scroggs

This thread is getting well away from the purpose of the original sticky thread, which has been edited to clarify its message.

If you wish to continue discussing the purpose of the forum (bearing in mind that its policy will not change (see my post earlier)), you may do so - politely, please - here.

Scroggs

flaps to 60

Scroggs

Without wishing to deepen this go no where debate. As I remember it, in kindergarten we had teachers and they had been in the job for a long time, highly qualified and dished out their knowledge to a willing pupils.

I think and im sure some will say i dont! that all the experienced chaps gleaned much knowledge from this forum in thier quest for that "elusive" first job and when they have moved up a rung or two they come back to dish out thier knowledge and experiences.

In doing so some may inadvertently traverse that slippery path in to which your original post was intending to avoid.

To some it may seem that you have dug your heels in just a tad and thats fine we all do. But as i said before, I agree with you, mostly, but the tone of your original post has indeed courted some controvery and PPRUNE is just the place for that type of thing.

VC10

I did and as a Professional Pilot i read the bit below it as well and as i intimated in my previous post the rest of the text may well be read to include those that this very debate is all about.

Tonic Please

I do hope your title is preceeded by "GIN and" and ends with "ice and a slice and be quick about it my good man".

It takes a big man (or girl) to put thier hands a up and say what you did and in the same vein i will appologise for the looking for an argument comment as i was called in off standby for an early and was a little tired and tetchy....not an excuse but a reason!

If your profile is up to date then good luck with your ATPL's it will all be worth it when you get in even when you get called in on a standby day.

Scroggs your right it has moved off the subject and i will try to resist the temptation to post on this again......I hope!

jamestkirk

What a thread.

Scroggs did clearly state from the outset that the opinion of professional pilots in continued work was welcome.

So why has so many had a thrombo and got really sensitive. Some are more interested in the fine art of one upmanship, obviously.

Personally, i find the feedback of the pilots in work (lucky windsocks) giving employment advice quite useful and the constant threads of how they hate their job a bit depressing.

PPRuNe Towers

1: The rubrik heading these forums says it all.

2: Over on T+E experienced pros don't generally need the anal minutiae and handholding regarding interviews you guys understandably crave. By definition they've succeeded in previous interviews and discussion concentrates on the unusual, corrupt or baffling. Therefore it is terms, conditions, promotion prospects and quality of life that dominate - they well and truly have the experienced pro pilot t-shirt. This is entirely logical if you think about it and the forum does exactly what it says on the tin - plaintive enquiries from fAtpls usually get a very poor response.

3: Input from experienced folks has always been welcome here. The dearth is your problem not theirs. As a generalisation they cringe with embarrassment at the topics and views you consider to be important. Additionally there are only a patient, generous few who are willing to answer the same questions again and again and again. They are engaged in a 30 or 40 year career and see exactly the same themes from each 18 month or 2 year generation of wannabees rolling through this place. After 7 years of "Integrated V Modular' you do tend to lose the will to live.

4: They are disgusted at the importance and weight you generically give to the views of instructors and marketeers, the vast majority of whom have never done what you aspire to and regard you as fodder and throughput to keep their mortgages paid irrespective of the chances of you ever working professionally in aviation.

5: Finally, many are convinced that your unrealistic expectations and desperate scrabbling at the foot of the industry is a prime reason for what they perceive as the savage erosion in their terms and conditions. They also look around at their colleagues and find your vehement claims regarding the how's, where's and why's regarding best training and resulting career success utterly laughable.

If you consider the foregoing as crap think about this carefully - where are all the avid and regular generations of wannabees who lived ate and drank from this forum now they are, hopefully, experienced working pros?

Roll back the date on the forum 2 or 3 years and look at the names - where are they now when you need them?

Regards
Rob

Lolo737

My goodness Mr Pprune Towers (Sir!), thats harsh!

Particularly....
Naive we may be but thats harsh.

PPRuNe Towers

err,

Discuss and rebut by all means lolo but why pick up a point that only those with several years and a company or two under their belts could effectively slap down?

Either the point I make in that paragraph is a widely held perception or it isn't. Whatever the case a good and effective drubbing could only possibly come from your peers - those with significant and current experience.

You guys are fed dreams and BS - PPRuNe is the only leavening of reality countering both FTO propaganda and wannabees self delusion. Yep, it can be uncomfortable sometimes but this 'harsh' advice actually comes from folks who do the job you aspire to, are doing it now and, most significantly of all, aren't after any money from you.

