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Steve
You say you are not deliberately trying to be obtuse, but then you continue with your same line of argument, ignoring what 99% of us are saying. For you to argue that there is no link between hours and experience is just nuts.
I had a student once. A good guy, however, every time I would begin to debrief him he would begin to talk. He would talk and not listen. I couldn't get my point across to him because he would never stop telling me why he did what he did; or that somebody told him this, and someone else told him that. I thought long and hard about what to do and came up with a solution. I told him that from this point forward if ever he interrupted me and began to talk out of turn, I would respond with the word BINGO.
Well...it only took a couple of BINGO's before he stopped talking, and began to listen.
Steve.....I am yelling out BINGO...stop and think about it.
In 99% of the time, if you pay peanuts you get monkeys. Offering poor recompense leads to employing poor staff.....if you want good pilots, you hire the best, train them well, and pay them well.
That was not happening at Colgan Air or any number of low cost carriers that were skirting the laws to hire the least experienced pilots, and paid peanuts on their training and compensation.
The results were (and continue to be) predictable.
You say you are not deliberately trying to be obtuse, but then you continue with your same line of argument, ignoring what 99% of us are saying. For you to argue that there is no link between hours and experience is just nuts.
I had a student once. A good guy, however, every time I would begin to debrief him he would begin to talk. He would talk and not listen. I couldn't get my point across to him because he would never stop telling me why he did what he did; or that somebody told him this, and someone else told him that. I thought long and hard about what to do and came up with a solution. I told him that from this point forward if ever he interrupted me and began to talk out of turn, I would respond with the word BINGO.
Well...it only took a couple of BINGO's before he stopped talking, and began to listen.
Steve.....I am yelling out BINGO...stop and think about it.
In 99% of the time, if you pay peanuts you get monkeys. Offering poor recompense leads to employing poor staff.....if you want good pilots, you hire the best, train them well, and pay them well.
That was not happening at Colgan Air or any number of low cost carriers that were skirting the laws to hire the least experienced pilots, and paid peanuts on their training and compensation.
The results were (and continue to be) predictable.
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Pogie
It wasn't Steve that said that it was me. I've been a trainer for a while, both civil and military. In my post military career I have seen some pretty shoddy civil operators. Cathay's training is not perfect, but in my opinion I think it is fair to say that it is one of the best.
I believe that most of our trainer's at Cathay subscribe to the big T and little C concept of check and training. I have heard of a couple of exceptions....on the other fleet....but you would probably find exceptions like that in every airline.
It wasn't Steve that said that it was me. I've been a trainer for a while, both civil and military. In my post military career I have seen some pretty shoddy civil operators. Cathay's training is not perfect, but in my opinion I think it is fair to say that it is one of the best.
I believe that most of our trainer's at Cathay subscribe to the big T and little C concept of check and training. I have heard of a couple of exceptions....on the other fleet....but you would probably find exceptions like that in every airline.
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@Pogie
How did you come to attribute that statement to me?
@raven11
I admit that there is a link between hours and experience. Maybe I didn't phrase the point as clearly as I should have when I said the following:
Perhaps what I should have said is:
The bone of contention for me in this discussion has always been the supposed link between hours and experience and how many make the assumption that 'experience' equates to ability or competence - a flawed argument in my mind.
Instead of yelling out BINGO, I'd be grateful if you could answer my question as to whether or not P2X hours satisfy your definition of 'high quality flight time'? I am listening to you.
Whatever you might think, I'm not being obtuse but simply trying to follow the logic in your argument. Anyway, the following is included for a bit of light relief (I'm the Michael Palin character by the way
)
https://youtu.be/hnTmBjk-M0c
STP
How did you come to attribute that statement to me?
@raven11
I admit that there is a link between hours and experience. Maybe I didn't phrase the point as clearly as I should have when I said the following:
The bone of contention for me in this discussion has always been the supposed link between hours and experience. I think that many confuse 'experience' with ability or competence - a flawed argument in my mind.
The bone of contention for me in this discussion has always been the supposed link between hours and experience and how many make the assumption that 'experience' equates to ability or competence - a flawed argument in my mind.
Instead of yelling out BINGO, I'd be grateful if you could answer my question as to whether or not P2X hours satisfy your definition of 'high quality flight time'? I am listening to you.
Whatever you might think, I'm not being obtuse but simply trying to follow the logic in your argument. Anyway, the following is included for a bit of light relief (I'm the Michael Palin character by the way
)https://youtu.be/hnTmBjk-M0c
STP
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I have heard of a couple of exceptions....on the other fleet....but you would probably find exceptions like that in every airline.
Cathay's training is not perfect, but in my opinion I think it is fair to say that it is one of the best.
And when the candidate tries to defend himself in the office and say that the report doesn't reflect actual events in any way, shape, or form, the response is along the lines of "once the report's submitted, it can't be changed", or "we'll add a note about that". How about the checker that eventually acknowledged that he'd written a comment on a PC that was from a different guy's PC the next day, but still refused to amend the report??
