us welcome an open & informative debate where we accept others' opinions & inputs. You haven't the charactor nor integrity to participate but for your arrogance & utter lack of professional courtesy.

Gee, that really hurts. TopTup doesn't like me. Ouch. The day looks darker already. Whatever shall I do? (Forget about it entirely, most likely). You really know how to hurt a guy. Then again, perhaps not.

You really don't like people disagreeing with you, do you? You don't take it well, do you? You do not.

It's unfortunate that you had to lie, and it's unfortunate that you had to be revealed. It's unfortunate that you've continued to argue for and support your lie through all these pages, and it's unfortunate that your blood pressure is slowly rising as you support the lie. The fix is easy. Stop the lie.

You've whined about "beancounters" and pay tiers. You've whined about deregulation. You've whined about pay, and you've lied about interview questions (and even about your own references and citations...the ones you failed to provide). What you haven't done, and can't do, is show an association that proves that airmanship and professionalism in the cockpit is dead, and that those who engage in quality airmanship are a "dying breed."

I've yet to meet a single pilot, not one, in my entire career, who has said "I'm not getting paid enough, so I won't train to the same standard, and I won't fly accurately and precisely, and safety is going to suffer today." I've yet to meet a pilot who failed to perform his or her best because the wages weren't enough. I've yet to meet a pilot who risked the lives of passengers, or the safety of property because of "beancounters." Perhaps this is as you suggest, arrogance, seeing only through my own eyes and a full career spanning the globe. I can't see through your eyes (and frankly would rather be skewered with bamboo splinters), so I won't try. If you think restricting my observations to that which I've personally observed to be "arrogant," then so be it.

If you want "arrogant," try imposing your views on the world, lying in the reporters forum, and making wild, industry-condemning accusations without any basis of fact, citation, or ability to back it up. That would be you, of course, but don't let it stop you. Thus far, you certainly haven't.

Are you honestly going to tell me that pilots under the CX C-scale are less able airman, display poorer airmanship, are less professional, and less capable of doing their job?

Are you honestly going to tell me that UA (presumably you mean United Airlines: you throw around a lot of acronyms and jargon, an unfortunate assumption on your part, but one of many) pilots are less able airman, display poorer airmanship, are less professional, and less capable of doing their job because of "dubious (unscrupulous) beancounters?"

If so, then you can't help but lie.

All the world is stupid but you, eh?

I said no such thing, but let me ask you this: do you consider yourself to be "all the world?"

If so, I think you have your answer.

protectthehornet

27th Dec 2010, 19:30

I wish I could care about this thread, but I am at a loss.

anyway, if you are a passenger, I hope you have a good old fashioned and LUCKY pilot.

if you are a manager, you should consider hiring the above...it will pay for itself in the long run.

if you are a new fangled pilot, learn the old ways too.

and IF I've never heard of you, and you are a good old fashioned pilot...you've done your job and God Bless you.

TopTup

27th Dec 2010, 22:52

Guppy: as from my initial post, post #1:

"Interview questions used to be along the lines of "How did you accrue your hours? What lessons did you learn? Tell me about Vmca / Vmcg (piston vs twin jet).... How does the IRS work (then strap down gyros, etc...) Nowadays it's: "What do your parents think of you becoming a pilot?" ([/b][/i]refer CX Wannabes forum[/i][/b])."

No reference given, eh? True.... I did expect anyone questioning the claim to use the reference given (I know, I know.... The one too blatant provided). That may have taken some reading. Too much to ask to someone more hell bent on self righteous ridicule without the professionalism to research first.

You state "we" proved no reference given. No. Only you. Again, quit believing your self assumed omniscience.

I cannot find find ONE post linking or believing that salary scales directly proportional to pilot skill or ambition. Many have questioned motive for the job. Most have questioned the levels of professionalism & airmanship of those accepting lower T & C's owing to their competitive lack of experience as opposed to those with substantially more. You are the one flogging that agenda to death.

You deny airlines seek less experienced pilots via reduced pay scales: pay scales they know experienced pilots, by an overwhelming majority, will not accept. Reference: CX offer to the 60 experienced pilots for the CEP "short course" whereby all but 1 refused. There's another reference for you to deny it's existence & be too lazy to research!

I trust I didn't use any more words outside your vocabulary this time. No more response to you. I took 10 mins away from family & friends for the previous post & 5 this time. Like others' opinion here, you're just not worth it. Arguing with a narrow minded person isn't rewarding. Boring really.

SNS3Guppy

28th Dec 2010, 00:40

"Interview questions used to be along the lines of "How did you accrue your hours? What lessons did you learn? Tell me about Vmca / Vmcg (piston vs twin jet).... How does the IRS work (then strap down gyros, etc...) Nowadays it's: "What do your parents think of you becoming a pilot?" ([/b][/i]refer CX Wannabes forum[/i][/b])."

No reference given, eh? True.... I did expect anyone questioning the claim to use the reference given (I know, I know.... The one too blatant provided). That may have taken some reading. Too much to ask to someone more hell bent on self righteous ridicule without the professionalism to research first.

A reference to the forum is inadequate, as has been pointed out to you repeatedly.

You provided no link. I have no intention of researching your posts for you, and if you can't be bothered to link your information or at least quote it and give the thread reference, that's your failing, and your problem. You did neither.

You did assert, after all, that technical questions are no longer asked, but your quote listed technical questions all the same. You were called out on this, but failed to respond. When you finally did quote the CX post (in #8 in this thread), you excused yourself by saying "as frustrating as it is to do the research to prove what I knew, hence the reference!" Apparently you find researching your own posts frustrating, and expect others to do it for you. Alternately, your failure to reference was also excused in post #8 by saying "that was needed to be respectfully & professionally paid for: reference is personal knowledge of internal SIN Safety Dept info, sorry can't give the source." Perhaps if you're unable to give the reference, you shouldn't bring it up in the first place.

Same song, same dance, same backpedaling. Here we are eight or nine pages later, and you remain the same.

It's an insult to argue you.

Yet you do it anyway. (and lose). Why punish yourself?

Not to question your highly educated English (I know you're very sensitive), but "It's an insult to argue with you," works a little better.

I cannot find find ONE post linking or believing that salary scales directly proportional to pilot skill or ambition. Many have questioned motive for the job. Most have questioned the levels of professionalism & airmanship of those accepting lower T & C's owing to their competitive lack of experience as opposed to those with substantially more. You are the one flogging that agenda to death.

No. Actually I'm the one not "flogging it to death." I'm the one who states that professionalism and airmanship doesn't depend on the paycheck.

Seeing as you brought it up, of course, the issue of professionalism linked to pay has been broached by you, in post #1 (asserting that airlines are actually seeking to lower standards--"the lowest common denominator"--by paying less), and continued throughout the thread. I'm one of the few asserting that professionalism and airmanship isn't reduced by lower pay.

Interesting that you tell me I'm the one perpetuating the idea. when it was your first lie, and the foundation of the thread. Of course, now you're telling us that pilots refuse those lower salaries, whereas your opening shot told us that "pilots are lining up in endless ques to accept them." Another example of your inconsistency throughout the thread.

So, let's see, posts linking pay with pilot skill and ambition...the thread, as you introduced it, is actually about airmanship, but if you want to call it skill and ambition now, as you wish. Posts that have done this: 1, 8, 9, 15, 25, 27, 30, 34, 37, 39, 46, 48, 55, 57, 87, 134, 138, 140, and of course, 142. There's the reference, broken down to save you the frustration of research, and no link is necessary, because it's this thread.

It's your agenda, you see, and one you won't let go. It is, after all the basis under which you wrote the opening shot for this thread.

You needn't argue with me; your argument is with your self, based on your frequent and constant contradictions.

You deny airlines seek less experienced pilots via reduced pay scales: pay scales they know experienced pilots, by an overwhelming majority, will not accept. Reference: CX offer to the 60 experienced pilots for the CEP "short course" whereby all but 1 refused. There's another reference for you to deny it's existence & be too lazy to research!

That's not a reference. You failed to provide one (again). It would seem you're too lazy to research your own posts, isn't it? Frankly, if you can't make your point, then don't bother. I'm certainly not going to go through tens of thousands of posts to help you make it. That you failed to do so (once more) is no surprise.

I don't know what the CEP short course is, and don't really care. If pilots elected not to take it, or a job, or a pay level, that's fine. I've elected not to take jobs before, as well. What of it?

Your sentence is ambiguous, so I'll address both possibilities in your ambiguity. On the one hand you could be attempting to say that I deny airlines seek less experienced pilots. In this, you're correct: I do deny this, and nothing in your statements is able to contradict it. Airlines don't seek the least experience they can find. If on the other hand, you are attempting to say that airlines would prefer to pay as little as possible, then you're quite correct. Find an employer that doesn't want to pay as little as is necessary or required.

You don't like pay scales, blame unions. Blame the pilots who accept the wages. Blame someone; you're hell-bent to do so (blaming me mostly, it would seem, but as you will). Here again, it's you blathering on about pay, and attempting to tie it to pilot quality. Ironically, right after you just accused me of doing that very thing. Another lie on your part, isn't it? It is.

protectthehornet

28th Dec 2010, 01:43

And They Lived Happily Ever After...the End.

Jabiman

28th Dec 2010, 06:25

Are you honestly going to tell me that pilots under the CX C-scale are less able airman, display poorer airmanship, are less professional, and less capable of doing their job?

Are you honestly going to tell me that UA (presumably you mean United Airlines: you throw around a lot of acronyms and jargon, an unfortunate assumption on your part, but one of many) pilots are less able airman, display poorer airmanship, are less professional, and less capable of doing their job because of "dubious (unscrupulous) beancounters?"

If so, then you can't help but lie.
That is no lie and may indeed be happening though not by the mechanism to which you allude.
In Europe, a lot of wannabe pilots who have the financial resources are able to pay for an integrated course and then line training to move directly into the RHS of a jet.
These candidates may just think it’s cool to be a pilot and have no real passion for the profession and consider it a better alternative than going to university.
The airlines are exploiting this trend and the never ending supply of wannabe’s to lower T & C’s.
The FAA is effectively banning this practice by introducing the 1500 hour rule.
In Europe it is not only possible to purchase line training along with a subsequent job guarantee with some airlines but the competition for the RHS is forcing applicants to go this route or miss out and have wasted all the money they spent getting the ATPL.

This thread was initially asking whether these trends were resulting in a decline of airmanship.
It is a reasonable question but seems to have become a pissing contest.

SNS3Guppy

28th Dec 2010, 15:18

So, let's see, posts linking pay with pilot skill and ambition...the thread, as you introduced it, is actually about airmanship, but if you want to call it skill and ambition now, as you wish. Posts that have done this: 1, 8, 9, 15, 25, 27, 30, 34, 37, 39, 46, 48, 55, 57, 87, 134, 138, 140, and of course, 142. There's the reference, broken down to save you the frustration of research, and no link is necessary, because it's this thread.

We should also add #144.

Jabiman

29th Dec 2010, 00:01

the thread, as you introduced it, is actually about airmanship, but if you want to call it skill and ambition now, as you wish
Skill and ambition are actually very relevant to declining airmanship.
The thread questions if airmanship is a dying breed because those now entering the profession do not have the requisite motivation and desire to learn true airmanship which requires consummate professionalism and dedication, something that you seem to posses but for some reason assume that ALL other pilots automatically do also.
It is this fast tracking into the right hand seat and the lowering of T & C’s which is opening the field for those who may not possess proper skill and the wrong type of ambition and which then conspire to remove the opportunity to learn true airmanship.
Also take note that not all training departments have the same high standard as the one that you work for and some MAY be affected by cost cutting and this coupled with a lower quality and less dedicated cadet may result in him never learning airmanship during the 200 hours of flying before he jumps into the RHS. Coupled with a subsequent over reliance on automation and this may result in the pilot airman indeed becoming a dying breed (to be replaced with the pilot automatom).

SNS3Guppy

29th Dec 2010, 06:48

Skill and ambition are actually very relevant to declining airmanship.

Not only do you have a real comprehension problem, you do it out of context. How unremarkable of you.

Yes, skill is relevant to airmanship. albeit only a part of airmanship. It is not tied to the economics of wages paid, however, and neither is professionalism.

The original poster asserts that professionalism is on the decline, and asserts that airmanship is soon to be ancient history, specific to the wages paid by airlines; furthermore, the original poster asserts, repeatedly and in no uncertain terms that the airlines intentionally hire underqualified and inexperienced airman, and establish lower wages to that end. The intent of the original poster has been stated repeatedly, the posts have been identified, and this is not within the realm of dispute.

The original poster attempted to make his case without citation or reference or quote (an obscure reference to search a forum doesn't count; it's indiscriminate, and not worthy of consideration). Specifically, he attempted to do so by claiming that technical questions are no longer asked, but instead that questions regarding parental consent are the standard and the norm. The original poster lied, and the basis for the thread is a lie. Perhaps you missed this material before.

We'll add your post as #146 to the list of posts that have linked pay with skill and ambition or airmanship, even though TopTup assures us such is not the case (he's searched the thread and can find no reference...other than conveniently missing 19 such posts). Surprise, surprise.

Jabiman

29th Dec 2010, 07:44

the original poster asserts, repeatedly and in no uncertain terms that the airlines intentionally hire underqualified and inexperienced airman, and establish lower wages to that end. The intent of the original poster has been stated repeatedly, the posts have been identified, and this is not within the realm of dispute.
The original poster attempted to make his case without citation or reference or quote
Ok, so if all this is required for the original poster to prove the validity of his assertion is a citation or reference, how about this:
Fatal Flying on Airlines No Accident in Pilot Complaints to FAA - Bloomberg (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2009-12-30/fatal-flying-on-airlines-no-accident-in-pilot-complaints-to-faa.html)
Specifically:

Pilots say Gulfstream has an unhealthy relationship between its airline and its flight school. Gulfstream’s training program is different from others, because it guarantees students time as a first officer, the No. 2 position in the cockpit, flying passengers for its own airline, Gulfstream says on its Web site (http://www.gulfstreamacademy.com/).
“We offer the fastest possible transition to the ‘Right Seat’ of a commercial airliner,” Gulfstream says.
For $32,699, students get 522 hours of training -- including 250 hours as a first officer (http://www.gulfstreamacademy.com/Programs.html) for Gulfstream International Airlines. That means student pilots are paying Gulfstream for the privilege of flying as first officers.
“Gulfstream is selling the job,” says Charlie Preusser, a regional airline pilot who flew for Manassas, Virginia-based Colgan Air. “When you’ve got a guy fronting the cash, there’s a lot of pressure on the company to keep him onboard no matter how bad he is.”
And:
Add 'pilot' to list of jobs that aren't so great now - USATODAY.com (http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2010-02-18-pilots18_CV_N.htm)
Specifically:

The lack of advancement, low starting wages and training that can cost tens of thousands of dollars are leading fewer young people to become commercial airline pilots, says Les Westbrooks, a professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
"If I'm a smart young person ... I can go into medicine, engineering, I could go anywhere," Westbrooks says. "I would say that the passion of the students to fly ... is what has sustained the industry for a long time. But there comes a point where your passion and mathematics meet. And we are at that point."
And of course we have this classic blog:
Pilots on Food Stamps | MichaelMoore.com (http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/mikes-blog-1-pilots-food-stamps)
Specifically:

He then showed me his pay stub. He took home $405 this week. My life was completely and totally in his hands for the past hour and he's paid less than the kid who delivers my pizza.

SNS3Guppy

31st Dec 2010, 06:24

Michael Moore is no more an authority on aviation than he is on anything else; he comes with a strong liberal agenda, a bag full of lies, and more misinformation than the CIA. In short, a really, really poor example to make your case. You might have better chosen the tooth fairy.