Regards to all,
Rob

AIRWAY

G'day,

Views can be subjective, we may not all agree with it (I personally sympathise with Luke’s view) but they are there to be followed, I might not agree with “some” points but I just have to get on with it, express my view and adapt, and like Scroggs has stated in his previous post, experienced pilots are welcome to a certain extent, their advice is precious and should be welcome by wannabes and others, it would be wrong to exclude them from this section completely, at the end of the day we are (will be) part of the same team.



Kind Regards and Safe Flying,
Airway

haughtney1

Hey all,

As a comparative newbie on here, a benefactor from PPrune, and someone who has been about a bit in aviation of many kinds....I can sympathise with pretty much all thats been said here. The very fact that there are divergent points of view is both healthy and helpful IMHO.
Scroggs I can see your point of view..even if it was expressed a little too rigidly, as far as Im concerned this whole discussion comes down to a question of balance and relevance.
Luke, as always your not one to sit on the fence mate..but thats why I agree with what you've said...your views are relevant and balanced.
Flaps 60..I can see where your coming from, I actually think you and Scroggs are in agreement, it was just the method of delivery where there is a difference of opinion!!!
Rob...couldnt agree more..yep harsh but true, but isnt anything in life worth persuing.
On the whole, I for one am going to try and continue to contribute to this forum, it is after all the place that has given me a start in UK....long may it continue

Cheers

H

Lolo737

Rob (if I may call you Rob!),

I dont doubt for a minute that this is an area a humble fATPL could not adequately comment on.

I dont want to rebut what you said and agree with you that 'only those with several years and a company or two under their belts could effectively slap down?' (your point) which I can agree with in many ways.

I think your points were made in a harsh manner. Thats all.

Any newly qualified person in any profession hoping to gain an entry level position against much competition has only their perception of that profession built upon the views of their peers and those they have experienced in the training enviroment. Reading websites like these are so useful in presenting a more realistic picture but postings like yours are just disheartening.
We look up to you after all.

But hey, its not your job to worry about our state of mind.
Guess I should get back onto the subject; I welcome the views of anybody lookin for any job within the forum.

PPRuNe Towers

But it is our job to worry Lolo,

Why else would we bother to put so much time and effort into creating and running this part of the site? We are entirely sympathetic to your dreams and aspirations - we couldn't be anything else. We've been through the system ourselves and with nothing like the support you get here.

However, we have to be the counterpoint to the spin, gloss and, yes, lies you guys face on a daily basis during the couple of years you spend fighting your way through the hoops to a licence. Therefore harsh truths do get told every few months and we derive no pleasure from it. Many of you will join us for 30 years or more on the flight deck and only then will you know whether we are right or not with certainty. You will all also find out in your own time whether revisiting this forum makes you feel uncomfortable as you see the next generations' wide eyed, blissful, uninformed enthusiasm.

And so to the substantive part of this thread. It's our judgement on how the forums are defined and steered. It is entirely possible that there is a better way of doing it. It is entirely probable that there is someone out there who, if they got off their arse, could produce something that leaves us in the weeds.

We think we get the overall balance right. We believe that the existance of the wannabees forums genuinely helps you until you get to join us working stiffs. Bolstered by the demonic enthusiasm of the Weasly Welshman we invented all this - it had never been done before. We're in our tenth year now, you're all here by choice and the first generation of PPRuNe Wannabees are in the left seat of jets or getting very close to it.

And that is the only reason why we do this - putting something back.

Regards again,
Rob Lloyd

Lolo737

Ok, you've convinced me! And I appreciate your input!

As far as I can tell in my position I think you do get the balance right - I just had to take issue with the 'desperate scrabbling at the foot of the industry' comment, knowing that at one time, you too must have been in our position!

Any one of us thats spent more than a few days trying to get a foot on the ladder knows the spin we've been fed is BS but that doesn't mean we set out expecting job offers to be easy to secure, it just means we've all set out with the hope that we will be the lucky one. And while its crucial to be well-informed, surely you can understand this wide-eyed enthusiastic hope!?