And don't give me the line about candidates only complaining about not making the standard. Yes, some candidates fail to make the standard, but the numbers we see in this airline, and the circumstances in which it happens is beyond what would be considered normal statistical probability.
One of the best??? Maybe one of the hardest, toughest, or most soul destroying, but one of the best??
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Steve,
Okay, thank you for "listening".
When I say that "after a few years of training under their belt, our guys are great" I am referring to the combination of time spent as both a second officer and first officer, and certainly by the time they reach command training. But read on....
No, I don't think that P2X hours qualify as high quality right-seat time (with that in mind, would someone with the appropriate knowledge comment on the validity of P2X hours outside of Cathay Pacific?).
Dragon Air could not do what it is doing if it operated under FAA jurisdiction....
However, the difference between Dragon Air and the Colgan Air disaster, for example, is that the Captain in any Dragon Air cockpit is a highly experienced and well trained individual, the recipient of some of the best training money can buy.
The combination of a highly experienced captain and a 200 hour first officer in the cockpit of a commercial jet is not something I agree with (as the accident statistics bear out). The best combination in the cockpit of a commercial jet airliner is, and will always be, a highly experienced and well trained captain and first officer.
The best way for a new pilot to acquire experience is the same way as it is in every other profession (and for airlines operating under FAA jurisdiction)....you work your way up.
It costs money to hire and train the best pilots. How much money an airline spends on hiring and training is directly proportional to the quality of the end product in the cockpit. Generally speaking, if you pay peanuts......
Okay, thank you for "listening".
When I say that "after a few years of training under their belt, our guys are great" I am referring to the combination of time spent as both a second officer and first officer, and certainly by the time they reach command training. But read on....
No, I don't think that P2X hours qualify as high quality right-seat time (with that in mind, would someone with the appropriate knowledge comment on the validity of P2X hours outside of Cathay Pacific?).
Dragon Air could not do what it is doing if it operated under FAA jurisdiction....
However, the difference between Dragon Air and the Colgan Air disaster, for example, is that the Captain in any Dragon Air cockpit is a highly experienced and well trained individual, the recipient of some of the best training money can buy.
The combination of a highly experienced captain and a 200 hour first officer in the cockpit of a commercial jet is not something I agree with (as the accident statistics bear out). The best combination in the cockpit of a commercial jet airliner is, and will always be, a highly experienced and well trained captain and first officer.
The best way for a new pilot to acquire experience is the same way as it is in every other profession (and for airlines operating under FAA jurisdiction)....you work your way up.
It costs money to hire and train the best pilots. How much money an airline spends on hiring and training is directly proportional to the quality of the end product in the cockpit. Generally speaking, if you pay peanuts......
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Broadband,
I completely agree that you will find bad trainers in every organization. I can tell you that a few years ago a certain training manager took a broom to these characters on the fleet that I was on.
I completely agree that you will find bad trainers in every organization. I can tell you that a few years ago a certain training manager took a broom to these characters on the fleet that I was on.
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raven11
I know who that said manager is, and total respect to him for doing that, unfortunately it wasn't done on all fleets.
Despite that, it just fixes symptoms, not the underlying problems:
1. The broken system is still in place.
2. Because of point 1, eventually there'll be replacement "characters" moving into these positions who will act exactly the same, and be enabled by the system.
I know who that said manager is, and total respect to him for doing that, unfortunately it wasn't done on all fleets.
Despite that, it just fixes symptoms, not the underlying problems:
1. The broken system is still in place.
2. Because of point 1, eventually there'll be replacement "characters" moving into these positions who will act exactly the same, and be enabled by the system.
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Hi raven11,
Thanks for the reply. Your position is now much clearer and to some extent I agree with you.
You say:
So would it be fair to say that you agree that when an SO undertakes his JFO upgrade he is 'inexperienced'? If that's an incorrect assumption on my part then please correct me. As I said earlier, if P2X hours don't count towards experience, then we're no different from many other airlines, KA included, in the way we train 'inexperienced' pilots.
You say:
Given the inference in your earlier statement about P2X hours how do you reconcile the way we go about training our junior pilots, particularly ex-ab initio cadets? Also, which accident statistics are you referring to when you make this statement?
Agreed, although I'm not sure I understand why you make the distinction regarding the FAA. All they stipulate is the hours requirement, nothing to do with quality of previous experience (apart from, arguably, the military and tertiary education concession).
Agreed to some extent but that's a different argument, industrial versus professional, although I do concede that they are interlinked to a degree. Sadly, the world has changed and the traditional sources of 'experienced' pilots have all but dried up; not only that, so has traditional training for prospective airline pilots and much of the world is drifting, rightly or wrongly, towards the the MPL style concept. Further, airline managements around the world will pay only as much as they need to to encourage pilots to join, or remain at, their companies. The American majors are offering the current packages because they have to, not because they’ve suddenly become generous. The same is true of ME3 and mainland carriers offering attractive packages. The same was true of CX in the late 80’s and early 90’s. It’s business and, whether we like to admit it or not, respect for us collectively as a profession or individually as people has nothing to do with it.