You quoted Bloomberg. You're attempting to give citations for the original poster (who is apparently unable), yet in your zeal to prove that airmanship is on the decline and that airlines have an overt agenda to hire less experienced aviators, you've chosen a quote regarding Gulfstream Airlines as that specifically states "Gulfstream's training program is different from others." Not really the prototypical example of the great conspiratorial agenda on a global scale now, is it?

Then again, you picked a quote regarding the laughing stock of the US airline industry: Gulfstream Airlines...a company so bad that simply having them on one's resume can be enough to prevent future employment. This is your example, your citation? Well done, brightspark.

Your USA Today reference...well...your attempting to prove the great conspiracy by suggesting that it's tough to get started in aviation? This is a secret? Wages aren't as high as everyone thinks, this is your revelation?

You're going to need to work a little harder to elicit more than a yawn, or to do anything but prove yourself wrong. You're supposed to be gathering evidence to the contrary, you see.

protectthehornet

31st Dec 2010, 07:07

isn't it interesting that fedex pilots and UPS pilots are paid more than pilots at passenger airlines?

AirRabbit

31st Dec 2010, 23:25

In an eariler post I mentioned that there was a program being sponsored by the United Kingdom's Royal Aeronautical Society in London that might wind up dealing with pilot training issues on a global basis. Here is an excerpt from that Society's announcement:

The Annual Royal Aeronautical Society International Flight Crew Training Conference is well established and highly successful. The 2011 Conference aims to seek solutions on how best to consider flight crew training standards from an international perspective. It will be held at the Headquarters of the Royal Aeronautical Society in London on Wednesday 28 and Thursday 29 September 2011.
Safety data indicates that there remain pressing issues in flight crew training. Further improvements are needed, especially in airmanship, air traffic management and situational awareness, upset recovery, and human factors. Issues arise on whether syllabuses mirror best practice, include new tasks and procedures, and exclude exercises no longer relevant. The Conference will address these issues and examine the latest thinking on competency-based training and recurrent training. Moreover, whilst the different operational and training needs of the rotary wing community need to be addressed separately, the Conference will examine the fundamental aspects that bear equally on rotary and fixed wing operations and certain initiatives currently under way. The Conference will address improvements in national and international training programmes and, with wide variations in training syllabuses, whether more harmonisation in training and evaluation standards and processes might be beneficial, whether some form of global resource for the flight crew training community might be helpful, and the constraints in achieving such goals.
This wide-ranging Conference will examine these challenges from the perspectives of fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft operators, makers and users of training systems, training providers, researchers, and regulators. The papers, some of which will be novel and contentious, will be presented by leading experts, and some 120 delegates are expected from around the world. The very broad agenda seeks both to ensure that appropriate work is taken forward and also to determine how the Royal Aeronautical Society might best facilitate progress. With that aim, the Conference will include parallel breakout sessions for a full exchange of views by all stakeholders, and will conclude with an open forum where delegates will be able to table proposals for taking forward this important work. Regardless of your role, this Conference will provide a unique opportunity to become involved, discuss the issues and influence the work required to resolve them.

Jabiman

3rd Jan 2011, 06:28

This thread seems to have run its course so let us remember the relevant testimony of Captain Sullenberger to the US Congress almost two years ago:
I am worried that the airline piloting profession will not be able to continue to attract the best and the brightest. The current experience and skills of our country’s professional airline pilots come from investments made years ago when we were able to attract the ambitious, talented people who now frequently seek lucrative professional careers. That past investment was an indispensible element in our commercial aviation infrastructure, vital to safe air travel and our country’s economy and security. If we do not sufficiently value the airline piloting profession and future pilots are less experienced and less skilled, it logically follows that we will see negative consequences to the flying public – and to our country.

PJ2

3rd Jan 2011, 17:08

Jabiman;

Appropriately quoted. Of course, Captain Sullenberger's appearance before Congress is the quintessential statement on the industry as it stands today.

For others reading or contributing, in my view it is a fundamental mistake in this argument of pay-vs-skill to make a direct connection between how much a pilot is paid and the quality of decision-making s/he makes on a daily operational basis. I have argued for at least a decade within my own former airline and elsewhere that that is not where the problem lies. Pilots, once in the cockpit will do their absolute level best even if they are paying their employer to fly their airplanes simply because it is good survival strategy if nothing else. One does not make "better" decisions because one has a higher paycheck coming in at the end of the month. However, there is indeed a strong connection, but it is not at this level and you have quoted the finest example of this argument.

Sully has argued the case for change and enhancement of the profession of "airline pilot" more clearly, succinctly and successfully than anyone when he says in his brilliant statement that the best and brightest will not come to the profession under the present atrocious working and pay conditions. What has happened to our profession under the guise of "helping the employer" is nothing less than a desecration of this profession at the hands of marketing theorists, newbie MBAs and the daily bean-counting middle managers who know nothing about aviation but know about pressure from above to control costs at all cost.

Such fine-tuning of what is an enormously capital-intensive business can be done, but unless done intelligently with data and honest feedback instead of meetings and bureacratic structures which silo and otherwise kill efficiency and which drive and sustain the illusion of success, the results will turn out just as we see them today - a cheapened, marginalized profession which is not the least bit attractive to the keen and talented young people we need to fill our retiring ranks.

The "best and brightest" have taken a look at "professional airline pilot" and said, "I don't think so...", and have taken their intelligence, talent, discipline and desire for a good living elsewhere. Airline managments have not yet heard the news, and the MCPL is filling the holes with "98.6F" in the right seat but not much else. The Royal Aeronautical Society does not take causes on lightly, but they have this one. The technique of ticking the box has extended right into the human component in the cockpit and the incident and accident trends are now reflecting that thinking.

As for the thread itself, it is a worthwhile discussion but perhaps would have been a better reflection on our profession for some to have retained the dignity of respectful, non-personal discussion in the thread, but there it is - it is an emotional issue for all and passions run deep, which is a sign of how seriously we all take what has occurred to our profession at the hands of those who don't know aviation, and don't know that they don't know.

CaptainSox

3rd Jan 2011, 17:33

Could not agree more with Captain Sullenberger.....

They will not learn till its too late!!:=

overun

3rd Jan 2011, 20:01

Absolutely standard after that.

PJ2

3rd Jan 2011, 21:38

overrun;

Absolutely standard after that.

Yup. All the rest are details. We shouldn't even be having this conversation.

JPJP

5th Jan 2011, 00:32

SNS3 Guppy,

I think you're lying or you don't work for a real airline. There is no reputable 121 carrier in the U.S with these statistics:

In my initial class at my present employer, about half the applicants who started the class made it to flying the line
Historically our captain upgrades have run at about a 50% pass/fail rate.
Apologies for the blunt approach. However, your claims are outlandish. If your claims were true then the HR and training department should be fired at a far greater rate than any pilot.

You refused to identify your employer earlier. A third tier cargo company in Michigan perhaps ? ;)

Cheers

Junkflyer

5th Jan 2011, 17:18

Upgrades failures may happen simply because a candidate was not ready. This can happen in a seniority based system particularly at times when hiring is busy and employers need to reach down farther into the depths of the pool.
Unscheduled ops are far different than those used to domestic or flag rules. In the non-skeds you are pretty much on your own and upgrade failures happen in the sim or during ioe/line checks due to the sometimes overwhelming nature of the beast for those who are not ready.

SNS3Guppy

5th Jan 2011, 17:27

I think you're lying or you don't work for a real airline.

Fortunately for me, you're incorrect, and what you think has no bearing on my employment. Thanks for your deep and abiding concern, however.

Have you anything to contribute to the subject at hand?

Junkflyer is correct.

sevenstrokeroll

5th Jan 2011, 19:45

quoting statistics on pprune doesn't mean much at all. I can look up statistics elsewhere. What I do want to hear about is what we see for ourselves on the line, out in the wild blue, or at a meeting of the quiet birdmen.

In my new hire class of about 22 people some 23 years ago, 3 of us were injured and on disability, one died of stomach cancer, one retired, 3 changed to a different airline, one has been pregnant twice, another died of another ailment (I forgot what).

so what does that mean? stuff happens!

cheers

misd-agin

5th Jan 2011, 22:53

SNS3Guppy - how about identifying your employer? That way others can backup, or refute, you outlandish claim.

stepwilk

5th Jan 2011, 23:25

Why isn't it a rule on this forum that people be required to post in their public profile at least the basics of what empowers (or not) them to comment? Even I list my pitiful aviation accomplishments--the reason I rarely put an oar in--and it really annoys me that other commenters condescendingly list simply that they "live somewhere on the planet" and then hold forth on whatever issue amuses them.

Certainly they needn't list their employer or home address, but why not just a certificate or type rating?

I suspect SNS3guppy is entirely legitimate, but why the cat-and-mouse game?

sevenstrokeroll

5th Jan 2011, 23:29

I think identifying the airline you work for is a mistake. In this internet age, one can easily find posts used against them and lose their job.

It is hard to know if someone is bluff or real. I met a fellow on this site who actually knew someone I knew...and knew enough about them that I have no doubt about their flying background.

There isn't a secret handshake or anything. But I can usually spot a phony.

There are questions one can ask...''in jokes'' hotels that aren't there anymore that can really identify someone.

Ask an old USAIR East pilot what the hotel's name was for the overnights in KBUF...anyone might tell you...but when he smiles, you will know.

Ask an American pilot who CR was and see how many tell a canadair regional (ha!!!!!)

I could go on, but won't.

SNS3Guppy

5th Jan 2011, 23:32

Because it's irrelevant. That's why.

Whether I'm a retired space shuttle pilot or a student in a lowly Cessna, my responses remain the same.

You want to know whether to give them credence by determining if you think I'm important enough. If Sully mouths the words, they must be true, because after all, he made a forced landing once. If Joe Blow mouths the words, the same identical words, they have no meaning, even though it's the same data, the same words, because Joe Blow doesn't have the qualifications that float your boat?

The words stand, and so does my point, which is correct, and true. I realize that perhaps you can't address the subject intelligently, and thus want to address me, instead, but that doesn't change the subject, my point, or the accuracy of my comments.

Have you something to contribute to the thread?

JPJP

6th Jan 2011, 01:51

I would like to contribute. :suspect:

You are either lying about the statistics at your company, or you are supporting a management that hires and trains incredibly poorly.

Any respectable Pilot, HR or training department would be ashamed of those statistics. Not defending them. Where are you finding these people and how are you training them ?

stepwilk

6th Jan 2011, 01:59

"Have you something to contribute to the thread?"

Absolutely not, as you can plainly see by reading my profile, a decades-ago Citation driver. That's why I make that profile available, and that's why I simply ask the question as to why others apparently daren't.

I don't wish to give your responses credence according to whether you're "important" enough but whether you're experienced enough. Your response that it doesn't matter whether you're a Cessna student or a Shuttle commander is so baffling that you've pushed me straight into JPJP's camp.

That's my contribution to this thread.

Jabiman

6th Jan 2011, 10:01

You are either lying about the statistics at your company, or you are supporting a management that hires and trains incredibly poorly.

Any respectable Pilot, HR or training department would be ashamed of those statistics. Not defending them. Where are you finding these people and how are you training them ?
Or the other alternative is that the T & C's being offered by Guppies company are so poor that they only attract the dregs and it is up to the training department to try to separate those with any promise. This would also explain Guppies insistence that low pay does not equate to a lesser quality airman.

SNS3Guppy

6th Jan 2011, 14:11

That might be one response.

I haven't flown with everyone at my operator, and I meet new people all the time. Most of those with whom I fly or work are extremely well qualified individuals, most of whom have been around the block more than once.

We don't tend to attract, nor hire, the lower common denominator. Most all have former captain experience on various large equipment, many have heavy, international experience.

We do still upgrade people from the FE seat; indeed, some captains began many years ago in that seat, while at the same time, we still have professional flight engineers who have no intention of vacating those seats.

The background and experience, like any company, fluctuates with the pilot market and the times; presently, one would be hard pressed to get an interview without fifteen thousand hours or more and international widebody experience. I couldn't compete with many who are being interviewed today; if I were to apply today, I wouldn't stand a chance, given some of the quality individuals I've met who have been hired of late. Many are very experienced individuals who have a full career behind them, or like so many in this business, several experiences with furloughs, etc.

The company has a large pool from which to draw, particularly given the events of the past few years. Individuals who thought they were working the last job they would ever need, found themselves on the street; we've been lucky to get them, as would any operator. I'm not involved in the hiring at my employer, nor the selection, testing, or training. I'm not a check airman there. I don't know the current statistics. I don't visit the training department save for twice a year, for the most part, and my work keeps me abroad most of the time.

I'm not going to discuss my employment; it doesn't change the fact that the accusations made here by certain individuals, indictments on the industry as a whole, are false. Airlines have not replaced technical questions and interviews with questions regarding parental approval. The sky is not falling. Training standards are not being lowered, and airlines do not set out with agendas to hire the least experienced, least able, and least capable pilots that they can.

There is no question that the industry has some pay issues, quality of life issues, duty and rest issues, and other factors that are less than stellar, and which must be addressed. That a regional airline pilot can work full time and still receive government aid because he meets poverty criteria is something the public doesn't realize, and it's something more endemic to the regional rungs in the United States than most places abroad. It's none the less a problem. This isn't necessarily a quality problem, in that it doesn't represent airlines seeking to hire the lowest common denominator. It represents the entry level position, that has always been the entry level position, and it's not one that has ever attracted the most experienced pilots, or that likely ever will.

Every industry has it's starting points. One of my last fire assignments paid four hundred dollars a flight hour, plus a daily salary, plus overtime, plus perdiem, plus mileage, plus other considerations. I won't ever make that flying for an airline. It also wasn't an entry level job, whereas many airline jobs, especially at the regional level, are. I've been in the unfortunate position in the past in which I wanted to change employment from government utility flying, but couldn't afford to make the change. Given my present obligations, I couldn't afford to go to a regional airline, or even a starting position with any major airline, presently. I recently had an offer of a friend to interview for a position with an established national airline, inside recommendation, and all. A very generous offer on his part. Unfortunately, I can't live on what I'd make, and the job wouldn't permit me to do what I've had to sometimes do in the past; work second employment to make up the difference. I very much doubt I'm the only one in this position.

A little less than a year ago, I returned from a furlough. I count myself fortunate, and grateful, to have employment, period. There are a lot of unemployed aviators out there. I was fortunate to be able to stay employed doing various things during my furlough, and I've often worked second and third assignments, temporary assignments, contracts, etc, on the side, or part time, or during leaves of absence. Many are unable. Many, presently, are unable to find work at all.

I had an interesting experience a couple of years ago, while doing some charter work for a small company. The operator had an early morning run to a neighboring state, flying some rush medical supplies every morning. The supplies were radioactive, and contained in heavy boxes. The work involved IFR in mountainous terrain, often IMC, sometimes in ice. It involved bending, lifting, and it was hard on one's back. It didn't pay well. I was working in the shop, doing instruction on the side, and fulfilling check airman duties as well, to make ends meet. Clearly such positions are not often the first choice of an experienced airman, and when several out of work airline pilots approached me about work, it was the only thing to which I could point them.

Every one of them said no. No way they were going to fly light airplanes, including single engine airplanes and light piston twins, at night, IMC, and do all that work, especially for that amount of money. Surely I had something better for them. Sorry; it's all that was available.

Then their unemployment benefits began to run out. They began to realize that their chances of finding work were better if they were currently flying something, anything. Far better to get paid a little and stay current, than have no income, do no flying, and not be marketable. None of them had any maintenance skills, none of them were instructors, so the only work available for them was an occasional charter, and the morning "juice run." Suddenly they were very interested in flying those early morning runs. I gave them up to make room for the other pilots, and soon they were taking the flights.