So at the risk of sounding trite...Thanks for being 'entirely sympathetic to [our] dreams and aspirations' and please keep up the good work (but maybe in a slightly less harsh tone! )

Mister Geezer

As someone who used to be a 'wannabe' I always used to find it interesting when reading about the latest gossip from the likes of Gulf Air, Emirates, Cathay, Virgin and the rest. Now these airlines are not even an option for the 'wannabe' but I found such posts interesting, informative and some times fascinating. They may well have given me some insight into what I want to get out of my commercial career. As someone who flies commercially I never cringe at the posts I see on wannabes because for some people this is their first point of contact in finding out about what could be a potential career. For someone that knows nothing then you can't expect in depth questions!

I don't think any of us are disgusted at the views that wannabes have towards instructors and marketing people. We have all been there and remember the scams and the con artists that were out to make a quick buck. In general wannabes are aware of the big bad world of FTOs and know that they are a business and their main concern is making money from you! With the large volume of information available on PPRuNe then any wannabe worth his salt should know what lies ahead (broadly speaking) in the long road to getting the blue book.

Having threads on recruitment for experienced bods in this forum could well be a positive thing. The more airline/corporate pilots we can get into this forum will be to the wannabes benefit. I still look at wannabes frequently - still as often as when I was hunting for my first job because I like to know who is recruiting and what the latest gossip is. I am obviously in the minority but by not giving my fellow airline colleagues a reason to enter wannabes is surely a negative thing for those starting off in their careers.

On the topic of the erosion in terms and conditions. I don't really blame those starting out even though they don't help by selling their soul but it is the management in our own companies that are to blame. They call the shots and decide what they can get away with and what we can't get away with!

Rob - I am not having a bash at what you said earlier but I hope I am providing a alternative viewpoint from someone from the other side of the fence. A view that I think could be more widespread than you may think!

The more pros that pass through this forum is bound to be a good thing for those starting out!

PPRuNe Towers

But MG - you exemplify the glorious few who post consistently and helpfully throughout the site over an extended period.

Anyone can look up your posts and see exactly what I mean. No ego, no aggro - just common sense and a patently deep desire to assist others. This the reason why you, like Luke, have been on our shortlist of poor sods we approach to become mods for a few months now. This dubious honour is, in our twisted minds, a form of compliment although many would regard it more as a threat.

That said we reckon wannabees should get out of this forum at every available opportunity to evesdrop on the workers in their natural habitat elsewhere on the site. They are shy, reserved creatures and startle easily when approached by thrusting young skygods. You'll learn much more where they are talking amongst themselves.

Secondly, all of you should pull up MG's posts and trawl back in time to when he was training. Click on a selection of posts from that period and you will find the Wannabees forum totally familiar yet utterly strange at the same time. All the usual topics being discussed but those names - who the hell are they all?

It's a bit of a twilight zone experience. A parallel universe where, apart from Mister Geezer and a couple of other heros, none of them ever came back.

Here's a sample thread - familiar topic so just look at the names of the contributors: http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...&threadid=8112

Do not adjust your sets - it will just be very wierd for a while.

Rob
(Fade to black - roll titles and cue spooky music)

flaps to 60

Sorry Scroggs

I did try to stay away but hey that's PPRUNE.

Haughtny

Your right I do mostly but that is not to say that i dont think that there should be some lattitude in this section or another one all together. But as i said earlier Scroggs has dug his heels in and i dont think he's going to change his mind.

As we all know the moderators are busy people and do this for the love of it. Therfore i get the feeling that the resistance to add a new section (which i think personaly is justified) is because they dont want to see their precious time being wasted watching us all bitch slap each other.

Ps Haughtny give Nearly man a slap in the back of the head for me and tell him its from the big fella!!!


Towers

Once again your points were elegantly put and keeping it real but possibly a little harsh on Lolo i can only put that down to an iffy pint in the Sub!!!

The real culprits for the erosion of T & C's is down to bin laden followed very quickly by MOL et al then in there somewhere in there the flying schools with very snappy ads enticing the weak. Not necessarily wannabees "willing to sell thier soul" though this will not help. I was lucky i didn't have to but would have done if pushed.

I remember a colleague who was vehement in his indignation that food was sent to the starving in Africa "Quoting that if you gave them some food to live you'd have to shoot them to keep them away asking for more". Quick as a flash another colleague said (as i was still thinking what a tool) "that's easy for you to say as your not starving". Excellent reposte!

The wannabees are starving where as the likes of me are merely hungry for more and some are Mr Creasote who can no longer see their knob for all the fat. Some who havent seen their Hampton in years have forgotten what its like to starve while a few throw a few scraps that are greatly received by the starving and the hungry.