We're at a crossroads as an industry and the way I see it is we have 3 options: first, accept that the landscape has changed and influence what we can, i.e. share our experience with the junior pilots and ensure that our training and checking systems remain robust; second, get angry about it and decide that anyone who joins an airline with less than 10000 hours in a 747 or 5000 hours in an F18 is going to be useless before we even fly with them; third, give up and decide the changing landscape is beyond our sphere of influence and not make any effort to nurture our younger colleagues and simply refer to them collectively as being 'spikey haired'. Personally, I think the first is the best option because I don't see the option of a U turn taking us back to where we came from.
STP
Thanks for the reply. Your position is now much clearer and to some extent I agree with you.
You say:
No, I don't think that P2X hours qualify as high quality right-seat time
You say:
The combination of a highly experienced captain and a 200 hour first officer in the cockpit of a commercial jet is not something I agree with (as the accident statistics bear out).
The best way for a new pilot to acquire experience is the same way as it is in every other profession (and for airlines operating under FAA jurisdiction)....you work your way up.
It costs money to hire and train the best pilots. How much money an airline spends on hiring and training is directly proportional to the quality of the end product in the cockpit. Generally speaking, if you pay peanuts......
We're at a crossroads as an industry and the way I see it is we have 3 options: first, accept that the landscape has changed and influence what we can, i.e. share our experience with the junior pilots and ensure that our training and checking systems remain robust; second, get angry about it and decide that anyone who joins an airline with less than 10000 hours in a 747 or 5000 hours in an F18 is going to be useless before we even fly with them; third, give up and decide the changing landscape is beyond our sphere of influence and not make any effort to nurture our younger colleagues and simply refer to them collectively as being 'spikey haired'. Personally, I think the first is the best option because I don't see the option of a U turn taking us back to where we came from.
STP
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We're at a crossroads as an industry and the way I see it is we have 3 options: first, accept that the landscape has changed and influence what we can, i.e. share our experience with the junior pilots and ensure that our training and checking systems remain robust; second, get angry about it and decide that anyone who joins an airline with less than 10000 hours in a 747 or 5000 hours in an F18 is going to be useless before we even fly with them; third, give up and decide the changing landscape is beyond our sphere of influence and not make any effort to nurture our younger colleagues and simply refer to them collectively as being 'spikey haired'. Personally, I think the first is the best option because I don't see the option of a U turn taking us back to where we came from.
STP
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STP,
I agree with most of what you say in your second last para:
"Agreed to some extent but that's a different argument, industrial versus professional, although I do concede that they are interlinked to a degree. Sadly, the world has changed and the traditional sources of 'experienced' pilots have all but dried up; not only that, so has traditional training for prospective airline pilots and much of the world is drifting, rightly or wrongly, towards the the MPL style concept. Further, airline managements around the world will pay only as much as they need to to encourage pilots to join, or remain at, their companies. The American majors are offering the current packages because they have to, not because they’ve suddenly become generous. The same is true of ME3 and mainland carriers offering attractive packages. The same was true of CX in the late 80’s and early 90’s. It’s business and, whether we like to admit it or not, respect for us collectively as a profession or individually as people has nothing to do with it."
As to the questions you raise prior to that:
Yes, a second officer undertaking upgrade training to JFO is inexperienced. A sum total of experience limited to operating radios and sleeping in the cruise does not qualify as experience.
I can't reconcile how we go about training our inexperienced pilots. STP, it's not my system....I don't agree with it, it seems that you do. You should reconcile the inconsistencies, or explain why or what is different.
Below, at the end of this post, please find a link to a great article entitled "Cockpit Crises". The article cites accident statistics to argue that a crises exists in today's cockpit, brought about by a combination of automation reliance and not enough real-life flying experience in new hires.
Here is a snippet:
"Charting an entirely new direction for pilot training isn’t going to be easy. Thanks to a global pilot shortage stemming from the rapid growth of airlines in Asia and the Middle East, the industry has been more focused on finding ways to get pilots into commercial airline cockpits with less real-world training, not more. ...
That’s among the reasons that, five years ago, ICAO approved the creation of a “multi-crew pilot licence” for commercial airlines. It allows would-be pilots to step into the co-pilot seat of a commercial airliner with as little as 240 hours of flying time, much of which can be done in a simulator. (In contrast, Strachan says most Air Canada pilots typically have nearly a decade of flying experience before they are hired.) The theory is that the job of a modern commercial airline pilot bears little resemblance to what it was 15 or 20 years ago, and that logging thousands of hours as a bush pilot or crop-duster is no longer as critical.