Overnight, the company went from using pilots who were inexperienced flight instructors with few hours and a very short resume, to pilots with ten thousand hours and a decade or more of airline flying, some with corporate flying, etc, to do those early morning runs.

The thread, of course, is talking about airlines, rather than charter departments. The airline industry does not operate, however, in a vacuum. Individuals flow through many channels to arrive in airline seats, and individuals flow through airlines to arrive in other seats throughout the industry. One cannot consider the airlines without considering a much wider scope, as well.

It's been said that the industry is failing because it can no longer attract the "best and brightest." That is a rather trite expression that sounds good on paper, but really means nothing. Does it suggest that individuals who once felt drawn to aviation will instead turn to become space shuttle scientists, doctors, lawyers, and indian chiefs? Hardly.

Many enter into aviation without the slightest intention of ever becoming an airline pilot. Being an airline pilot is not the be-all, nor end-all of employment as a pilot, or employment in aviation, for matter. It's not exactly a high-speed, low-drag segment of the industry, and not really the most demanding, either. One doesn't need to be a hot stick, or the best and the brightest, to be an airline pilot. One needs to be able to operate to the standards prescribed by the training department, to be able to follow regulations, and to operate within a fairly small window of performance, routing, etc. That's all. It's the very reason that for many years, we were able to introduce fairly inexperienced aviators in the flight engineer seat, transition them to the right seat, and eventually the left.

"Best and brightest" is somewhat of a misnomer, then. Sully made a successful forced landing. That many think this is a remarkable thing is unfortunate. He did what we're paid to do: use judgment on the fly, and fly the airplane until it comes to a rest. We do not need twenty thousand hours to be able to do that. In fact, Sully noted that glider experience (to hark back to the general aviation discussion before) was the source he tapped when making his forced landing. Light airplane skills. Basic stick and rudder, when all is said and done. It doesn't take the "best and brightest" to make a forced landing; it takes someone who doesn't quit, doesn't cave in to pressure, and who understands that like it or not, there's a job to be done and no escaping it until the airplane comes to a rest. That's really what every one of us does on a day-in and day-out basis. It's what we're trained to do, it's what we do when the chips are down, and it's what we're expected to do. No one should ever expect less.

I can tell you that when I began flying, I had no intention of flying for an airline. It never crossed my mind. In fact, I took an entirely different track, eventually crop dusting and doing a number of other things from government, fire, certain military work, charter, ambulance, various utility flying, etc. I wasn't attracted, nor dissuaded by airline salaries. At various times I had opportunities to interview for, or received recommendations for airline positions. I couldn't afford to take them. At some point, I did take them, and while I still don't consider myself an airline pilot (I'm a displaced crop duster), I'm doing the same grind as many do presently.

We know the score starting out. We know the salaries; they're widely posted, and available. A student has but to do a little enquiring to learn that the first ten years are tough financially. He may need to move repeatedly. He may need to change jobs. He may need to work second (or even third jobs). It's a long haul, a tough row to hoe. All of that and more. This isn't a new thing, and it hasn't changed in many, many years. Yet suddenly as an industry we're no longer capable of attracting the "best and brightest?"

I submit that one who wants to fly for a living (I do it because it's cheaper than renting; someone pays me to fly) does it because one wants to fly. The drive to fly is what draws someone into this business; not the promise of lofty wages, flashy uniforms, and image. It's the flying. Some come up through the military, often getting out and going to an airline, and never having known the struggle or the hardship of surviving in the industry. Many who do so wrinkle their noses as the wages; it's typically a substantial pay cut for a military pilot to transition to an airline. Such is life. Are these the "best and brightest?" No. Might they go elsewhere? Maybe. Does this mean the industry suffers, or that the industry doesn't get dedicated professionals who can fly an airplane? Of course not.

The sky is not falling. Training departments have not relegated themselves to a kindergarten-level of training. Airlines haven't replaced technical interviews with parental consent questions only. Standardization still exists, is still enforced. If anything, the level and quality of training has improved over the years, and modern CRM and CRM-related training in it's various forms and names is a far cry from what it once was. Given some of the ols,d mentalities in the cockpit, one may say that today we're operating "better and brighter" than in the past, and to higher standards.

I do agree that too many "children of the magenta line" are out there, but this is a consequence of evolution in cockpits, not an indictment on the industry regarding airlines seeking to hire the least experience they can. Low entry wages are not new. Those who think they are new betray their own inexperience. There is little new, under the sun.

overun

10th Jan 2011, 04:58

lf there`s one thing you can say about the yanks it`s that they know how to have a good scrap !

Sometimes misguided but always a good `un thankfully; no meally mouthed european pant wetting diplomatic nonsense.

Just get stuck in. We need more.

Personally, l`m quite handy with the odd taildragging powerhouse that would like to turn through 90deg when lifting the tail but latterly my aviation skills seem to centre around my ability to type 60 words a minute.

That`s the way it is, but don`t let me stop you guys !

Seconds out .......

I.R.PIRATE

10th Jan 2011, 05:12

Best post I have read on an aviation forum in years Mr. Guppy. Clear cut, factual and spot on. That should settle that....

C-141Starlifter

10th Jan 2011, 05:37

SNS,

Well said!

Lifter

Jabiman

10th Jan 2011, 09:45

lf there`s one thing you can say about the yanks it`s that they know how to have a good scrap !

Sometimes misguided but always a good `un thankfully; no meally mouthed european pant wetting diplomatic nonsense.
Thats for sure. Guppy states a very eloquent case for what happens in the US with a robust GA sector and a FAA 1500 hour minimum rule for airline pilots.
But in Europe, with anaemic GA and the military pilots having record retention rates, the situation has become the norm where someone can be sitting in the FO seat with 200 hours. Does such a pilot possess adequate experience and/or airmanship?

overun

10th Jan 2011, 10:17

Check out the Parc website.

For £54k you can front up at the parent company in Oxford, OAT that was, get a frozen ATPL and a summer`s work in a shiny costume for Easy Jet, on exes.
The captains must be run ragged.

The answer to your question is self evident.

l honestly never thought l would see this.

rivalino

10th Jan 2011, 11:09

The captains are run rugged.
Comments like when I want your help I will ask for it when passing 20 NM at 8500 feet.

The other good one is " I'M not flying a profile I'M flying a heading"

I surpose if teams and conditions don't improve we could always write a book.

Mungo Man

10th Jan 2011, 11:33

In fact, Sully noted that glider experience (to hark back to the general aviation discussion before) was the source he tapped when making his forced landing.

I just read Sully's book and I thought I read that he said his previous gliding experiences didn't really help becuase they were so different, and that in fact it was his thousands of hours of honing his energy management on jets that helped.

overun

10th Jan 2011, 11:49

l didn`t know he had any gliding experience, l`m afraid.

May l respectfully suggest that you have hard facts concerning that man, and not contentious waffle, since he did actually pull off a blinder.
His time, if he did, selling Tony`s lce Cream from a van would not matter a jot.

Ask his pax.

Mungo l don`t bear grudges, life is far too short for that. When you get that elusive left seat, as you will, you will find for starters it`s the most lonely and scariest place in the universe, and eventually you will find you stop staggering under the weight of four gold bars.
At that point you will have the choice of airmanship or bull****.

Now that is the crux of the matter, in my humble opinion, so please don`t get it wrong. Bye.

Mungo Man

10th Jan 2011, 12:08

contentious waffle

??? I'm just quoting from the man's book.

sevenstrokeroll

10th Jan 2011, 13:51

will someone publish a foreign (to me) slang glossary. I don't have a clue what the last two posts mean.

it seems to me that sully made a left turn, flew a certain speed and kept the wings level till splashdown.

I'd like to think that every ATP on this forum could do the same thing. Gliding experience? I don't think he was looking for thermals do you? I recall when the four basics of flight were climbs, straight and level, turns and glides (the word glide being replaced by descent)

PBL

10th Jan 2011, 14:35

In partial answer to the question set in the title: it will continue to seem like a dying breed.

There are a few considerations that haven't appeared here yet.

One is the natural limitations on talent. In the 1990's, when the true awfulness of much SW was becoming known to a wider public, a friend of mine, who knew everybody when he started and is still known by everybody, relayed a comment by one of his (even) older colleagues: "you know, when I started in the '60's, there were probably about thirty good programmers in the world. Things haven't changed."

Pick the competence level: there are a certain number of people in the world who interest themselves enough, train enough, and are good enough, to hold a particular flying standard with that level of training and recurrent training. Maybe not all of them are flying professionally, and maybe one can encourage more to do so, but once the level is picked the numbers are thereby limited.

What happens if you need 20-30% more pilots than that? Well, it's going to cost 40-50% more, because the ones you get are going to need more training, more recurrency, more everything to maintain the standard than the ones you already have. Or you're going to have to lower the standard. It's just the way things are.

Now, this consideration isn't decisive. Because we actually do have more talented programmers and computer scientists in the world than we had in the 1990's (let alone the 1960's) and that is because talented people are attracted. Math is dead-end; physics is dead-end; suppose you like technical detail: go into computer security. It's a huge growth industry, starting from almost nothing (pure military apps) in the mid-1980's.

But that doesn't seem to be happening in airline flying because of the Sullenberger-PJ2 considerations. Since I have been reading Aviation Week (mid 1980's) there have been regular letters complaining about a similar situation in aeronautical engineering. Talented people were apparently now going to computer companies or finance (which got technical).

Second is the type of training. The different aspects of understanding and flying the fundamentals versus following the magenta line have been done to death in a few dozen threads here. So I won't reiterate that. But I will say in all likelihood the magenta line wins out. It wins for different reasons than in my first point above; I have in mind two. One is that it embodies judgements about flying logistics that largely cannot be calculated in real-time by two flying crew, so management likes it, even savvy management, and they do run the show. The second is a phenomenon called by John Adams "risk homeostasis" and by some others "risk compensation". I was driven around town in a recent snowstorm by a taxi driver who drove in slippery conditions as if he were on just a wet road. He was relying completely on ESP and ABS to maintain his vehicle in its accustomed mode of proceeding, in case he should misjudge a situation. It worked (not just for my trip, obviously). That's what people do, and pilots and their managers are no different. And it works (until it doesn't). If that is what you are mainly used to, then flying the raw data is going to be proportionately less familiar, no matter what your level of talent and professionalism.

Third is a phenomenon highlighted by Guppy and countered by Jabiman. NA is a place in which you can accumulate the kind of experience recounted by Guppy. So is Oz. For all I know, so is Brazil. Not many other places. You can't get it any more in Europe, and the East, where growth is at present, is not known for its wide-open spaces and inexpensive private aviation culture. So people are going to be ab initio trained and put in the right seat. Like it or not. The question - with 200 hours or with 2000 hours? - has already been answered. I guess that, unless the accident statistics get, quickly, a lot worse, it is not going to go up from where it is now, which is low-hundreds (except in those places with a plethora of high-time pilots without jobs, such as the US). Correspondingly, avionics will be designed to cope with this situation.

There is an article in The Economist this week which addresses some of the economic phenomena of contemporary transport flying. I introduced it, but a moderator thoughtfully relegated it to the "Passengers and SLF" Forum here (http://www.pprune.org/passengers-slf-self-loading-freight/438791-misery-flying.html#post6164646), where it is sure to get a lot of attention from those discussing the changes in the flying profession. On a private list, it was discussed by an IFATCA executive, PJ2, and people intimately involved in assessing the major 1990's ATC upgrades in Canada, UK, Australia, and the US. The consensus is that the ATC upgrade problem is not due to controllers' views or actions, but largely due to technical difficulties and the airlines themselves not wanting to move to a variable-pricing slot model. The question arose why avionics are comparatively so advanced and ATC systems up until now so technically troubled (this has begun to change with systems such as iFACTS, which have been developed using Correct-by-Construction techniques).

The reason such considerations are relevant to the cockpit situation is that the beancounters always win (to complete the argument, put this together with my points one and two above). But the question is what beans they count. Do they count the beans they didn't have to grow but might have had to if a couple of truckloads had tipped over on the highway? Not according to PJ2. Safety (which is ultimately what this thread is about) is a hidden variable as things now stand. The trick is to make it explicit, along with its price, and no one here has yet suggested how to do that. To do it, one has to understand the entire economic environment. To my mind, the above article is part of that.

PBL

SNS3Guppy

10th Jan 2011, 14:45

l didn`t know he had any gliding experience, l`m afraid.

What is it that you're afraid of? Yes, he had gliding experience.

May l respectfully suggest that you have hard facts concerning that man, and not contentious waffle, since he did actually pull off a blinder.
His time, if he did, selling Tony`s lce Cream from a van would not matter a jot.

I don't know what a "blinder" is, but it's also not what Sully said:

A&S Interview: Sully?s Tale | Flight Today | Air & Space Magazine (http://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/Sullys-Tale.html)
The way I describe this whole experience—and I haven’t had time to reflect on it sufficiently—is that everything I had done in my career had in some way been a preparation for that moment. There were probably some things that were more important than others or that applied more directly. But I felt like everything I’d done in some way contributed to the outcome—of course along with [the actions of] my first officer and the flight attendant crew, the cooperative behavior of the passengers during the evacuation, and the prompt and efficient response of the first responders in New York.

Sully made a power-off, off-field forced landing. He's not the first to ditch, he's not the first to glide, and he's not the first to do either one successfully. He did an excellent job, as did his FO. He should be expected to do nothing less, no should any one of us.

I just read Sully's book and I thought I read that he said his previous gliding experiences didn't really help becuase they were so different, and that in fact it was his thousands of hours of honing his energy management on jets that helped.

Reading the above referenced interview, you may be correct: Sully is asked about his gliding background, and he states the following:

I get asked that question about my gliding experience a lot, but that was so long ago, and those [gliders] are so different from a modern jet airliner, I think the transfer [of experience] was not large. There are more recent experiences I’ve had that played a greater role.

One of the big differences in flying heavy jets versus flying lighter, smaller aircraft is energy management—always knowing at any part of the flight what the most desirable flight path is, then trying to attain that in an elegant way with the minimum thrust, so that you never are too high or too low or too fast or too slow. I’ve always paid attention to that, and I think that more than anything else helped me.

overun

10th Jan 2011, 15:19

Envy perhaps ?

Pugilistic Animus

10th Jan 2011, 15:32

No! I think he tells the thruth...that's all true what he said...if you read his posts more and follow on pprune him then you'll realize that he acquired his extensive aeronautical knowledge by retaining lots of humility and respect for aircraft..
read about his run-in with Kathleen Sclachter.. [ primary contributor on AC-0.045]...:\

.UAL-232---was special...:)

overun

10th Jan 2011, 15:59

l don`t have a clue mate, my fault l`m sure.

Could you please explain ?

Pugilistic Animus

10th Jan 2011, 16:03

http://www.pprune.org/4350737-post2.html

:)

overun

10th Jan 2011, 16:12

Ah. A polite cough is called for.

Thankyou.

l feel quite depressed now, is there any good news?

Anything will do.

Jabiman

10th Jan 2011, 16:52

Safety (which is ultimately what this thread is about) is a hidden variable as things now stand. The trick is to make it explicit, along with its price, and no one here has yet suggested how to do that. To do it, one has to understand the entire economic environment.
That nicely gets to the crux of the matter.
In team sports, the difference between a top professional player and an average one could physically be very minor and yet the difference in salary could be an order of magnitude (10x) or more. The economic reason is competition between teams for these players.
In the general workforce, these pressures are not so pronounced and while professions which experience shortages may have rapid wage growth and a large premium placed on ability, this does not generally happen for piloting.
My idea for rectifying this competitive deficiency is to regulate airlines so that they have to show the experience of the flight crew as part of the booking process.
In this way passengers have a choice as to flying with an inexperienced crew or possibly paying more for greater experience.
Initially I suggested this to be quantified by showing the number of hours of experience that the Captain and FO possess but as we all know, hours does not = experience.
But herein lays the problem, possibly the number of years that the pilot has been flying.
Regardless of how the experience is measured, I believe that it would create a competition between the airlines for the better rated crew and therefore this would lead to the unusual situation of pilot salaries going up rather than down.

overun

10th Jan 2011, 17:03

lt doesn`t seem to work with taxis, l`ve tried avoiding the ones with lumps out but the price is the same.