Once i was starving and now i have more and try to keep a few scraps for the less fortunate and so far its been the wannbees section that appreciates it (I hope). Sometimes the enthusiasm from those higher up the evolutionary scale spills over into "Oi whats it like working for so and so". Its like farting.......only natural though not always well received.

Mister Geezer

Well put!

Management are now driven by share price and not by customer service and therefore a long term stratagy. Share price is mostly based on profits or by the actions of the management and it seem the Porsche driving Red Braces are taken in by this in my mind unsustainable way of running a business.

To all the Mods keep up the good work. We may not always agree with you but we do appreciate the sterling effort you guys put in to keep this unique site lively.

Ps Rob

The rubrik or banner at the beginning of the wannabees section is very clear. Its the small print underneath that may well misunderstood

haughtney1

flaps60..........part of me always suspected nearly man liked a slap or two
Allegedly we are meeting up for a beer this afternoon...(or a white-wine spritzer..for girly-boy nearlyman..!!)

cheers

H

flaps to 60

Haughtney

I thought he was a snowball type of gal or at best a sweet sherry!

Good luck with the 75 from what nearly man has told me it looks like fun.

Luke SkyToddler

Hahaha ... Luke the PPRuNe mod ... oh the glorious power ... I could dish out the crass comments and melodramatic exaggerations and scathing put-downs and slag people off all day, and NO ONE COULD STOP ME *evil villain laugh* It takes a lot to absolutely floor me with surprise Rob but that pretty much takes the biscuit, I just kind of naturally assumed that having spent most of a decade sh!t stirring and running my mouth off in here, that I would be about as popular in the chateau moderator as a plate of ham sandwiches at a Jewish wedding.

Apologies proffered to you anyway Tonic, seems strange that we don't know each other since we've both been around for a while, but it is undoubtedly best that we learn to get on with each other, especially since everyone else in this thread appears to be handing out the group hugs and forgive-and-forgets

FWIW, I also think you're being a bit harsh on the wannabes Rob, with regard to accusing them of ruining the working conditions for the people at the top. Yeah it's a disgrace what some of these flying school owners and employers are doing to these wannabes and I've vented my frustration on these pages on many occasions, but I've also come to the conclusion that asking unemployed desperate wannabes to make sacrifices and telling them it's to protect the future of their own industry, is kind of like asking starving Brazilian peasants to please not feed their children by cutting down the Amazon rain forest. Noble sentiments but wasted breath. We - the employed, experienced ones - are the people who should be taking a stand to stop the rot, because we are the only ones who have any sort of a lever to wield against the bean counters. It's an issue for ALPA and it's time someone started taking it seriously down there.

Time for a new thread on that subject perhaps?

PPRuNe Towers

ummm, they're not eroding terms at the top - huge shortage Luke - I mean huge. Every one of the agencies is promising to love us long, long time and I know you will have been following the sagas of companies like BA and Emirates getting no shows.

However, it is screwing up to the first ten years or so of peoples' career when they have vast debts to pay off. It's also stopping us getting the previous leavening of experienced turboprop folks. The training load is vast and the system really is maxed out.

You know better than the vast majority here what it's like in a country with a vast oversupply of commercially rated pilots and what it does to the market.

The effect is now significant here as well - wanabees have often voiced what they see as 'decent' starting pay. Let's take 25K as a ball park figure. I've got the slips and tax documents to prove that was jet starting pay in 1989 and a North London 3 bed semi came in at around the mid sixties sterling.

Let's put that together - three years beginners' pay at the time was equal to a London house and the price of a new 3 Series to park in the driveway. If I made the comparison with reference to prices away from the south east of the UK you simply wouldn't believe me.

We have to let people know what they're getting into these days.

Regards again,
Rob

scroggs

I'm sure I wrote a reply on this thread yesterday, but it seems to have disappeared into the ether - and I can't remember what I said. Ho hum - must be my advanced age!

MG there have been many threads in this forum discussing life at airlines wannabes have no chance of joining until later in their careers. They were relevant and remained because the questions were posed by wannabes in the first place - I have no problem with wannabes asking me, for example, what life is like at Virgin Atlantic. That's quite different from a guy with 6000 hours on A320s asking what his chances are at VS; that's a topic for T&E - and, as you will see if you look, I spend a good deal of time in T&E fielding questions about long haul flying in general, and Virgin in particular.