Strachan concedes that today’s commercial pilots need a variety of skill sets. And as head of Air Canada’s pilots’ union, he knows the cost realities of the business as well as anyone. But he remains convinced that there is no substitute for actual experience in an airplane. “It almost never happens in real life like it happens in a simulator,” he says. “It’s almost never textbook in my experience. You practise it one way and when something finally does happen, it’s always way more nebulous and insidious.” He recalls a takeoff early in his career from the Thule airstrip in northwestern Greenland, where he suddenly caught himself in katabatic winds that had tumbled off the side of a glacier. The plane was forced violently downward toward the waves and Strachan barely managed to power his way out of a near disaster.
“There’s something that you just can’t simulate,” he says, adding that his heart still jumps just thinking about it. “It’s gained through experience. Everybody on the crew learned something that day. It becomes part of your hard drive. So the next time you’re faced with that situation, and you’re in a place where there’s wind coming off a cliff and you’re taking off, you think, ‘Hmm, I’ve seen something like this before. Let’s be careful."
STP, I do not believe that the source of experienced pilots has completely dried up....but rather, as you say, that airline management are not willing to pay the money. For example, if we were to increase our compensation for new hires to 25% above what is currently on offer, we could attract every pilot in Hong Kong that works for HKE or HKA....and that's only casting a hiring net in our town.
The sad fact remains that our hiring methods are predominantly cost based. We do not seek out the best candidate, but instead have focused on attracting the cheapest candidate.
In a similar hours/experience don't count discussion on another thread ChinaBeached wrote the following (I hope he doesn't mind me reproducing it here, but his writing skills far exceed mine):
Hours alone do not quantify aptitude. The TYPE of hours do. 1000 hrs of instructing in CAVOK in the training area are not as good 1000 hrs as single pilot night freight in winter over high terrain performing NDB & (night) circling approaches. Add a few more thousand hours to that TT / experience level as well as ME Multi-Crew Cmd time & you can't tell me that you're happy with a monkey see monkey do book-regurgitator sitting beside you instead?
As I re-wrote above: I believe that hours built in real time jeopardy & accountability in a real aircraft in real conditions are a pilot's metal, not watching others doing it, or sitting in a safe, airconditioned non life threatening simulator is anywhere near as close.
STP, I get that the industry is trying to save money, but we should be cautious and not expose ourselves to too much risk. Hiring inexperienced candidates in a small proportion to experienced pilots is one method of trying to save costs. But the exact proportion must be managed very carefully and with caution to minimize risk (think fuel hedge debacle).
Personally, I try very hard to nurture and mold our young 200 hour pilots to the absolute best of my ability. It's not their fault they are being taken advantage of; the vast majority are good guys and gals. With "time and experience" they should develop nicely. The problem lies in getting us from here to there.
Cockpit crisis - Macleans.ca
I agree with most of what you say in your second last para:
"Agreed to some extent but that's a different argument, industrial versus professional, although I do concede that they are interlinked to a degree. Sadly, the world has changed and the traditional sources of 'experienced' pilots have all but dried up; not only that, so has traditional training for prospective airline pilots and much of the world is drifting, rightly or wrongly, towards the the MPL style concept. Further, airline managements around the world will pay only as much as they need to to encourage pilots to join, or remain at, their companies. The American majors are offering the current packages because they have to, not because they’ve suddenly become generous. The same is true of ME3 and mainland carriers offering attractive packages. The same was true of CX in the late 80’s and early 90’s. It’s business and, whether we like to admit it or not, respect for us collectively as a profession or individually as people has nothing to do with it."
As to the questions you raise prior to that:
Yes, a second officer undertaking upgrade training to JFO is inexperienced. A sum total of experience limited to operating radios and sleeping in the cruise does not qualify as experience.
I can't reconcile how we go about training our inexperienced pilots. STP, it's not my system....I don't agree with it, it seems that you do. You should reconcile the inconsistencies, or explain why or what is different.
Below, at the end of this post, please find a link to a great article entitled "Cockpit Crises". The article cites accident statistics to argue that a crises exists in today's cockpit, brought about by a combination of automation reliance and not enough real-life flying experience in new hires.
Here is a snippet:
"Charting an entirely new direction for pilot training isn’t going to be easy. Thanks to a global pilot shortage stemming from the rapid growth of airlines in Asia and the Middle East, the industry has been more focused on finding ways to get pilots into commercial airline cockpits with less real-world training, not more. ...
That’s among the reasons that, five years ago, ICAO approved the creation of a “multi-crew pilot licence” for commercial airlines. It allows would-be pilots to step into the co-pilot seat of a commercial airliner with as little as 240 hours of flying time, much of which can be done in a simulator. (In contrast, Strachan says most Air Canada pilots typically have nearly a decade of flying experience before they are hired.) The theory is that the job of a modern commercial airline pilot bears little resemblance to what it was 15 or 20 years ago, and that logging thousands of hours as a bush pilot or crop-duster is no longer as critical.