Is there a friend of Guppies out there who is able to make direct contact by phone, etc. ? to make sure he`s ok ?

A bit concerned about this, he`s gone quiet, too quiet.

Apparently not.

overun

10th Jan 2011, 18:32

Could l put a couple of quid your way for a signed first edition ?

SNS3Guppy

10th Jan 2011, 22:31

A bit concerned about this, he`s gone quiet, too quiet.

Your point? I posted this morning. You think I don't post enough?

How is this relevant to the thread?

read about his run-in with Kathleen Sclachter.

Who is Kathleen Sclachter?

So what exactly is your interest Guppy ?

In what? In the thread, or Sully? Read the thread; it's fairly self-explanatory.

Safety Concerns

11th Jan 2011, 07:20

Safety (which is ultimately what this thread is about) is a hidden variable as things now stand. The trick is to make it explicit, along with its price, and no one here has yet suggested how to do that.

I'll make some suggestions to start the debate.

1) regulations should be clear and not open to interpretation
2) regulators regulate to the rule instead of the prevailing economic climate

Most issues would solve themselves if the above were adhered to.

sevenstrokeroll

11th Jan 2011, 14:26

the Wright's learned things first hand that I could only read about.

Lindbergh knew things that I have never known in person.

And I know a few things that won't be easily passed on to others.

But I do think, in any real training scheme, that the thirst for aeronautical knowledge be made part of the course.

Let me ask this question for honest answers. Mind you I am aware of the changes to modern television from 40 years ago.

IF YOU WERE out in a highly rural area, seemingly lost, in a small plane and you came upon a farm house with a television antenna, could you use this for some form of navigation?

think about it and answer.

Now, if you have never heard of this, you have learned something.

Also ask yourself what flying in a triangular pattern while making right turns means...and with left turns.

Its all about self motivation to learn things.

bubbers44

11th Jan 2011, 14:48

I know the first one. The narrowest part of the antenna points to a major city where the TV transmitter is located. The left and right triangles have to do with your receiver being operational or not as I recall. I think right turns is with an operative receiver. Without a transponder which would make this an easy fix I doubt if any controller would notice you before you ran out of gas. Now with analog TV being gone the little digital antennas aren't being used much so at least you could see where south was using the Directv antennas depending on what region you were in. Remember flying the old 727 types with no magenta line? Entering holding was fun then. You couldn't just push a button. Now getting an instrument rating probably only requires a 10 hr typing course. That will probably be standard in 2020.

Dutchjock

11th Jan 2011, 17:04

Dutchjock

11th Jan 2011, 17:07

@ sevenstrokeroll and bubbers: Lovely stories, but that's not going to be of any use in todays airline environment

xsbank

11th Jan 2011, 19:32

There is a race to the bottom - by the time that a/c are automated to the point that there is no human (or cockpit, for that matter) on the a/c (you could charge a premium to sit up in the front room with the best view) the quality of the pilots will have deteriorated so much because of the low wages, the argument will be over. Anyone care to speculate when the first "drone" airline will take off? Probably about the same time they can figure out how to taxi them back and forth to the runways and to the jetways, automatically.

Ps. There is no more analogue TV so the antennae might be pointing anywhere.

sevenstrokeroll

11th Jan 2011, 20:33

Bubbers 44 is correct. I remembered the triangle patterns by LEFT means you have nothing LEFT, RIGHT means you can Receive only.

as to dutchjock...it is this example that I hope will remind all pilots how many little things might just help them in a pinch. While analog TV is out, regular antennas can still received digital broadcasting and might still be pointed towards the major city broadcasting transmitter.

I even taught my students how to follow power lines to major cities...imgaine your fancy computer plane down to nothing...and you are over the Nevada desert...even your compass is out...and there is a set of power lines...one way takes you to a major power station and the other way to a major city which uses the power...either way, civilization and help...and most likely an airstrip.

what I propose is teaching pilots how to think like PILOTS and not button pushers.

so, keep pushing those buttons and as long as they work...great...but when you are down on your luck, try thinking like a pilot.

Dutchjock

11th Jan 2011, 20:53

That's a bit dramatic sevenstrokeroll, but I get your point. Although I don't really see what makes you say button pushing and thinking like a pilot don't go together. Does handflying the machine make you such a better pilot?

sevenstrokeroll

12th Jan 2011, 01:39

dutchjock

hand flying just makes you more able to cope with handflying...when the other stuff breaks down.

believe me, if buttons never broke...:-)

SNS3Guppy

12th Jan 2011, 03:44

Why all the "200 hr boy wonder" bashing?

KLM gets the majority of their new pilots from their own 200-ish hour flights school and has always done so

Lufthansa same story, mostly 200 hr cadets

British Airways same story to a large degree.

Are these airlines not as safe as airlines that require recruits to race around in a cessna for 1500 hours?

Let's not forget that military aviators generally start with no experience. A USAF pilot graduates Undergraduate Pilot Training with 250 hours and an assignment to transition to some very sophisticated equipment. At a few hundred hours total time, that pilot can be operating supersonic tactical aircraft solo with more firepower on board than the entire second world war, and can fly that aircraft with no assistance to minimums on an approach, without the help of an autopilot.

Hours mean nothing. Experience, on the other hand, including one's training experience, means a hell of a lot.

TopTup

12th Jan 2011, 04:10

Thanks for getting this thread back on course.....

Guppy does have some interesting points, granted, but he admits to having zero experience in airline training departments, airline safety departments and airline operations in general. As he sates, airlines just didn't overly attract him. So be it. But he denies what we in airline training departments, airline safety departments and airline operations have witnessed and continue to witness over time. He has however argued based on his own experience (smaller [commuter] turboprops, corporate aviation and freighters [747 classic??]). Arguments are lined with ridicule and abuse from his own interpretation. Disagree, certainly! Seek to ridicule and abuse, no.

No where did I ever state that technical questions are REPLACED by "What do your parents think about you becoming a pilot?" I merely stated that they have now been included. He argues I did, and labels me a liar. Hence the backlashes.

This thread is about the dying breed of airman and airmanship in AIRLINE operations, as the title states.

I chose to use CX as an example as I have close colleagues there in senior training roles. CX have deliberately ignored the successfully interviewed applicants with many thousands of hours experience, most with jet experience. In their stead CX have deliberately recruited based on a cadetship ideology where ZERO flying experience is required. This permits them to offer T's & C's far, far below those offered to the successful candidates prior to the GFC (some 50% less). Recently these 60 successful candidates were offered a job as SO based on the same T's & C's as the cadet pilots: all this after waiting for some 2.5 years!!! All but one refused, I am told.

To deny airlines therefore actively SEEK lower time / experienced pilots is to deny the blatant obvious.

The point made by "Safety Concerns" is valid. My point is that airlines do follow (their version!) of these regulations and procedures. They have shown to be able to do so by ignoring applicants of higher standard (subjective point, perhaps, but I' take the QF Second Officer with 8000 hrs experience over someone with zero, 175 or 200 hrs). The regulations are upheld, but the bar is effectively lowered. My 2 years at AI as a TRE/I on the B777 fleet was shocking in the extreme. I had to resign as my conscience and integrity dictated.

Technology grows exponentially. In the words of Mr Earl Weiner (late 80's, early 90's pioneer of CRM), "Automation is dutiful yet dumb". Meaning if programmed incorrectly that same automation will quite happily and extremely successfully plough that aircraft into the side of a mountain. So, give me a pilot who has the knowledge, experience, hours, and training to know when the automation has failed the crew by either human error or software/hardware error....and then to competently know how to handle the situation to achieve the most successful possible outcome.

I can believe I can teach a "average" person from the street to take off and land a B777 within 4-5 hours in the sim. They will learn wrote what to do, and of course conduct an autoland (nil failures). They will have little to zero background KNOWLEDGE or EXPERIENCE to comprehend WHY they are doing what they are, but by pure definition one may argue that this person just took off and landed a B777. Give me another few weeks and I can run through some scenarios: normal and non-normal. In 2 months is this person an "airman"? Some believe yes.

PBL

12th Jan 2011, 07:51

In the words of Mr Earl Weiner [sic] (late 80's, early 90's pioneer of CRM), "Automation is dutiful yet dumb". Meaning if programmed incorrectly that same automation will quite happily and extremely successfully plough that aircraft into the side of a mountain. So, give me a pilot who has the knowledge, experience, hours, and training to know when the automation has failed the crew by either human error or software/hardware error....and then to competently know how to handle the situation to achieve the most successful possible outcome.

The answer to Prof. Wiener's quote today would be "that's so late 80's, early 90's".

Recall the first FBW commercial airliner came into service in 1988, not yet thirty years after jets were introduced to airline flying, and we are 22+years on from that.

There is no doubt that the QF 32 incident, with which this thread began, was handled in part by superior airmanship. There is equally no doubt, if you read the RAeS interview with David Evans (http://www.aerosocietychannel.com/aerospace-insight/2010/12/exclusive-qantas-qf32-flight-from-the-cockpit/), the check-check captain on the flight, that this superior airmanship was aided incomparably by the automation, which amongst other things gave the crew a detailed list of all that was awry, which they used to significant effect, in particular to calculate landing performance.

The USAF is installing a terrain-collision avoidance system in its fighter aircraft, and the people who developed that system are short listed for an Aviation Week Laureate Award this year. This was first mooted nearly thirty years ago, but it was clear then that knowledge of automation was not up to the task. Now, the USAF agrees it is.

Many of the significant airline accidents in 2010 could have been avoided had the standard manoeuvres which were being performed been automated, and the proverbial dog had bitten the pilots had they touched anything, as I argued in this blog post in September 2010 (http://www.abnormaldistribution.org/2010/09/03/fully-automatic-execution-of-critical-manoeuvres-in-airline-flying/), which was itself written to address a similar issue raised in another thread on this forum.

I think there is no doubt that automation will take up many more of the routine as well as non-routine tasks in flying a commercial aircraft. As we see these systems becoming more reliable in a wider variety of flight situations, we will see the requirements for successfully monitoring them correspondingly reduced. To put it bluntly, 200 hours programming a veridical simulator will be preferred over 1500 hours teaching people to fly C152s by most airlines, for good reasons. Not tomorrow necessarily, but in ten to twenty years.

PBL

TopTup

12th Jan 2011, 08:24

PBL:
Very true, and for the most I agree 100% with you regarding the role of automation, it's sophistication and reliability. Modern fighters simply cannot fly without it.

Why learn basic maths when a calculator can do it for you? The skills, the mental reasoning and mental processes need to be there as a foundation. Same ideology with our profession, I believe. Example: Ask your FO on your next flight when briefing a hold what he expects the aircraft to do passing overhead the fix: sector 1, 2 or 3 entry?? Why? Because "what if" the dutiful yet dumb computer makes a mistake? How will you (or the FO) know if those foundations are not there?

Ask any pilot who has experienced real life "torque roll" in a turboprop, or other and you'll see an entirely different perspective on Vmca. I struggle to convey the importance of understanding the 777-200LR's performance, all to do with a V2 floor, etc, etc (http://pilotlab.net/aircraft-manufacture/boeing/the-migration-to-higher-thr.pdf) yet the blank looks are worrying.

Personally, I whole-heartedly embrace technology. The 777's EFB and Perf Tool (all be it a very slow processor!) optimizes performance and can remove "book error" from poor interpolation, etc (but replaced by the possibility of "finger error"?) But I also believe it should be worked with the human element at an amicable ratio. Too often we are seeing over-reliance on automation to the job the pilots should be capable of doing themselves. Blindly relying on it is not only not right, it's stupid. Understanding it, working with it, etc is completely different and a quality an airman should seek and have.

The QF32 incident and Hudson Landing, as well as the 757 incident mentioned in my first post, shows how a profession team of airman were able to draw on a sound foundation, strong training and good experience to use the tools they had and to develop a means to achieve their task. Like Guppy (believe it or not!) I too believe that what these crews did was commendable in the highest, but not something we should deem as extraordinary. Sadly these skills, experience, decision making, etc, etc, etc are becoming rare in airline environments - even deliberately so since such attributes are (in my opinion) deemed as "cost liabilities" when someone else with zero to fresh CPL holder can be employed instead.

SNS3Guppy

12th Jan 2011, 09:33

Guppy does have some interesting points, granted, but he admits to having zero experience in airline training departments, airline safety departments and airline operations in general.

Your reading comprehension continues to drag at the lowest levels.

I said no such thing. I said that I do not work in the training department for my employer.

No where did I ever state that technical questions are REPLACED by "What do your parents think about you becoming a pilot?" I merely stated that they have now been included. He argues I did, and labels me a liar.

Again, you lie.

Was it not you, opening the thread, who stated "Interview questions used to be along the lines of "How did you accrue your hours? What lessons did you learn? Tell me about Vmca / Vmcg (piston vs twin jet).... How does the IRS work (then strap down gyros, etc...) Nowadays it's: "What do your parents think of you becoming a pilot?" (refer CX Wannabes forum)?"

It was.

Today you edited the post to change the wording slightly. Your original post, before you just went back and changed it, did not say that the questions have been included. You stated at the outset that formerly interviews were technical questions, but "nowadays, it's...", and then went on to cite HR questions which are not part of the technical interview.

You've lied, and now tried to cover your lie. Interesting that you felt this necessary. Unfortunately for you, I copied your original post and included it in my later responses to you. Perhaps you became tired of defending your original lie, and thus tried to cover it up by changing it. In doing so, you've lied again. I am not surprised.

I chose to use CX as an example as I have close colleagues there in senior training roles. CX have deliberately ignored the successfully interviewed applicants with many thousands of hours experience, most with jet experience. In their stead CX have deliberately recruited based on a cadetship ideology where ZERO flying experience is required. This permits them to offer T's & C's far, far below those offered to the successful candidates prior to the GFC (some 50% less). Recently these 60 successful candidates were offered a job as SO based on the same T's & C's as the cadet pilots: all this after waiting for some 2.5 years!!! All but one refused, I am told.

To deny airlines therefore actively SEEK lower time / experienced pilots is to deny the blatant obvious.

So you say, so you say. Incorrectly, but so you say.

Cathay already had the cadet program. Your argument is that simply because those formerly in the hiring pool weren't brought on board when the track for which they were interviewed was cancelled, the airline doesn't believe in high standards, safety, or training. It's non-sequitur, junk logic, but it's consistent with your reasoning throughout the thread.

The blatantly obvious part is that Cathay didn't leave the applicants hanging; when the track for which they interviewed was cancelled, Cathay did something they haven't done in the past; they offered experienced pilots the one opening that was available; the cadet program. The cadet program has been reserved for ab initio students; individuals with no experience couldn't apply, and Cathay had no obligation to offer that position to the poolies. The poolies had no obligation to take the job.

Being interviewed for a job and then not getting the job isn't uncommon. I've seen vacancy announcements throughout the years which were put out, then retracted, even after selections had been made. People interview for positions and sometimes sit in hiring pools for a year or more, then still never get the job. Cathay interviewed applicants, extended them a training offer, and then never brought them on board. At that point, at most places, it would be the end. Cathay offered to put these individuals into the training pipeline anyway, albeit not the track that they wanted. They opted to go elsewhere. Not a big deal, as the cadet program wasn't really established for them anyway. It was established to bring people up through the ranks, just like Lufsthansa and many other operators do...operators who choose to use pilots who have been brought up in their own company image from the ground up.