Another example is the BA DEP thread. BA's DEP recruiting isn't yet for ab-initio fATPLs, but it's getting very close, so the thread is relevant and stays.

As for the great Ts&Cs debate for new joiners to the business, it's pretty futile trying to lay the blame at any individual's or group's feet. The fact is that the vast expansion of the locost sector, and its philosophy of stretching every pound to its limit, is driving many of the changes that are particularly affecting wannabes. I doubt there is any action you can take to materially change this; it will have to wait for the market conditions to force change. By that I mean that if demand for pilots exceeds readily available supply, airlines will have to make it more attractive for you to join. What could produce such a situation? A combination of the reduction in Ts&Cs and increase in training costs putting people off from entering training, and a continuing increase in demand for the airlines' products - and thus need for pilots. I think we could get to that situation - I suspect that, once the money generated by the latest property boom has dissipated, there will be far fewer wannabes able to afford the money to go from scratch through to the end of a TR, yet I don't see any levelling off in the demand for flying. You do the maths! We may be a few years from this situation, but it is feasible. Only a change in recruiting policies will avoid a real problem, in my opinion.

As for Ts & Cs higher up the industry, they are generally improving - at least in Europe. My airline alone has seen a huge improvement in pay and benefits in the last 2 years. BA has to some extent gone the other way, but will have to revise its position if it's to attract the pilots it wants. The major charter airlines are also having to bolster their packages, particularly for senior training pilots and, as Rob suggests, the enormous expansion going on in the Middle and Far East will cause a drain elsewhere which will have to be countered - by improvements in Ts & Cs.

Scroggs

JB007

Interesting point Luke made, as a Turboprop F/O myself, is my next jet position going to be in competition with an OATS Grad or CTC Cadet ??!! Mmmm, honestly never thought of that one!

I like to have a browse through this forum, I also checkout Ts & E to read the odd "lifestyle" thread.....and yes, I can be accused of ignoring the modular/intergrated threads, but I also remember contributing to those once too!

I think Rob is correct to be harsh to all wanabees, it needs to be told how it is! It's changed in a frighteningly short space of time. When I started studying for my ATPL writtens, buying type-ratings was just not on the cards. By the time I was looking for my first job, it was in full swing! NYC still had Twin Towers and the low-cost market was just beginning to break but unknown to what extream.

I had a rough old ride to the glorious RHS, which actually resulted in a fairly big change of attitude towards this industry, the postion of flight crew within it It's fair to say that I think most Airline Exec's would run an airline without pilots if they could!!!and what I wanted to get out of it and what I think I can do about it as an FOD in 20 years time!!!. Don't get me wrong, I can't get enough of going to work, but wanabees need to be aware of just how it is and what it's really like to get to be in that position.

I got ripped off from a particular flying school, as did many others who were with me at the time, I also had a very tough time due to the standard of instruction, which naturally, resulted in me spendng more money. I keep an eye open for wannabees considering schools in this area and offer them my experience for the simple reason I would not wish anyone to go through what I went through. We actually could have really put the record straight last year with a large thread on this school but the student in question decided to back off when things got a little hot!

About a year ago, I accepted a job on a fantastic bizjet which was just too good to be true - in fact, it was! Very poor management and general bullsh!t mean't I had to be ruthless and move on - thankfully to exactly where I wanted to be and my first choice airline (thats not a pun by the way, I don't work for FCUK!). But doesn't that just show I would have done anything to get on the first job ladder? I'm embarrassed to admit it! But I became aware that a sniff of anything was worth chasing!

And I really don't wanna talk about what i've spent to get there!

Rob is correct, the first 10 years of my career is going to be spent paying back what it's cost me. I'm thankful I own property and in the South-East but if I didn't, god only knows when I would be in a position to gain a mortgage!

I would say you have got to really really really want to do this! It's the best job in the world but keep your eye's open and have a 100% soild idea of where you want your career to go and possibly with whom. Have a solid grounding of this industry, almost be a sad enthusiast. Know what your getting into when joining a company, spend some time reading Ts & E

My Dad, who flies for a living also, asked me a question about 6 months ago, when we found ourselves sat in the local with a few descent pints of Theakston's talking about this flight and that approach and that landing and that cabin crew! "If you know what you know now, would you ever have started"?

Mmm - nice one Dad!

Cheers
JB