Strachan concedes that today’s commercial pilots need a variety of skill sets. And as head of Air Canada’s pilots’ union, he knows the cost realities of the business as well as anyone. But he remains convinced that there is no substitute for actual experience in an airplane. “It almost never happens in real life like it happens in a simulator,” he says. “It’s almost never textbook in my experience. You practise it one way and when something finally does happen, it’s always way more nebulous and insidious.” He recalls a takeoff early in his career from the Thule airstrip in northwestern Greenland, where he suddenly caught himself in katabatic winds that had tumbled off the side of a glacier. The plane was forced violently downward toward the waves and Strachan barely managed to power his way out of a near disaster.
“There’s something that you just can’t simulate,” he says, adding that his heart still jumps just thinking about it. “It’s gained through experience. Everybody on the crew learned something that day. It becomes part of your hard drive. So the next time you’re faced with that situation, and you’re in a place where there’s wind coming off a cliff and you’re taking off, you think, ‘Hmm, I’ve seen something like this before. Let’s be careful."
STP, I do not believe that the source of experienced pilots has completely dried up....but rather, as you say, that airline management are not willing to pay the money. For example, if we were to increase our compensation for new hires to 25% above what is currently on offer, we could attract every pilot in Hong Kong that works for HKE or HKA....and that's only casting a hiring net in our town.
The sad fact remains that our hiring methods are predominantly cost based. We do not seek out the best candidate, but instead have focused on attracting the cheapest candidate.
In a similar hours/experience don't count discussion on another thread ChinaBeached wrote the following (I hope he doesn't mind me reproducing it here, but his writing skills far exceed mine):
Hours alone do not quantify aptitude. The TYPE of hours do. 1000 hrs of instructing in CAVOK in the training area are not as good 1000 hrs as single pilot night freight in winter over high terrain performing NDB & (night) circling approaches. Add a few more thousand hours to that TT / experience level as well as ME Multi-Crew Cmd time & you can't tell me that you're happy with a monkey see monkey do book-regurgitator sitting beside you instead?
As I re-wrote above: I believe that hours built in real time jeopardy & accountability in a real aircraft in real conditions are a pilot's metal, not watching others doing it, or sitting in a safe, airconditioned non life threatening simulator is anywhere near as close.
STP, I get that the industry is trying to save money, but we should be cautious and not expose ourselves to too much risk. Hiring inexperienced candidates in a small proportion to experienced pilots is one method of trying to save costs. But the exact proportion must be managed very carefully and with caution to minimize risk (think fuel hedge debacle).
Personally, I try very hard to nurture and mold our young 200 hour pilots to the absolute best of my ability. It's not their fault they are being taken advantage of; the vast majority are good guys and gals. With "time and experience" they should develop nicely. The problem lies in getting us from here to there.
Cockpit crisis - Macleans.ca
Last edited by raven11; 29th Aug 2016 at 21:33.
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I say it really doesn't matter.
I come from a background where I basically flew everything with wings on it before I climbed into the first Turboprop.
Over the years I have seen really bad pilots with a lot of 'quality time' (btw flying a single engine Cessna in the Outback is as much quality time as "flying" a jumbo for 14h in a straight line)who showed below average performance and cadet pilot who where extremely switched on.
It depends on the individual. How involved and prepared is that person?
I don't think you can categorically say one thing is bad the other is good. Its just isn't. I don't understand why people always have this black and white thinking mentality.
There are airlines where the mentality is that if you haven't been a cadet with that particular airline you must be a dangerous pilot as you didn't go through their training school. This airline although is very proud of their pilots training, not like in CX. But maybe its also because CX cadet training only is 12 vs 24 months long.
I come from a background where I basically flew everything with wings on it before I climbed into the first Turboprop.
Over the years I have seen really bad pilots with a lot of 'quality time' (btw flying a single engine Cessna in the Outback is as much quality time as "flying" a jumbo for 14h in a straight line)who showed below average performance and cadet pilot who where extremely switched on.
It depends on the individual. How involved and prepared is that person?
I don't think you can categorically say one thing is bad the other is good. Its just isn't. I don't understand why people always have this black and white thinking mentality.
There are airlines where the mentality is that if you haven't been a cadet with that particular airline you must be a dangerous pilot as you didn't go through their training school. This airline although is very proud of their pilots training, not like in CX. But maybe its also because CX cadet training only is 12 vs 24 months long.
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Off topic but worth the article
Drunken rage vs. moderate arrogance: where?s the line for pilots? - Airline news, Aviation news, Commercial news | AeroTime
Drunken rage vs. moderate arrogance: where?s the line for pilots? - Airline news, Aviation news, Commercial news | AeroTime
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raven11
Have a re-read of my posts #277, #289, #312 and #324.
It's not that I agree with the system per se, it's just the one that I have to deal with as best I can, just as you do. I have always stated that I am not an advocate for MPL type schemes but I'm trying my best to address the new realities that such schemes present.