You have no evidence to show that Cathay has sought to hire inexperienced or incapable pilots. In fact, Cathay offered experineced pilots the cadet position, something they haven't done in the past. Surely you won't seriously suggest that Cathay should bump up the wages for cadets in order to accomodate experienced aviators who want to drop everything and start over?

TopTup

12th Jan 2011, 11:17

[Forest]Guppy: At best you are a sanctimonious arrogant self opinionated conceited fool. Even when trying to dilute the aggression existing between yourself, myself and the numerous here you seek to fire it up.

No one, least of all me EVER stated the cadets at or going to CX are of a poor quality. Lesser experience, yes. That's pretty obvious to anyone with an open mind and able to participate in a basic human dialogue. You actively seek to promote your own agenda - to hell with the facts borne from others' experience and knowledge. From experience I KNOW that the training at CX is some of the best I have seen from experience (to varying degrees) in safety and training departments in the US, Asia, India and Europe. Stop creating dirt to throw.

Airlines have the right to choose whom they hire, when and where. It's their bat and ball. CX offered candidates a job they did not interview for (DESO vs Cadet) and on 50% less package. Of the 60, 1 accepted. That speaks volumes for the said package offered to experienced applicants. Again, cease creating dirt to throw when your knowledge of the CX recruitment policies and procedures reeks of ignorance.

I edited the original post to reflect what I have stated time and time and time again: you interpreted my post one way, incorrectly. I have tried in vane to reason with you regarding my intentions and opinions. I stand by my original post, as well as the edited WORD I made to make it easy for the slow, more aggressive and simple people to comprehend. I even typed it slow for you.

You are so desperate to ridicule you tried to accused me of being a failed cadet applicant at CX.

You have alluded to your instruction days, in GA, period. From your previous posts and history you are an FO on a freighter with some past background as corporate driver in the ME, as well as GA in the States. No where have you alluded to your qualifications to comment on AIRLINE training, safety departments or interviewing standards, but for the receiving end yourself.

You boast about your own employers >50% failure rate from RHS to LHS, a fact (if true) ANY respectable airline or recruitment and training department would be ashamed of. You are proud of it.

Fella, you call a man a liar. Under the guise of anonymity you are proud of yourself. In a bar you would flat on your arse.

You show your utter ignorance, and try to offer prowess over it, again based on your own cocoon existence. CX has had a cadet program for a long time: offered ONLY to local HK residents. They were/are employed on "local terms" which was void of expat allowances. For the record I was but slightly part of the CX interview and selection processes in the early 90's. I worked with colleagues still there today very senior in the airline. But of course, [Forest]Guppy knows best of what CX recruitment was and where it is now..... As CX have always stated, the expat allowance package is in place as they believe(d) that an expat coming to HK should not suffer a loss of lifestyle in coming to HK. At the beginning of 2009 they changed this to open the doors to non residence: a global pool. They received some 17,000 applicants I believe. Prior to this (2008) they had interviewed and told some 60 pilots they were next to start as DESO's. They changed that policy to only hire cadets who effectively received 50% less salary. While [Forest]Guppy has ZERO knowledge of CX, it's recruitment, it's policies, he deems [quote from previous posts] his opinions to be the only "truth". All others' opinions, evidence and experience mean zero.

Some bought this thread back from the low levels you chased it down to, hence my avoidance to post for some time. As some educated people joined in and contributed professionally, it became worth discussing again. You had to again turn to abuse and ridicule.

As stated by me and others, you're not worth it. Next time you call a man a liar, try doing so without anonymity.

SNS3Guppy

12th Jan 2011, 13:29

Of the 60, 1 accepted. That speaks volumes for the said package offered to experienced applicants.

No, it doesn't. This is your incorrect logic, again. The applicants didn't accept a job for which they weren't interviewed, and which they hadn't sought.

They may as well have been offered positions sweeping floors, processing accounting reports, or making lunch in cafeterias. They didn't interview for those positions, either. That the applicants didn't accept the positions is no ringing condemnation on the position, or on the applicants. That you hold it up as evidence to the contrary is no great surprise, at at best, effort at deceit on your part.

Were you one of the applicants, and thus feel jilted? Is this all a personal rant because you didn't get the job you wanted?

I have tried in vane to reason with you regarding my intentions and opinions.

Try in vain next time. You won't get better results, but at least you'll have proper grammar.

sanctimonious arrogant self opinionated conceited fool.

I even typed it slow for you.

Idiot.

In a bar you would flat on your arse.

utter ignorance

cocoon existence

[Forest]Guppy

Wow. You're both an intellectual and a professional. Who'd have guessed? When a man has nothing intelligent left to offer, it's these insults with which you're left, then? Truly brilliant reparte, by the way.

Do this: learn to spell, spend less time at the bar, don't lie so much, don't change your posts to cover your lies, and you'll be much better prepared to have an intelligent discussion. Then again, don't start the thread based on a lie, and you'll have a better position from which to begin.

I edited the original post to reflect what I have stated time and time and time again: you interpreted my post one way, incorrectly.

No need to interpret you mate. I simply quoted you. I'd never presume to put words in your mouth, nor would I presume to assume. I'll leave that to you, as you do so well with it.

While [Forest]Guppy has ZERO knowledge of CX, it's recruitment, it's policies, he deems [quote from previous posts] his opinions to be the only "truth".

Ah. There's another assumption with which you're wrong, but then you contend to have made a quote here, too, when you have not. Another lie, then. Here's the thing; when you've lied here, I've quoted you making the lie, then shown it to be a lie. Perhaps when you get done with your vitriol and epithets, you could get around to doing the same?

Fella, you call a man a liar. Under the guise of anonymity you are proud of yourself. In a bar you would flat on your arse.

Quite possibly so, but only because I'd be laughing too hard to stand. Then again, I don't frequent bars, and you're pretty funny from the comfort of home, too.

No one, least of all me EVER stated the cadets at or going to CX are of a poor quality. Lesser experience, yes. That's pretty obvious to anyone with an open mind and able to participate in a basic human dialogue. You actively seek to promote your own agenda - to hell with the facts borne from others' experience and knowledge. From experience I KNOW that the training at CX is some of the best I have seen from experience (to varying degrees) in safety and training departments in the US, Asia, India and Europe. Stop creating dirt to throw.

So, to sum up, you opened with lies and false accusations condemning the industry (and since have changed it by editing the post, then lied about your opening comments after changing it. Your opening comments specifically pointed to Cathay procedures as unprofessional, specifically indicated that technical questions have been supplanted by parental approval questions, and blathered on about the industry in general. Now, you've changed your tune. Imagine that!

Whereas you've spent this entire thread rabbiting on about the downward spiral in the industry as a part of the airline's global agenda to hire the lowest common denominator in order to save money, and your flagship example (that you failed to cite or link, incidentally) is Cathay Pacific, now you tell us that the cadets are of excellent quality, and that the training program is among the best in the world. Sort of shoots your own platform down in flames, doesn't it?

It does.

sevenstrokeroll

12th Jan 2011, 13:44

a friend of mine got hired at cathay pacific about 7 years ago (very experienced) and he is now a747 captain.

I don't think I will follow this thread anymore...

Jabiman

12th Jan 2011, 23:29

I think that this thread is a very pertinent indication of the direction of the piloting profession. The side argument between the original poster and guppy also accurately reflects how strongly held opinions on the matter can derail the entire discussion.
I think that PBL is on the right track with this insight:
200 hours programming a veridical simulator will be preferred over 1500 hours teaching people to fly C152s by most airlines, for good reasons. Not tomorrow necessarily, but in ten to twenty years.
Though my opinion on this facet is different. I dont think it will happen in the US, it may happen within that timeframe in Australia and in the UK it has already happened.

Shell Management

13th Jan 2011, 05:48

PBL is on the right track

Competence is far more important that simple hours. Thats a postion the oil and gas industry has now acknowledged allowing lower experience levels is gained in a structured cadet programme with simulator use and LOFT designed to build competence efficiently.

1500 repeats of the same 1 of straight and level flights is just 1 hours experience.

I have encountered Guppy before. No point using facts to counter strongly held opinions with some people.

TopTup

13th Jan 2011, 16:50

As I stated very early (page 3): I am by no way stating I am right, but that it is my opinion based on witnessed accounts, experience and other related evidence.

Some embraced the argument on offer, to support my views or to differ. They did so with integrity and professionalism. Guppy is completely void of all such attributes.

Shell M'ment: Too true. Silly of me for again arguing a nasty and ignorant fool. I say CX's training system is of a high standard, that the cadets have zero to very little experience - THAT's ALL! He turns this into "Cathay Pacific, now you tell us that the cadets are of excellent quality". No where was this written or inferred. Same as my first post, but he chooses to interpret via a disturbing, self absorbed logic. So be it.

ME: "No one, least of all me EVER stated the cadets at or going to CX are of a poor quality. Lesser experience, yes. That's pretty obvious to anyone with an open mind and able to participate in a basic human dialogue. You actively seek to promote your own agenda - to hell with the facts borne from others' experience and knowledge. From experience I KNOW that the training at CX is some of the best I have seen from experience (to varying degrees) in safety and training departments in the US, Asia, India and Europe. Stop creating dirt to throw."

Guppy: ".....now you tell us that the cadets are of excellent quality..."

He makes up his own reasoning when void of anything else. Not poor = excellent? Logical to him alone. When dogmatically chasing a fight one will clutch at straws I suppose.

He'll argue an assumption here. No, it's called inductive reasoning. (Time to retaliate to this post will determine the time for him to google what inductive reasoning is).

From SR71: I'll let my flying do the talking not my keyboard but I would suggest you lose some of the attitude. and Were my original questions unreasonable? Is your condescension really necessary? Is it impossible your explanation ever lacks clarity? Is your keyboard persona anything like your flightdeck persona?

From Old Fella: SNS3Guppy. You, Sir, are one of the most self-opinionated individuals I have ever encountered. Your only response to being told that you have erred is to ridicule those who KNOW YOU ARE WRONG. At least have the intestinal fortitude to admit that you made a mistake, if not publicly, at least with a PM.

Just a few from this thread alone. Shell M'ment and 411A to name but another two elsewhere. Many, many others to be found amongst the existence he has on this web site.

Wow! 1.49 posts per day since 8 Oct 2005! Recently multiple posts on Xmas Eve, many, many Xmas, more on Boxing Day, same with NYE and NY Day. Most of us were enjoying time with family and/or friends.....

This is the true definition of why airmanship is more than stick and rudder skills or credentials and this clown is by demeanor as far from an airman as one could hope for. As I mentioned before, utter agony to be stuck in a cockpit with.

I would've PM'd you but the last person who tried this (from this thread) you, in true form, ridiculed & abused him publicly when he or she did. Guppy publicly replying to Old Fella: You, with the reading comprehension problem, again. I saw your PM, fishing once more for material. Forget it. Don't waste my time.

john_tullamarine

13th Jan 2011, 23:21

Folk,

I really don't want to have to spend more of my time weeding out unacceptable commentary.

You don't have to like any given individual, or their opinions, or their comments. You may think them to be a fool, or worse - that is your prerogative.

But we do want to keep the invective out of the thread - if we aren't able to keep things under control at the poster level, then the mods will do what is necessary by edit or padlock.

The thread has some importance and should be an interesting and stimulating discussion - but not a vehicle for abusing the other fellow - play the ball, please, not the player.

TopTup

14th Jan 2011, 00:45

John: too true, and you'll see all too often on 11+ pages of this thread the same theme. I trust you please took the time to read all that has transpired. Nearly all contribute constructively, only this one person has turned it into a nasty environment. And true, my reactions do not assist. Please note in a recent post for my attempt to even settle things down. Guppy's contribution was, as predicable, demeaning and nasty for no reason. It's just the type of person he is.

Play the ball not the man, yes. There's also something to be said for fighting fire with fire. He's thrown too many deliberate and low punches for a very long time.

It was written earlier that people do become passionate about things in aviation and this forum. I'm guilty of that. One man, Guppy, has chosen to belittle, abuse and ridicule on a habitual basis without the experience in some fields or knowledge to do so. He plays on words or twists them to a meaning that are or were never intended only so he can attempt to satisfy a self righteousness. When repeatedly called a liar (and failed CX cadet, then aggressive Capt, then back to being a failed cadet again) simply because he interprets something differently to me, and others, then he deserves the reaction he gets and exposure of the past he possesses.

I started this thread as I too saw this topic important and worth discussing. Nearly everyone else agrees as well, but only Guppy labels it all lies, and me a liar. Yep - that'll raise emotions.

I hope it could get back on track again, as it has a few times until drawn into the sewer again by the one person, Guppy, time after time. I stayed away when he did do this, then joined back in when things seemed on track again, when some professional airman constructively contributed. Then as his overwhelming past on this forum bears witness to; Guppy turns it nasty and hence the strong reactions surface.

If the Moderators wish to step in, then please do! We could bring educated and professional debate back to the table.

john_tullamarine

14th Jan 2011, 02:54

I've had a wade through the thread and made a few edits to keep the overall thing on an even keel.

Main things to keep in mind, I guess -

(a) on Tech Log and CRM, we don't try to achieve a nanny state, PC, tea and scones gathering sort of ideal - such would be a waste of time and the result ever so terribly boring

(b) the nature of the piloting fraternity is that high egos abound and, indeed, a pilot with low ego is unlikely to achieve much success in the task

(c) the pilot who wishes to be all things to all people and friend to all .. is doomed to failure. Command is not about democracy although the best commanders will exploit the capabilities and knowledge of their associates to the benefit of achieving the goal at the time and, to the extent reasonably achievable, will encourage a pleasant workplace environment. Some do this better than others, of course, but that is the nature of humanity.

(d) our goal here is for folk, while debating with vigour and rigour, not to get down into gutter tactics and gratuitously abusive behaviour .. noting that criticism doesn't equal abuse, per se. One needs to accept that some folk are more diplomatic than others when it comes to delivering criticism ..

(e) we are, I think, fortunate to have a number of quite vigorous folk in the PPRuNe sandpit who call it like they see it albeit that sometimes such a manner irritates the more sensitive folk. Fact of life and it it not likely to alter much anytime soon.

(f) Why isn't it a rule on this forum that people be required to post in their public profile at least the basics of what empowers (or not) them to comment?

The question is a little idealistic, I think. This is not going to happen anytime soon regardless of whether it may/may not be a good idea.

However, for those readers who have a background in the Industry, it is not terribly difficult to weed out the technically ignorant from the savant. Sometimes both can get a bit circumlocutory and repetitive but that's life, I guess.

Keep in mind that the moderator need not agree, like, admire or enthuse about that which might be written. The moderating task is not to constrain the forum or individual threads/posts to the moderator's (or moderators') views. Rather the task is to provide a measure of control (if, and where, required) according to the requirements of the site and any published forum requirements.

In so doing, the moderator is subject to the lemma that one can please some of the people all the time, all of the people some of the time .. but not all of the people all of the time.

Sometimes we do a good job while, at other times, we hang on to the tail of the tiger as best we might be able.

SNS3Guppy

14th Jan 2011, 16:07

One man, Guppy, has chosen to belittle, abuse and ridicule on a habitual basis without the experience in some fields or knowledge to do so.

You err. What I have done is quote you. You've been hung with your own words, even when you changed them to hide your own mistakes. Then you were quoted anyway, to show more deceit. You really can't blame anyone else for your own words, you know.

Insofar as belittling and abuse, you really can't project your own name-calling on anyone else, either. As I said previously, it's usually a sure sign that you've nothing intelligent to offer on the matter that you enter into the name-calling, as you continue to do. You whine of abuse (rather childish whine, really), yet continue to point a finger and name-call as an eight-year-old might:

sanctimonious arrogant self opinionated conceited fool.

I even typed it slow for you.

Idiot.

In a bar you would flat on your arse.

utter ignorance

cocoon existence

[Forest]Guppy

nasty and ignorant fool

Again, threats, belittling, insults, name-calling on a very childish level is so very professional, isn't it? Moreover, you've contributed greatly to your own thread, and enhanced the discussion to no end. Well done.

There's also something to be said for fighting fire with fire.

Really? When do you start?

THAT's ALL! He turns this into "Cathay Pacific, now you tell us that the cadets are of excellent quality". No where was this written or inferred. Same as my first post, but he chooses to interpret via a disturbing, self absorbed logic.

Do you realize that you answered your own question by quoting yourself (who does that??) again? Never the less, it's key to your own question that started the thread, so as much as it relates to the thread and it's myriad direction, is in your own comment. Your commentary centered around Cathay Pacific, held us as the prime example of an airline seeking to reduce airmanship by lowering wages. You specifically cited the cadet program at CX, when introducing human resource questions, and labeling them as technical questions (you've attempted to cover this up, by editing your original post, but the lie was already captured in quotes, so we needn't go there again).

The problem is that you base your indictment on the global airline decline, as you perceive it to be, on Cathay Pacific. You assert repeatedly throughout the thread that airlines deliberately seek the least experienced and able pilots they can, and that the airline industry is deteriorating. Cathay is your poster child for this descent into the airmanship abysss. In a complete about-face, you now tell us that Cathay has the best training in the world.

The cadets at Cathay go through Cathay training (it's the point of having cadets and ab initio training in the first place, you see), and you state that CX training is "some of the best I have seen from experience (to varying degrees) in safety and training departments in the US, Asia, India and Europe." You don't see the error you've made? Cathay represents the intentional decline of global airmanship, you say, yet has the best training in the world. Think hard, and decide which direction to back peddle; your platform can't go both ways.

Wow! 1.49 posts per day since 8 Oct 2005! Recently multiple posts on Xmas Eve, many, many Xmas, more on Boxing Day, same with NYE and NY Day. Most of us were enjoying time with family and/or friends.....

You're deeply concerned with how I spend my time, aren't you? Perhaps you might spend that concern on determining which direction you want to take your platform, rather than worrying about what I do with my spare time, and stick to the thread. Can you do that?

After all, the world of airmanship is spiraling into the toilet, you tell us, a deliberate plot and a conspiracy by airlines worldwide to reduce the level of airmanship in the cockpit, in order to save money...even though the airline you hold up as the lynchpin in the whole process has the best training department in the world (according to you). The question for you now is whether you can solve your own conundrum without resorting to name-calling, or changing your earlier posts to reflect your own new reality, begging for moderation to save you.

You can certainly spend your time worrying about what I do with my time, though this does nothing to move the thread along, or you can attempt to support your premise that founded the thread. Your premise is a falsehood that you cannot defend (not so far, anyway). Are you still unable?

john_tullamarine

16th Jan 2011, 09:44

Just to finish the reason for deleting the previous post ..

Bit over the top and largely irrelevant - now, I have no idea for whom the other pilot flies but any attempt to identify individuals or their operator is just not on. Those who use their natural name are readily identified. Those who choose to use a nom de plume are entitled to a measure of privacy.

Note that this does not infer any degree of favouritism to one pilot over another. I will slash and burn (when required on the rare occasion) without fear or favour.

I accept that some pilots get a tad intense in their posts - however, so long as that intensity doesn't get into the nasty arena we will just have to tolerate a range of styles.

I think a few days in the sin bin is not inappropriate.

Please folk, if you want to play willy waving, JB is the place to go.

I would prefer to see this thread wander back to a sensible discussion .. however, if necessary, I will lock it.

alf5071h

17th Jan 2011, 01:37

Perhaps helping to get back on track, has the thread established what qualities ‘this dying breed’ have; what makes them so ‘special’ – special to aviation or particular situations, but not necessarily everywhere.
Various notable incidents – disasters avoided, have been quoted, on occasion with indications of personal qualities or abilities which ‘saved’ the day. However, this is not the norm for everyday operations, not the norm for everyone, yet most people seem to manage.
The industry appears to require aspects of the special qualities, a subset or a minimum standard in order to operate safely. What are these aspects and why do they appear to be so important to safety.

If these aspects (qualities) are identifiable, are they inherent, or teachable, only acquired with experience, or all of the above.
What is ‘it’ that matters, what do we understand about it, why does it appear to be in decline, and what can we do about it – assuming that it’s necessary to take action at all.

Jabiman

17th Jan 2011, 13:22

has the thread established what qualities ‘this dying breed’ have
The quality of airmanship is one which is learned and comes down to experience.
Almost impossible to measure or quantify and hours are only an indicator.
In the US, airline pilots will need to have done their 1500 hour time in GA and are much more likely to have this quality.
In Europe, FO's will go to the airlines with 200 hours and will be highly trained on one type of aircraft but will this be enough to give them the requisite ‘airmanship’ once the proverbial sh*t hits the fan?
TopTup and I argue that it is not enough and is a recipe for disaster. Guppy argues that as long as the training departments are on the ball then anyone with the requisite financial resources can be turned into an airline pilot
It seems to be just that, an argument akin to politics or religion which may never be resolved. The bean counters and bonus driven managers that run aviation just don’t seem to care about airmanship and are willing to just roll the dice.

SNS3Guppy

17th Jan 2011, 13:31

Guppy argues that as long as the training departments are on the ball then anyone with the requisite financial resources can be turned into an airline pilot

At no point in time have I ever said, insinuated, suggested, or implied any such thing. Put words in your own mouth, not mine.

The bean counters and bonus driven managers that run aviation just don’t seem to care about airmanship and are willing to just roll the dice.

"Bean counters" don't design training departments.

CX has already been held up as an example of an airline that is intentionaly seeking less qualified pilots and lowering the bar, when in fact, they have the toughest interview process and one of the best training programs out there.

Airmanship is an individual function not connected to a paycheck.

Rigorous standardization and good training ensure that qualified, competent personnel are on the line and that they're kept that way. To connect pay ("beancounters") with airmanship is a fallacy.

Jabiman

17th Jan 2011, 14:39

Rigorous standardization and good training ensure that qualified, competent personnel are on the line and that they're kept that way
Exactly....those pilots are qualified and competant but lack airmanship. Again, to reiterate, this is less a problem in the USA from whence you hail Guppy because of the 1500 hour rule.
But it may turn out to be a problem in Europe...I guess only time will tell.

And beancounters run everything these days as they are responsible for the bottom line and on whom the bonus driven managers rely to fatten up their incentive driven bonuses. To deny that means either one is very naive or else maybe a management stooge.

SNS3Guppy

17th Jan 2011, 17:47

Again, to reiterate, this is less a problem in the USA from whence you hail Guppy because of the 1500 hour rule.

The impending 1,500 hour requirement, while a step in the right direction, is really only window dressing. 1,500 hour requirements won't make any difference at all. 1,500 hours is nothing, and it will find application only in the entry-level jobs, anyway.

The difference between a 1,500 hour pilot and a 250 hour pilot is inconsequential save for whatever experience (not hours) that he or she may have accumulated, tempered with his or her ability to accept and apply good training.

Big Pistons Forever

17th Jan 2011, 17:47

I think it is worthwhile comparing the airline accident record between mainline legacy 1st world European (ie France, UK,Germany, Dutch, Scandinavian etc) ops and North American mainline ops. Both fly modern Western aircraft in a fully regulated environment and under effective ATC. The only significant difference that I can see is that you will never see a low time pilot at the controls of a mainline jet in North America. The average new hire on a domestic narrow body in North America has traditionally had multi thousands of hours of flying. In Europe however 250 hr new hire FO's are common. It is also a fact that the North American accident rate for mainline jets has been lower than European operators for at least the last 30 years and the gap appears to be widening. It is always dangerous to attribute cause and effect but the consistency of the data does seem to point to the intangible benefit practical experience has in reducing accidents. Supporting this hypothesis is the glaring disparity in accident rates between regional Part 121 carriers and their mainline brethren. Again the regionals operate with much more inexperienced crew.

SNS3Guppy

17th Jan 2011, 18:05

Not such a simple comparison, really. Many of those US pilots started life as 250 or 300 hour regional pilots; they've known very little, if anything, outside of their airline training. They may be flying for a legacy carrier, but if all they've ever flown is airline equipment doing airline operations, then the only comparison you could make is against other pilots who hired at low time and only flew based on company training.

Comparatively, however, whereas a pilot in Europe might require a few hundred hours to compete for an Airbus position, the same pilot in the US might require five thousand hours or more.

Conversely, few programs in the US utilize ab initio training programs. If you're going to compare Lufthansa to a US carrier, compare it to one with the same training progams, and then compare pilots of like experience within the company training program.

Companies such as Lufthansa, in fact, have excellent reputations and records. One can't really decry their training or performance. Likewise, Cathay with it's cadet training program doesn't suffer either.

sevenstrokeroll

17th Jan 2011, 23:44

I just watched a national geographic show on Alaska Bush Pilots. A 17 year old girl was learning to fly from her DAD, a former RAAF pilot.

During her long cross country, she was saying that she wanted to recognize her navigation check points and NOT depend on GPS...technology can fail she said.

so there is hope for the future...good job kid!

SNS3Guppy

18th Jan 2011, 00:05

Well, yes. Good job.

Checking VFR checkpoints and features when flying VFR is important.

It doesn't really have any bearing on flying IFR in an airline environment, however, especially as there's generally no data in the cockpit that would enable making visual recognition of checkpoints.

Perhaps the point is that the 17 year old is getting good training, and that may separate her from another 17 year old who doesn't get good training.

Much like the airline pilot, of course; the airmanship displayed isn't a "beancounter" function, but a combination of the quality of training provided, as well as the dedication and tenacity of the individual in receiving and applying that training. When standardization is applied to training and testing, and everyone has to meet the same standard, and everyone operates according to the same standard, then everyone is...the same.

I suppose a training department could insist that their airline crews recognize and identify each waypoint visually...but probably not. Not really applicable.

Insisting that the crews use standard procedures and operate within known tolerances, and apply coordination, decision making, and safety of flight policies, procedures, and skills the same, goes a long way toward ensuring that a crew operates in harmony and safely. While identifying the intersection of a powerline and a river may not have much application, tuning and identifying a course or approach facility certainly does (where the aircraft will allow it, of course).

In an environment where many operators insist that their crews fly automated most of the time, this doesn't leave much variance for personal technique or preference. One could say that's a "beancounter" input, in that paying customers want the smoothest ride possible.

The assertion that airlines are intentionally driving down safety or airmanship to save a buck, or that airline safety (or even pilot integrity and professionalism in the cockpit) is a function of "beancounters" edicts, however, is highly misplaced.

sevenstrokeroll

18th Jan 2011, 06:35

guppy, we use visual landmarks all the time in modern airline flying. have you ever flown a visual approach? mind you a visual approach is part of IFR flying.

SNS3Guppy

18th Jan 2011, 07:11

Oh, you're talking about a visual approach, where the runway or preceding aircraft is in sight at all times.

I thought you were talking about a 17 year old girl flying her long cross country in Alaska after having been taught to fly by her RAAF father.

You're not going to tell us that the "beancounters" are causing airline pilots to no longer be able to identify visual references during visual approaches, are you?

Let's keep the conversation credible. What student pilot isn't taught to use visual references when navigating by pilotage? What bearing has this on "beancounters," the alleged decrease in global airmanship as the result of airline conspiracy, and the intentional lowering of the bar by airline training departments (under duress from their respective "beancounters")?

Jabiman

18th Jan 2011, 09:21

As usual guppy manages to derail the argument into something meaningless.
Cost cutting is part of capitalism and affects EVERY business and corporation. To deny that it happens in airlines who operate at such thin margins and are in danger of going under is naive beyond belief. For proof all you need is google:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-06-27/travel/ct-biz-0627-pilots-fuel-20100626_1_american-airlines-fuel-pilots-and-dispatchers (http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-06-27/travel/ct-biz-0627-pilots-fuel-20100626_1_american-airlines-fuel-pilots-and-dispatchers)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1217770/Cost-cutting-airlines-risk-safety-passengers-warns-aviation-watchdog.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1217770/Cost-cutting-airlines-risk-safety-passengers-warns-aviation-watchdog.html)

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/qant-n12.shtml (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/qant-n12.shtml)

In regard to experience, this is a very good insight by Ercos on another part of the forum: http://www.pprune.org/6152901-post35.html

"So where DOES the public expect to see a 22 year old in one of the seats up front?"

In the front of a Caravan, a King Air, a Cessna 206, a Chieftain, a Citation Jet, a Beech 400, a Beech 1900, a Dornier 228, a Pilatus, a Beech 99, an MU-2, a Cessna 421, a Q400, a Dash-8, an EMB-120, etc.

Basically there are many aircraft with forgiving characteristics that let a pilot make their mistakes and correct them without catastrophic results. Most jets, save the Citations and Beech 400s, will not allow for a newer pilot to make the errors necessary for learning without major problems. Often times newer pilots will get behind aircraft, even if those pilots have logged 10,000 hours in a jet as an SIC they will find themselves in a whole new world when their name is under the PIC column of that dispatch release.

It is imperative for any good pilot to have left seat, real PIC time. I'm not talking about flying a jet or handling the yoke. I mean making the big decisions from the moment you show up at work to the moment you duty off. As I said before, a real pilot's skill isn't how smoothly they can land but how well they can plan and execute a flight in its entirety. This can only come from being in the left seat and baring the burden of command.

A young pilot that has never bore that burden and made those decisions in their entire career will be ill equipped when they upgrade. It's easy sitting in that right seat and playing armchair quarterback, but without the time gained making real decisions while commanding a flight you will flounder and you will make more mistakes than someone who has experience sitting in the captain's chair. I'd rather my pilot made their "stupid mistakes" in a King Air moving along at a comfortably slow cruise than a 737 packed with happy vacationers rocketing around at .78 mach.

We all make mistakes, we learn from them too. I can go through a lifetime of near death experiences and diaper changes I encountered in my early flying days. I made those mistakes and escaped with my life because the plane I flew allowed me to slow or turn tightly or land in a forgiving manner. Then I took the lessons learned from that sheer terror or humiliation and applied it to how I made decisions in jets. If I was in a 737 or a Gulfstream when I had gained my hubris there's a good chance I wouldn't be writing this today.

PBL

18th Jan 2011, 10:15

It is also a fact that the North American accident rate for mainline jets has been lower than European operators for at least the last 30 years and the gap appears to be widening.

I don't think that's the case at all. If it is even true, the difference is not statistically significant as far as I know (see below).

Arnold Barnett of MIT Sloan School of Management has been studying global airline accident rates for decades and no such conclusion lies in the work of his that I have read. I haven't read his latest yet, which may be found at this place in the WWW site of the journal Transportation Science (http://transci.journal.informs.org/cgi/content/abstract/44/3/322), but for which one has to pay.

PBL

SNS3Guppy

18th Jan 2011, 10:23

Basically there are many aircraft with forgiving characteristics that let a pilot make their mistakes and correct them without catastrophic results. Most jets, save the Citations and Beech 400s, will not allow for a newer pilot to make the errors necessary for learning without major problems.

Really? Not so.

The great myth that's perpetuated upon students is that turbojet aircraft are some hallowed ground only able to be operated and flown by the sharpest of sticks, and the greatest minds. Utter claptrap.