Fair enough and you're probably right. ChinaBeached made a similar assertion in a PM conversation we've been having. However, I will say, despite what some might like to think, we (CX) are attracting pilots with 'experience', despite the package on offer.
I think it would be fair to say that this applies to all airlines.
Given my comment above, I don't necessarily agree with you.
Interesting that you should choose to quote ChinaBeached here. This is what I said earlier:
and:
So, we actually agree it seems.
As do we all, although I'm not sure they're being taken advantage of.
Agreed.
STP
Have a re-read of my posts #277, #289, #312 and #324.
STP, it's not my system....I don't agree with it, it seems that you do. You should reconcile the inconsistencies, or explain why or what is different.
STP, I do not believe that the source of experienced pilots has completely dried up....but rather, as you say, that airline management are not willing to pay the money. For example, if we were to increase our compensation for new hires to 25% above what is currently on offer, we could attract every pilot in Hong Kong that works for HKE or HKA....and that's only casting a hiring net in our town.
The sad fact remains that our hiring methods are predominantly cost based.
We do not seek out the best candidate, but instead have focused on attracting the cheapest candidate.
Hours alone do not quantify aptitude.
My point is, and always has been, that hours in and of themselves, are a meaningless metric to hang your hat on when deciding whether or not a pilot is likely to be competent.
There's no doubt that experience will influence judgement but it's not the only factor: innate intelligence, innate ability, personality type, self-confidence, perception of own skill level, mood, attitude, fatigue level, crew combination and so forth. The wrong combination in a particular set of circumstances will inevitably affect the outcome and not always in a good way.
Personally, I try very hard to nurture and mold our young 200 hour pilots to the absolute best of my ability. It's not their fault they are being taken advantage of; the vast majority are good guys and gals.
With "time and experience" they should develop nicely.
STP
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Captain C.B. Sully Sullenberger
22 December 2015 ·
I just watched the story on CBS This Morning about a recent proposal by Jet Blue to take people with little or no flying experience and make them airline pilots in a relatively short period of time, and the Regional Airline Association's continued efforts to weaken critical pilot experience requirements.
Several important facts need to be pointed out.
As I testified in April before the Senate and House Aviation Subcommittees of the U.S. Congress, for most of the last 80 years newly hired airline pilots have had several thousand hours of flight experience and were seasoned professionals who already possessed the necessary knowledge, skill, and judgment, and greatly exceeded the rock-bottom FAA minimum flight hour requirements (250 hours) that existed then. The airlines hired highly experienced professional pilots because they understood that what pilots do and how they do it matters. They literally hold the lives of their passengers in their hands.
It was only more recently, after regional airlines had lowered their hiring standards so much (to the FAA minimum, a minimum that isn't good enough!) and the rash of fatal regional airline crashes in the 2000's that culminated in the February 2009 Buffalo crash, that Congress correctly chose to return airline hiring standards closer to the norm that has been proven to work, by requiring airline pilots to have an Airline Transport Pilot certificate. The 1500 hours that an ATP requires is still not at the historical norm for entry-level airline pilots, but is far superior to the totally inadequate previous 250 hours!
So, the current requirements are not a sudden increase, but instead are a more adequate floor to keep the worst airlines off the bottom of the barrel in their race to the bottom.
It is also important to understand how critical it is to have a crew of TWO fully qualified pilots in every airline cockpit, not a captain and an apprentice. Every safety protocol airlines use is predicated on having two fully qualified pilots. The captain should be the leader of a team of experts, not an instructor teaching basic skills to a novice.
Passengers deserve better than to be involuntarily subjected to a flight where the first officer is undergoing continuous on-the-job-training and has not seen before everyday operational challenges like avoiding thunderstorms and dealing with icing.
In spite of what one of those interviewed in the CBS story said, experience matters...a lot. It is critically important. There is no substitute for it. It can mean the difference between success and failure, life and death. There is a vast difference between the structured, hand-holding world of training and the ambiguous, challenging environment of real-world operational flying. There are no shortcuts to experience or to airline safety.
If the airlines do not hire the most qualified and experienced pilots, they will not be able to continue to make air travel safer, and in fact may not even be able to keep it as safe as it is now.
Let the airlines cut their costs on peanuts, not on pilots. When they offer wages, working conditions, and career progression sufficient to attract experienced pilots, they will have the applicants they need.
The traveling public deserves nothing less. I know my family does when we fly. No one should have to pay the ultimate price for pilot inexperience.
Doubt that Sully would agree with you STP...
22 December 2015 ·
I just watched the story on CBS This Morning about a recent proposal by Jet Blue to take people with little or no flying experience and make them airline pilots in a relatively short period of time, and the Regional Airline Association's continued efforts to weaken critical pilot experience requirements.
Several important facts need to be pointed out.
As I testified in April before the Senate and House Aviation Subcommittees of the U.S. Congress, for most of the last 80 years newly hired airline pilots have had several thousand hours of flight experience and were seasoned professionals who already possessed the necessary knowledge, skill, and judgment, and greatly exceeded the rock-bottom FAA minimum flight hour requirements (250 hours) that existed then. The airlines hired highly experienced professional pilots because they understood that what pilots do and how they do it matters. They literally hold the lives of their passengers in their hands.