"Jets" are easier to fly, have greater performance to prevent one from getting into trouble (and with which to extrictate one from one's own error), far greater capability, offer superior situational awareness in most cases, are far more highly automated, operate inside a much smaller envelope, and have greater gauranteed minimum emergency performance than most light airplanes. Frankly, Conducting a cross country in a Beech 18 requires far more of a pilot than doing the same flight in a Learjet.

The sheer arrogance of the airline crowd is to make their job seem as though the pinnacle of the industry. Be here, or be nobody. Only the best and brightest could possibly do this, some cry. Not so.

Tell me how Lufthansa manages to maintain such a stellar reputation with their training pipeline. Tell me about the failing of Quantas cadet program. Tell me of the poor products of the CX cadet system. You really can't. What you can do is whine that you don't have that job. What we have here isn't a case of diminishing airmanship; we have a case of sour grapes from those who think the jobs should be given to experienced pilots who will be paid more.

This isn't an issue of diminishing airmanship. It's one of entitlement.

For proof all you need is google:

Do so more intelligently if you're looking for "proof," because a quick perusal of your evidences find them lacking.

You give us Cost-cutting measure fuels debate at American Airlines - Chicago Tribune (http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-06-27/travel/ct-biz-0627-pilots-fuel-20100626_1_american-airlines-fuel-pilots-and-dispatchers), as though this somehow supports the notion of the great airline conspiracy to reduce airmanship. The article doesn't address airmanship at all. Why did you introduce it in the first place? The article, a popular media note, is fraught with error and mistakes, as we often expect popular media articles on aviation to be. To wit:

"American has taken the spotlight as its management spars with the airline's pilots and dispatchers over who determines how much fuel a plane needs to reach its destination, a call traditionally made by the flight's captain."

In fact, this is not a call traditionally made by the captain, save for a limited token "discretionary fuel" value that the PIC may sometimes append to the dispatched fuel load. Let's face it, the captain doesn't even calculate the fuel; it's done for him, as is nearly everything in an airline operation. The article you hold up as evidence of dying airmanship (as a function of airline "beancounter" conspiracy) is both irrelevant, and false.

Not only does the article not support the argument that airlines are attempting to reduce airmanship through the evil of ruthless "beancounters," it actually cites some cases of increased training. Go figure. If you attempted to show us some way that "beancounters" have striven to knock airmanship down a notch, you've clearly failed.

The daily mail article, Cost-cutting airlines 'risk the safety of passengers', warns aviation watchdog | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1217770/Cost-cutting-airlines-risk-safety-passengers-warns-aviation-watchdog.html), laughably suggests that pilots are spending too much time on simulators:
"
It says that pilots are becoming over-reliant on automatic systems because they spend too long on simulators instead of flying manually. "

Drivel.

That pilot training has been "paired to the minimum because of cost pressures" is shown by excess simulator training and extra training sessions? Really?

Then, of course, we have Qantas?s near mid-air disaster highlights safety concerns (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/qant-n12.shtml), which states absolutely nothing about decreasing airmanship or a conspiratorial "beancounter" assault on training departments or their budgets.

At best then, introducing these irrelevant articles serves to try to throw up a smoke screen and cloud the issue, contributing nothing to the topic at hand.

Cost cutting is part of capitalism and affects EVERY business and corporation. To deny that it happens in airlines who operate at such thin margins and are in danger of going under is naive beyond belief.

Cost cutting is not synonymous with a reduction in airmanship, nor are savings to be equated with a loss of professionalism Reducing costs doesn't mean training has been diminished, that pilot capability has been diminished, and most critically, that pilot performance is less.

The entire aviation industry operates on a razor-thin profit margin. Knowing this doesn't change anything. One must also know, however, that the cost of failing to properly train crews and provide the tools necessary to do the job, which includes ensuring standardization, understanding, and airmanship, far exceeds to cost of properly providing those services. Airlines are in no hurry to diminish airmanship at the cost of lives and airframes; even the lowly "beancounters" fully understand this strategic fact.

sevenstrokeroll

18th Jan 2011, 14:08

guppy

you missed my point...read the title of the thread. I just offered one example that there is hope that our ''old time'' pilots are making sure new pilots carry on certain important traditions.

and I am concerned that your definition of the visual approach is a little TOO textbook.

SNS3Guppy

19th Jan 2011, 00:53

I appreciate your concern, and I'm seeking guidance to revisit that definition, even as we speak. Is there any other?

Visually checking visual waypoints during VFR flight isn't a tradition. It's a functional requirement of navigation by pilotage, and a crucial part of learning to fly. Not exactly a lost art.

Not exactly anything to do with the notion that "beancounters" are conspiring to limit or reduce airmanship on a global basis in airlines, either.

Dutchjock

19th Jan 2011, 14:39

The 1500 hrs rule has to be the most ridiculous solution to increase safety.

Is there any evidence to suggest this will do anything other than perpetuate the problems for the struggling pilot on minimum wages who commutes across the states because he/she can't afford to live close to base and needs a second job as dish washer to make ends meet?

If I may be so forward as to suggest the FAA to look at evidence from around the globe rather than their own lobbying backyard, they may find good quality training leads to perfectly safe airlines.

As I asked before: are Air France, Lufthansa, KLM, BA any less safe than airlines in the states?

They all use 200 hr pilots on their jets.

A lot of (jet)airline incident/accident reports point to lack of adherence to SOPs, fatigue etc, but hardly ever to a lack of manual flying skills.

GA experience is of limited use in the airline environment.

sevenstrokeroll

19th Jan 2011, 21:02

guppy...the point was she didn't depend on her GPS...

and do you know what a charted visual approach procedure is?

Dutchjock

19th Jan 2011, 21:34

sevenstrokeroll:

How about we disregard irrelevancies and discuss the topic?

SNS3Guppy

19th Jan 2011, 23:29

The 1500 hrs rule has to be the most ridiculous solution to increase safety.

Agreed. It was chosen as a benchmark because it's the minimum experience level for the ATP certificate.

Is there any evidence to suggest this will do anything other than perpetuate the problems for the struggling pilot on minimum wages who commutes across the states because he/she can't afford to live close to base and needs a second job as dish washer to make ends meet?

Entry level is entry level, no matter how you slice it.

The 1,500 hour requirement doesn't hurt or help that fact.

As I asked before: are Air France, Lufthansa, KLM, BA any less safe than airlines in the states?

I don't think so. They have stellar reputations and are world class operators.

GA experience is of limited use in the airline environment.

I disagree there. One must be specific about what experience and how it applies, but certainly the very broad general aviation field has ample application to the airline environment.

One could say that the airline environment is the corporate environment greatly simplified and dumbed down. The corporate pilot does all his own calculations and planning, generally, as well as handles all aspects of the flight from ordering fuel to arranging transport for passengers, to setting up catering. The general aviation corporate pilot flies the same routes, but many more, too, with greater variety, more frequent changes, and a much greater range of types of operations. The corporate pilot does everything the airline pilot does, plus much, much more. Accordingly, there's a lot a corporate pilot has to offer the airlines; much transfers. Conversely, the airline pilot has a lot of specific experience that transfers to the corporate arena.

If one wants to compare airline flying to crop dusting, or banner towing to commuter operations, one has a wider gulf to bridge. None the less, many facets still apply.

One shouldn't discount external experience to one's operation, but one must also keep in mind that the nature of airline flying means one operates in a narrow range, deep inside the safest parts of the envelope; one often has little chance to use greater skills or experience. Though this is the case, one may also correctly state that those external experiences enhance and color judgment (weather is weather, for example, whether one is in a J-3, LR35, BBJ, or B757).

Blanket statements to this end should be qualified for specifics, because when all's said and done, it's the same air we fly in, the same forces of flight we use, and we all learned somewhere; many in general aviation.

A37575

20th Jan 2011, 00:04

Depends on one's personal experiences in this area. I know of one instance where a pilot failed his recurrent proficiency test in the simulator. The check pilot then ticked all the boxes and gave the pilot a pass reasoning it would be difficult due cost cutting to arrange for more training for this pilot. I wonder how many more failures are given the benefit of this thinking because the check pilots know that extra training will cause gritted teeth further up the management line because of financial costs of arranging more sim time.

john_tullamarine

20th Jan 2011, 00:28

I wonder how many

A check airman is exercising a regulatory delegation when he wears his checkie hat. If the fenceline is to be moved as described then it gets to the point, very rapidly, where the check airman ought to be failing himself and either reverting to the line or further up into non-checking corporate management roles ?

To pass a failed ride because of extraneous considerations undermines the entire system.

Perhaps the other systems technique of a training session prior to the checking session would go a long way to avoiding the problem in the first place.

theficklefinger

22nd Jan 2011, 04:44

Just a thought - Going from a jet to a turboprop or down to a light twin always seemed molasses slow...hence much easier...

Can't speak for what the airlines actually hire for en mass, but there are some pretty stark examples of top notch aviators being passed on for low time newbies. My personal experience is that they are currently hiring team players rather then accomplished aviators that can quickly assume command position should the position open, or the need arises.

Tee Emm

23rd Jan 2011, 05:59

My personal experience is that they are currently hiring team players rather then accomplished aviators that can quickly assume command position should the position open, or the need arises.That is close to the truth. One operator in Australia seems to place great significance on the interview process where every question to the candidate is based upon how well you get on with your various captains during previous jobs. "Tell us about the time you disagreed with a captain's intended action and how did you cope with it".

Not one question of operational significance such as knowledge of high speed flight, airborne weather radar, slippery runway ops and so on. The candidate might have been the type to stop studying after completion of the ATPL exams and simply gone through the next few years flying in general aviation aircraft on charter ops - but failed to read up on the myriad of subjects available via the internet and which would have placed him in good stead for interviews with such advanced airlines such as Cathay. But woe betide the candidate if he gives wrong or politically incorrect answer to the HR lady about human factors in the cockpit. Out foul spot and get ye back to single pilot GA.

overun

23rd Jan 2011, 06:04

Dutchy,

you may have missed the SF340 cartwheel courtesy of KLM.

Experience ?

AvMed.IN

23rd Jan 2011, 07:45

Quoting Tee Emm, >> [rest snipped] "But woe betide the candidate if he gives wrong or politically incorrect answer to the HR lady about human factors in the cockpit."

Now this is worrisome, where an HR personnel is going to apply their bookish understanding of HF for employing potential candidates who are professional pilots. I have seen it in my part of the world where psychologists talk about aviation problems without ever seeing the tail of the aircraft...The repercussions may not be there for all to see immediately, but hiring a politically correct guy is dangerous for professionals, who has to be competent him-/herself before they can toe others (Captains, here) line!

SNS3Guppy

23rd Jan 2011, 14:46

Given that the single greatest area of improvement in safety in the airline cockpit isn't knowledge of runway bearing weight, isn't a deep and abiding appreciation for detailed mach compression issues, and isn't an related to the understanding of airborne radar operations, it's little surprise that airlines are very interested in issues relating to Human Factors. Human Factors issues are a key, critical area, and more effort and more research, and more revolution in the cockpit has surrounded this topic than any other. The advance of CRM and subsequent relationship training in the cockpit has entirely changed the way flights are managed and conducted from the front office from the former days of the dictator-captain.

Little wonder, then, that airlines take a strong interest in personality, decision-making ability, judgment, and other Human Factors aspects of an applicant.

Testing of applicants in the airline environment has involved written tests, personal interviews, and oral individual and panel interviews for a very long time. Airline interviews include watching applicants interact with each other during lunch breaks or even in the hotel van to the interview itself. Cathay has long held a cocktail party for applicants to see how they interact with others in a social setting, as well as how they interact with their own spouse. This is nothing new.

A poster attempted to infer that technical questions have been supplanted by superfluous interrogatories involving parental approval, although he was making reference to a cadet program (where one might expect such a question; especially among young ab initio applicants). The poster (and numerous other posters) have attempted to suggest that these questions are indicative of a global conspiratorial effort by "beancounters" to lower the standards of airmanship.

The logic of this thinking fall flat, given that HR questions, tests, exams, observations, social sessions, and so forth have long been an integral part of airline testing and evaluation. Applicants for decades have been given psychological tests that asked questions like "If you have to kill your mother or your brother, which one would you kill?" "How often do you prefer to use recreational drugs: a)often, b)daily, c)weekly, d)monthly."

Such questions are not intended to determine whether one wishes to kill one's mother or one's brother. Such questions are not aimed at determining the frequency of drug usage. Such questions are designed by psychologists in concert with various airlines to test consistency, reactions, judgment, thought process, and other areas of interest. These are not new interests.

When an airline includes a written test asking an applicant to determine what geometric shape a pattern of paper would be folded to make, the airline isn't interested in whether the pilot-applicant is good at orgami. The airline isn't interested in a pilot's ability to build a box. The airline is interested in the thinking process; the airline is interested in what makes the applicant tick.

Questions regarding how one relates to another co-worker in the cockpit are directly relevant to what one does in the cockpit. Tell-me-about-a-time-that questions are very common parts of the the interview lexicon, and the information they yield, as well as the way in which the applicant responds, is an integral part of the interview. In fact, for decades, applicants have been counseled to prepare for interviews by coming up with anecdotes and answers to these types of questions, numbering in the hundreds. One should go to an interview prepared to relate a time when one handled an emergency in flight. One should be prepared to discuss one's greatest strengths, greatest weaknesses, and so forth.

That airlines ask these questions of applicants is no indictment on those firms regarding a secret agenda to lower airmanship. Indeed, airmanship is far more than hours, far more than one's understanding of a slick runway, far more than one's knowledge of transport category minimum takeoff performance criteria. Airmanship is largely defined by the apparently intangible, and it's those functions of airmanship that many elements of the interview process are intended to divine.

One may give applicants a written test covering ATP questions and will expect that most applicants will score high on the scale. If the applicants don't score so well, they've no business being there in the first place. This says nothing about the applicant's fitness for a crew position in the cockpit. Book smart doesn't a good crew member make. Technical questions, in fact, are asked as a random check to ensure that the applicant meets the expected understanding of various areas; these aren't a test to see which applicant knows the most, in order to put the most knowledgeable applicant in the seat. It doesn't work that way.

CX has always strongly emphasized an applicant's knowledge of Hong Kong, and has dwealt heavily on the applicant's genuine desire to move to and live in Hong Kong. This isn't something only asked of Cadets, but all applicants, and persons applying to CX have long been counseled to let their answers indicate their desire to live in Hong Kong. Again, not a new development. Given that the CX hiring process is part of the training pipeline (as the intake and introduction to the company and training program), the interview process there is also considered one of the toughest, most discriminating, and best in the world. Let's face it, if you can pass an interview at Cathay, you can pass an interview nearly anywhere. Cathay's interview is so broad, it leaves most others wanting; if one is prepared for an interview there, one is prepared nearly anywhere.

That HR questions are asked as part of the interview process is nothing new, nor does it represent some sinister development in a conspiracy to lower airmanship.

Airline wages, especially those at the entry level, have long been dismal, yet how is it that many of those operating at the upper levels of the industry managed to survive those low wages and work their way up? No, it doesn't drive away the "best and the brightest," because those who want to fly for a living have always faced an uphill battle and a long climb through the land of low wages, long hours, tough schedules, and hard work, to get to the "good jobs." Again, nothing new. There's no conspiracy here. No great changes. No lowering of the bar. No driving away the "best and the brightest."

TopTup

23rd Jan 2011, 16:35

A37575: Sadly, I too witnessed the same and when that same scenario was attempted to be forced on me, I resigned. Those of us who have WITNESSED such behavior and/or airline culture know what we're talking about. Those who haven't hope, at best, that it isn't true and thus deny what they have not witnessed.