It was only more recently, after regional airlines had lowered their hiring standards so much (to the FAA minimum, a minimum that isn't good enough!) and the rash of fatal regional airline crashes in the 2000's that culminated in the February 2009 Buffalo crash, that Congress correctly chose to return airline hiring standards closer to the norm that has been proven to work, by requiring airline pilots to have an Airline Transport Pilot certificate. The 1500 hours that an ATP requires is still not at the historical norm for entry-level airline pilots, but is far superior to the totally inadequate previous 250 hours!
So, the current requirements are not a sudden increase, but instead are a more adequate floor to keep the worst airlines off the bottom of the barrel in their race to the bottom.
It is also important to understand how critical it is to have a crew of TWO fully qualified pilots in every airline cockpit, not a captain and an apprentice. Every safety protocol airlines use is predicated on having two fully qualified pilots. The captain should be the leader of a team of experts, not an instructor teaching basic skills to a novice.
Passengers deserve better than to be involuntarily subjected to a flight where the first officer is undergoing continuous on-the-job-training and has not seen before everyday operational challenges like avoiding thunderstorms and dealing with icing.
In spite of what one of those interviewed in the CBS story said, experience matters...a lot. It is critically important. There is no substitute for it. It can mean the difference between success and failure, life and death. There is a vast difference between the structured, hand-holding world of training and the ambiguous, challenging environment of real-world operational flying. There are no shortcuts to experience or to airline safety.
If the airlines do not hire the most qualified and experienced pilots, they will not be able to continue to make air travel safer, and in fact may not even be able to keep it as safe as it is now.
Let the airlines cut their costs on peanuts, not on pilots. When they offer wages, working conditions, and career progression sufficient to attract experienced pilots, they will have the applicants they need.
The traveling public deserves nothing less. I know my family does when we fly. No one should have to pay the ultimate price for pilot inexperience.
Doubt that Sully would agree with you STP...
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Thank you Kitsune.....And thank you Captain C.B. Sully Sullenberger.
Like most of us, I simply cannot believe what is going on in the airline industry today. The industry and the pilot profession is in desperate need of a chartered body to protect against cost based hiring practices and a weak and willing regulator.
An airliner with 400 souls on board should not be piloted by a Captain in the left seat with a green novice in the right seat. Consider this: a bathroom break by the Captain results in leaving the cockpit in the hands of the novice (under the watchful eye of a flight attendant). This is simply insane, and eight to 12 seconds of useful consciousness away from a disaster caused by a delay in donning an oxygen mask. Not to mention slamming into a CB, or any other number of dangers and risks. It should be obvious that the traveling public deserve better.
Sadly, the airline industry and we as pilots lack the oversight and protection of a chartered association to oversee licensing standards, and must rely instead on government regulators. Although the FAA has stepped up to regulate minimum experience levels in commercial jet airliners, the government regulators in the rest of the world have not....but instead do the bidding of airline management.
Like every other profession, pilots of commercial airliners should have requisite experience and commensurate skill levels. Personally, I would not want to be operated on by a 200 hour surgeon; or represented at my divorce hearing by a 200 hour lawyer; or have a 200 hour accountant handle my tax audit.
Like any other profession we need a chartered non-government body to regulate professional standards and grant professional licenses and credentials: A Bar Association, a College of Physicians and Surgeons, the College of Teachers, Accountants, etc.
We can call it the Chartered Association of Professional Pilots.
I won't see it in my life time; hopefully many of the readers here will.
Raven
Like most of us, I simply cannot believe what is going on in the airline industry today. The industry and the pilot profession is in desperate need of a chartered body to protect against cost based hiring practices and a weak and willing regulator.
An airliner with 400 souls on board should not be piloted by a Captain in the left seat with a green novice in the right seat. Consider this: a bathroom break by the Captain results in leaving the cockpit in the hands of the novice (under the watchful eye of a flight attendant). This is simply insane, and eight to 12 seconds of useful consciousness away from a disaster caused by a delay in donning an oxygen mask. Not to mention slamming into a CB, or any other number of dangers and risks. It should be obvious that the traveling public deserve better.
Sadly, the airline industry and we as pilots lack the oversight and protection of a chartered association to oversee licensing standards, and must rely instead on government regulators. Although the FAA has stepped up to regulate minimum experience levels in commercial jet airliners, the government regulators in the rest of the world have not....but instead do the bidding of airline management.
Like every other profession, pilots of commercial airliners should have requisite experience and commensurate skill levels. Personally, I would not want to be operated on by a 200 hour surgeon; or represented at my divorce hearing by a 200 hour lawyer; or have a 200 hour accountant handle my tax audit.