CX ask MANY technical questions as a technique to judge a candidate's knowledge and study/preparation. (It is a common joke amongst interviewers regarding the response to swept wing questions: who read which book will provide a different regurgitated answer. The response from one author, and blindly accepted by the candidate was too funny - "Ace the Pilot Interview" I think it was or is??) They ask questions knowing that the candidate does not really know the full answer, or deliberately press a candidate to a direction in the hope they have the integrity to say, as & when needed, "I don't know." This shows the candidate, while able to provide an answer, also knows when to admit fallibility. This is believed to therefore show "trainability". No one likes a know-it-all or anyone who cannot readily accept they are wrong. The fact that CX now include such questions as "What do your parents think about you becoming a pilot?" is but ONE SMALL indictment in the interview due the management preferred CEP of recruitment over DE recruitment. The CEP pilots receive approximately 50% of the salary the DE pilots receive. Some deny the obvious that this is pure and utter cost cutting. Again, those of us who know can testify to this.

The below was received by earlier via the email network of colleagues, colleagues of colleagues, etc who forward such material amongst each other. Apologies for the length. It is from the Oz Senate Inquiry into Aviation. I searched for a link to post instead but none available (as yet?). When searching I did come across this link which is also worth reading:

Senate inquiry: Australian airlines abandon exceptional excellence in pilot training – Plane Talking (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2010/11/27/senate-inquiry-australian-airlines-abandon-exceptional-excellence-in-pilot-training/)

So, here's another experienced (oops....there's that swear word again) pilot's perspective. I've cut and pasted it, left all typos, etc as received. It would be interesting to hear from a JQ pilot out there regarding this? (Posted in 2 x posts due the length).

SENATE INQUIRY INTO PILOT TRAINING AND AIRLINE SAFETY
I have been a pilot in the aviation industry for over 25 years. I am a captain on the Airbus A320 with Jetstar. This submission is provided on the basis that my identity remains confidential. This is due, contrary to parliamentary privilege, to the strong probability of reprisal from Jetstar management.

Pilot Experience
Jetstar have instigated a pilot cadet program and intends to place these cadets as first officers on their aircraft. These cadets would have around 200 flight hours at the time that they start to fly for Jetstar. To put this into some perspective, I sometimes fly 200 hours in two months. It is not a lot of experience. Jetstar policy under the requirements of its operations manual (OM1) as approved by the government regulator, CASA, has a requirement of 1500 flight hours for initial intake for employment as a first officer. The cadet program would appear to be at odds with this policy, as approved by the regulator. Of the three airlines that I have worked for, the Jetstar operation would be by far the most complicated. In great part this is a result of the low cost model and the lack of resources that this model provides. For instance, traditionally, airlines have load control departments that look after the entire weight and balance of each flight and once completed, a load sheet is handed to the captain of the flight. The only input that the flight crew have is to provide the required fuel figure. This department look after all facets of the loading of the aircraft including passengers and where they are seated, baggage and where it is loaded, cargo and where it is loaded, including the carriage of special loads and dangerous goods with their special placement in specific positions on the aircraft and many other variables including the segregation of certain types of dangerous goods and the non carriage of particular dangerous good on particular aircraft due to such things as lack of ventilation in the cargo hold of some specific aircraft in the fleet. At Jetstar, this load control function is undertaken by the flight crew, while looking after all of the other aspects associated with the flight and all on 30 minute turn around. Jetstar recently outsourced its flight planning department to Manila as part of a cost saving initiative. This has resulted in many mistakes being made in the flight plans which are provided to the flight crew including, but not limited to, insufficient and therefore illegal fuel loads being provided. This results in increased work load in a time limited environment for the flight crew, to ensure that the flight departs legally. The Airbus A320 requires, by certification, a runway that is 45 metres wide. Jetstar, by way of a narrow runway exemption from the regulator, CASA, have approval to operate the aircraft into and out of 30 metre wide runways. Landing and takeoff on such a narrow runway, which also tend to be short, leaves little room for error with regard to both lateral deviation from the centre line of the runway and touchdown due to the runway being short. If asked off the record, few managers in the flight department of Jetstar would argue that operations into such ports are not without risk, yet these people lack the courage to voice these concerns to the commercial department of Jetstar, which basically dictates where we operate to. The A320 is the largest aircraft in Australia to be granted such approval. The A320, apart from being a high performance transport jet also has a unique flight control set up. Instead of a control column that is in front of the pilot, it has a small side stick on each side. With the conventional control column, each movement made by the pilot flying the aircraft is also made by the column in front of the pilot that is not flying. The pilot not flying can see every control input, because they can see the movement in their column. If needed, some assistance on the column by the captain, for instance, would not be that unusual if the inputs being made were deemed insufficient during landing, for instance. The side stick on the non flying side in an Airbus, however, remains neutral at all times and if this happens to be the captain, he cannot feel or see the inputs being made by the first officer. Additionally, if both pilots were to make inputs, they are algebraically added. This means that if both pilots make the same input, the effect on the aircraft will be doubled and if both pilots make equal but opposite inputs, the effect will be zero input. Neither of these may be have good outcomes depending on the situation. This is known on the Airbus as dual input. It is non standard procedure to have dual input on an Airbus and the procedure, if required, is for the captain to take control of the aircraft. This is very rarely required and a last resort. It is a fine line between taking over too early when it is not required and taking over too late, especially on landing. This makes the A320 more challenging for the captain with an inexperienced first officer, who through no fault of their own, still makes errors of judgement due to inexperience. Additionally, Jetstar scheduled services operate into airports that are outside of controlled airspace without the assistance of a control tower or air traffic control radar services, sometimes at night. These airports tend to have 30 metre wide, short runways and tend to have a large amount of light aircraft traffic associated with them as these airports were built for lighter traffic. It is the responsibility of the pilots at these airports to maintain separation from each other. This system is only as strong as the weakest link and the information that is provided by the pilot of the light aircraft. This pilot can sometimes be a student pilot flying by themselves. If the position and/or altitude information they provide is inaccurate and if the crew of the larger transport aircraft are not on the ball, then this single person light aircraft has the potential to bring down an aircraft carrying close to 200 people. Jetstar pilots can fly up to 1000 hours per year. We do this around the clock, 24 hours per day. We can work up to 14 hours per day up to six days in a row. Under present roster protocol, we can and do, sign on as early as 5 AM for up to four days in a row and fly up to four sectors per day and on the fifth day we could be signing on at 10 PM to fly until 7AM the next day, to then extend beyond this time due to delays. This last sign on time is probably an hour or more past bed time of the previous few days and the duty period is 180 degrees opposed to the previous duties from the clocks view point. These shifts are known as ‘back of the clock’. There is no way to be adequately rested for such a duty, as is required by law, and there can be no fatigue risk management in such rostering practices. Conversely, we could finish at 6AM after working all night, and then be signing on at 5AM the next day. Still no chance to be adequately rested with such a lack of routine.
Engineering, like all other departments, are under resourced and their attitude is sometimes that they have not got time to fix things that are wrong with the aircraft and ‘push’ flight crew to take the aircraft and have it fixed some other place or at the end of the day so that the schedule is not affected by their department. Flight crew however, have responsibility for the overall operation and at times have to insist that something is fixed prior to departure while under some pressure to continue regardless. Add to these Jetstar specific threats, the normal ones of bad weather and instrument approaches, thunderstorms, fog, cyclones, general traffic, international operations with limited support, diversions to unfamiliar places both within Australia and internationally, high terrain and single runway operations, where if an aircraft becomes disabled on the runway, the flight may be unable to land and will probably have few options available with regard to other airports with the available fuel, and you really start to see the complication of this Jetstar operation overall. As a captain on the A320, I rely on a competent and aviation experienced first officer for support in high work load and non normal/emergency situations. When all is good, one could probably fly the aircraft alone. It is when things are not good that you need the experience sitting beside you and, you can never tell when that will be. Jetstar, by providing insufficient resources in other operational areas, place a great deal of responsibility on the flight crew, particularly the captain, to ensure that the operation is not only carried out safely but is also done within the requirements of the law. This can add significantly to the pressure of an already, well known to be, stressful job. I have provided a lot of specific and general information under this sub section of ‘pilot experience’ quite deliberately, and that is to show that this Jetstar operation specifically and regular public transport jet operations more generally, are complicated and sometimes high risk and are no place for a pilot with 200 flight hours or the experience equivalent of two months in the industry.

USA 1500 flight hours requirement for RPT services
As is shown on page 4-20 of the Jetstar operations manual (OM1), as approved by the government regulator, CASA, Jetstar already have a requirement to employ pilots with in excess of 1500 flight hours to act as first officers. For all of the reasons already stated in sub section a, this seems to be a reasonable level of experience to start on an operation as I have described it and, indeed, is seen as such by the Jetstar flight department and CASA. Jetstar have started a pilot cadet program and intend to employ first officers with as little as 200 flight hours, which is well below that which is required by the operations manual. They have done this, not due to the fact that there is a lack of suitable pilots in Australia, but purely for financial reasons. The list of cost saving and money making exercises that Jetstar have running is long and none of them have safety as a consideration, but most are outside of the terms of reference for this enquiry. For the record, policy of Jetstar senior management is for a 10 percent cost reduction per year. This is absolutely unsustainable. There are many examples of major accidents of aircraft that were operated by companies that, for whatever reason, were in the process of long term, aggressive cost cutting programs. Jetstar are possibly making a profit from the substantial training costs associated with the self funded cadet program. One hundred and seventy thousand dollars, seems to be a rather large amount of money to train a person to be a first officer on an A320. On top of this is the fact that once employed (there are no guarantees), these pilots will be on a much inferior contract to the certified agreement that the rest of the Jetstar Australia pilots are on. Add the possible profit from training to the significantly reduced wages that these pilots will be on and you start to see that this is not about demand for pilots but about a new recruitment method which fits in with Jetstar’s constant drive to undercut wages and reduce costs and, for the reasons mentioned under sub section a, this will have a detrimental effect on safety. Qantas have long run a successful cadet program, employing pilots into their company with 200 hours or similar. The difference however, is that these pilots are employed as second officers and are not in the control seat for takeoff or landing. They are there for in flight rest purposes on long haul flights and it is the captain and first officer who conduct the flying. These pilots gain experience on the job over some years and would have some thousands of hours experience by the time that they become first officers on, say, a Boeing 737. It needs to be remembered that the USA 1500 hour requirement was introduced as a result of a catastrophic aircraft accident in the United States that was deemed, in part, to be the result of crew inexperience. Let us not have to introduce such an initiative after an event.

Pilot Recruitment and Pay for training schemes
I have touched on Jetstar pilot recruitment and my belief of the reasons that Jetstar have set up a pilot cadet program, in sub section b. That reason is to reduce wages costs and has nothing to do with the availability of suitable pilots from within the industry and that it will have a detrimental effect on safety.
In days past, a pilot would be employed by an airline and that airline would be responsible for, and take the risk for, the provision of all costs associated with the training of this pilot including the endorsement on the applicable aircraft. This investment in this employee was taken seriously at the recruitment stage, as the investment was large. So seriously, in fact that, in days gone by, an applicant would not even be considered if above the age of 26. This was so that the airline concerned would get a reasonable return on the investment made in the individual. Additionally, due in great part to a strict seniority system (date of joining determines promotion ect.) and the fact that terms and conditions were much better than they are today in low cost carriers, a pilot would, in almost all circumstances, stay with the first airline to employ them until retirement.
Today, however, things are very different. Today all of the risk is placed on the employee and the company have little from a cost view point. It costs around $35,000 dollars including GST, for a pilot to gain an aircraft endorsement on say an A320. (The pilot is required to pay the full amount even though Jetstar claim the GST as a business expense and pocket this in spite of it being paid by the pilot) As the pilot has paid for the endorsement, after a small amount of company provided induction training, what remains is line training on the aircraft. Unlike in the past, the first time that a pilot in Jetstar actually flies the aircraft and probably the first time that they have flown a jet aircraft will be with a load of passengers on board. I make this point to show that even under training, this pilot is providing revenue for the airline and is of no cost. If at the end of this training, which takes around two months, the pilot is considered unsuitable, then their employment will be terminated. The $35,000 is still paid by the pilot. This means that the recruitment that in the past was taken so seriously is no longer as critical, as all of the cost risk is now transferred to the pilot and little cost has been incurred by the airline through this process. This may mean that a pilot, who would not have been found suitable at the recruitment stage, in the past, is let through to the training stage due to the low cost risk for the airline. This pilot may slip through the net and, even though substandard, will remain at the airline. Along similar lines, when substandard pay and conditions are offered, such as those offered in New Zealand by Jetstar, then this means that the best applicants are not attracted to these positions. Jetstar seem willing to accept this unarguable reduction in safety so long as there is a commensurate reduction in wages costs. In days past, the employing airline provided the training via their own simulators with training conducted by airline employees who were generally current senior training and checking captains who were obviously up to date with current airline procedures and processes. Today, these aircraft endorsements are provided by third parties and not an airline. The instructors are generally not current pilots and may not have flown for many years. In the case of my A320 endorsement, my instructor had never flown a jet aircraft and had little idea of Jetstar procedures. This makes it much more difficult for the trainee to come into the Jetstar system and achieve a reasonable result at a training level. It must be remembered that the first time that the trainee flies the aircraft will be with passengers on board. This has not always been the case, with airlines previously providing takeoff and landing training in the aircraft without passengers. This makes the endorsement training now, so much more important than in the past, when in fact, the training is, for reasons stated above, much inferior. Combine this type of training with low experience cadet pilots and the safety implications really start to multiply.

Retention of experienced pilots
In sub section c, I explained that in the past a pilot would join an airline and stay with that airline for their whole career. This was due to a strict seniority system (date of joining) which determined, amongst other things, promotion. If the pilot, after a number of years, left one airline and joined another then they would start at the bottom again and, from a promotion view point, the time spent in the previous airline is wasted. These days, in low cost carriers at least, the seniority system tends to be much less rigid, if it exists at all, and therefore I could spend many years at Jetstar and have a more junior pilot take a promotion ahead of me at the discretion of management. This has already happened on numerous occasions in the history of Jetstar. It means that the guarantees that were provided previously are no longer there and that to leave is not with the same risks as 1; I may not get the promotion that I would be due under a strict seniority system and 2; If I leave and go to another airline I may take a promotion at the expense of another pilot at that airline and thereby do not take such a risk to leave the first airline. This does, however, mean that the first airline looses my experience and possibly replaces me with a first time captain who, now, is a new captain flying with first officers with 200 flight hours under the Jetstar cadet scheme. This may be okay as a single event but if you end up with a mass exodus of captains from one airline due to, say, a foreign airline setting up a base in Australia offering better terms and conditions, then this becomes a serious safety issue, with inexperienced captains flying, constantly, with inexperienced first officers. This brings me to my next point. In the past, apart from a strict seniority system, airline pilots were paid well and the conditions associated with the job were also good. Additionally, due to the fact the pilots were well supported with resources to do their job well, as opposed to low cost carriers, the job was easier. Today, however, in low cost carriers such as Jetstar this is not the case and we are not, by world standards, well paid. Jetstar A330 pilots would be some of the lowest paid in the western world. This manifest itself as a negative safety outcome due to lack of retention of experienced pilots when, for instance, the new foreign airline opens its base in Australia and for the reasons stated above there is a mass exodus of experienced crew, leaving a hole in the experience base. It is by no accident that Australia has the exemplary aviation safety record that it has. That it does has is, historically, due to well structured training systems in airlines, due to stable working conditions and due to well maintained aircraft operated by highly experienced crew. As the industry stands now, I feel that the jury is out on what the next few years will hold if there are not significant changes made in the legislation that allows airlines to now operate in very different ways to that which has seen our airline safety record as the envy of the rest of the world.