Like any other profession we need a chartered non-government body to regulate professional standards and grant professional licenses and credentials: A Bar Association, a College of Physicians and Surgeons, the College of Teachers, Accountants, etc.
We can call it the Chartered Association of Professional Pilots.
I won't see it in my life time; hopefully many of the readers here will.
Raven
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Probably not but I should like to think that he would understand my argument that hours don't necessarily equate to 'experience' and therefore, by extension, ability or competence. Having 5000 incident-free hours trucking around continental US won't necessarily prepare a pilot for something like US1549; OK, the F/O was 'experienced' but had it been a different, 'experienced' captain rather than Sully, would the outcome have been the same? Of course, it's impossible to say, but I have my own thoughts on that.
There's no doubt that the pilots of US1549, CX780 and QF32 all did magnificent jobs in saving the lives of those on board their aircraft and have quite rightly been recognised for their feats of airmanship. The pilots of AF477, AirAsia8501 and, of course Colgan3407 have all been posthumously criticised for their contribution to those accidents and the deaths of those on board. However, as I've quoted earlier, there have been many, many accidents that pre-dated modern airline pilot training that were attributed to crew performance so I find it hard to come to terms with the conventional wisdom that seems to be: experienced pilots = fewer accidents; inexperienced pilots = more accidents.
One thing that some people seem to be unable to grasp is that I'm not advocating that the airline industry should be going down the path of just hiring kids off the streets and making them commercial pilots. What I've always argued is that, as this seems to be the way the industry is going there, needs to be a change in the way we, as line pilots, trainers or checkers cope with this paradigm shift. I'm trying to challenge people's perspectives, preferences, biases and prejudices. Maybe I'm wrong to do that but even if I make one person think about the way that we have to change our approach to nurturing our fledgling pilots then that'll be enough for me.
That's been going on for years in many airlines. I know you don't agree with it but how have you coped with your apparent dilemma for all the years you've been flying with SOs, especially trainees?
Forgive the selective quote but bear with me. Let's say you're on holiday somewhere and you're involved in a car accident and you have internal injuries that require emergency surgery. Before you go into the OR would you ask how experienced the doctor was or would you accept that he was qualified to do the work purely because he was on duty?
Unless you're speaking of individual countries I don't see how that would work. To some extent IFALPA fulfils a similar role to your suggested chartered association but without the responsibility for licensing pilots.
STP
There's no doubt that the pilots of US1549, CX780 and QF32 all did magnificent jobs in saving the lives of those on board their aircraft and have quite rightly been recognised for their feats of airmanship. The pilots of AF477, AirAsia8501 and, of course Colgan3407 have all been posthumously criticised for their contribution to those accidents and the deaths of those on board. However, as I've quoted earlier, there have been many, many accidents that pre-dated modern airline pilot training that were attributed to crew performance so I find it hard to come to terms with the conventional wisdom that seems to be: experienced pilots = fewer accidents; inexperienced pilots = more accidents.
One thing that some people seem to be unable to grasp is that I'm not advocating that the airline industry should be going down the path of just hiring kids off the streets and making them commercial pilots. What I've always argued is that, as this seems to be the way the industry is going there, needs to be a change in the way we, as line pilots, trainers or checkers cope with this paradigm shift. I'm trying to challenge people's perspectives, preferences, biases and prejudices. Maybe I'm wrong to do that but even if I make one person think about the way that we have to change our approach to nurturing our fledgling pilots then that'll be enough for me.
An airliner with 400 souls on board should not be piloted by a Captain in the left seat with a green novice in the right seat. Consider this: a bathroom break by the Captain results in leaving the cockpit in the hands of the novice (under the watchful eye of a flight attendant). This is simply insane, and eight to 12 seconds of useful consciousness away from a disaster caused by a delay in donning an oxygen mask. Not to mention slamming into a CB, or any other number of dangers and risks. It should be obvious that the traveling public deserve better.
Personally, I would not want to be operated on by a 200 hour surgeon
We can call it the Chartered Association of Professional Pilots.
STP
Raven 8-12 seconds of useful consciousness is the same for any one at the pointy end so purely saying having a very experienced captain does not make him less susceptible to hypoxia. Likewise 99.9% of pilots have never and will never experience a real depressurisation so you cannot definitely say how anyone will react, all we can do is train.
Slamming in to a CB? it is not too difficult to dodge some CBs in the cruise but it does sometimes happen. Look at the recent 330 incident with the windshield break, were both the guys up the front cadets with 200hrs?
Your comments have nothing backing them up, things can and do happen in aviation but we train for it. Airlines have been doing it for years, are QF SQ and budget airlines all over the world having major issues?
Slamming in to a CB? it is not too difficult to dodge some CBs in the cruise but it does sometimes happen. Look at the recent 330 incident with the windshield break, were both the guys up the front cadets with 200hrs?
Your comments have nothing backing them up, things can and do happen in aviation but we train for it. Airlines have been doing it for years, are QF SQ and budget airlines all over the world having major issues?