320/737 25-year-old commander and 19-year-old first officer
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And in my neck of the woods we have 60+ captains flying with 49 year old FO's…
Nice of you guys to remind us of all the award- and medal winning very young skippers of yore. But what's your point? Those were the cream of the crop. Which hardly can be said of the youngsters we're talking about here, who after all are being picked for command because nobody else is available.
Thank God the engineers at Airbus and Boeing are as brilliant and experienced as they are, and keep designing and building hyper safe aircraft that even dunces are hard pressed to drill into the ground.
Nice of you guys to remind us of all the award- and medal winning very young skippers of yore. But what's your point? Those were the cream of the crop. Which hardly can be said of the youngsters we're talking about here, who after all are being picked for command because nobody else is available.
Thank God the engineers at Airbus and Boeing are as brilliant and experienced as they are, and keep designing and building hyper safe aircraft that even dunces are hard pressed to drill into the ground.
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Guy Gibson led the Dams raid at @25, may have been even younger.
As others have said age is not the key thing here. One of the best Captains I flew with in my airline when I was an FO was 25. What really matters is selection, experience, training and supervision. Whether or not these things are sufficiently present in India is a different question. By pointing a gun at someones age your aiming for the wrong target.
As others have said age is not the key thing here. One of the best Captains I flew with in my airline when I was an FO was 25. What really matters is selection, experience, training and supervision. Whether or not these things are sufficiently present in India is a different question. By pointing a gun at someones age your aiming for the wrong target.
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25 year young captains is nothing new, it happened in regional aviation all the time. But rather as an exception. They used to be chosen because of their superior knowledge and abilities over others. Of course they had to have the necessary experience.
If you start with 20 years you built up a few thousand hours and a few seasons, so it just worked out.
In the India case I also have some serious doubt, if they really want to do it. 1500 hrs is definetly not enough. I'm pretty sure that after a few incident and accident, they will revert to the classical system. They do this of course only because they are so desperate.
I also have great concerns if this works within the traditional Asian culture.
Military pilots are mostly very succesful in younger ages, this is no surprise. They also fit to a complete different personal and professional profile (which you can often see when they change side). Most of their missions they have flown are training missions, while we on the line do "boring stuff" and train twice a year.
Dani
If you start with 20 years you built up a few thousand hours and a few seasons, so it just worked out.
In the India case I also have some serious doubt, if they really want to do it. 1500 hrs is definetly not enough. I'm pretty sure that after a few incident and accident, they will revert to the classical system. They do this of course only because they are so desperate.
I also have great concerns if this works within the traditional Asian culture.
Military pilots are mostly very succesful in younger ages, this is no surprise. They also fit to a complete different personal and professional profile (which you can often see when they change side). Most of their missions they have flown are training missions, while we on the line do "boring stuff" and train twice a year.
Dani
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Lots of posts here about training and experience but few mention ability.
Flying hours monitoring the autopilot do not equate to experience nor does time-served promotion equate to selection.
It has been my priviledge to train many youngsters with ability and I would feel safer flying with them rather than many time-served senior captains I have met.
Flying hours monitoring the autopilot do not equate to experience nor does time-served promotion equate to selection.
It has been my priviledge to train many youngsters with ability and I would feel safer flying with them rather than many time-served senior captains I have met.
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25 year old Captain with 800 hours Commercial experience, it happens in my company!! (UK regional)
Why?
Because there is no one else to fill the left seat!!
Nothing to do with ability, just that you've met the minimum requirements.......
Why?
Because there is no one else to fill the left seat!!
Nothing to do with ability, just that you've met the minimum requirements.......
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L1011 gets my vote....been there and seen the results of inexperiance fast tracked into the left seat with no high experiance right seat or F/e to keep
it all together....someone has to guard the guards....young raw low experianced low hours Captains need excellent back up...and they do not get it...and nature does not give a damn.
it all together....someone has to guard the guards....young raw low experianced low hours Captains need excellent back up...and they do not get it...and nature does not give a damn.
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The younger the better...
or so it goes! I think that the attitude in with some people is that: "I put in my 12 years as Co, and so do you".... atleast that was how it was for me.... I heard that all the time after I got started as a copilot....I just kept my mouth shut, worked hard and stayed out of trouble.... I was made Captain at 1600 Hrs total time and 24 years old... I had just received my ATPL and flew 100 sectors after that under supervision.... some of the blokes I was friends with earlier made many comments referring to "how long they had to wait" blah, blah ... blah... several of my friends who recently just entered aviation are now Captains after three years on small to medium jets.... and good for them. If somebody gets the chance to become a Captain earlier, and they properly qualify... then good for them. It seems that there is a 'wave' of sorts.. that comes every 25 years or so... and if you catch the wave... ride it for as long as you can.... and forget about the ancient thinking of the others....
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6to8
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TO all of you making postings taking everything written in a vague report by a reletively junior reporter who dose not know all the facts, please give enough room for error in reporting.
Now the ground reality
1. Almost every airline is keeping a minimum experience of atleast 2500 hrs TT to command a turbo prop and 3500 hrs for a narrow body. This is for non military pilots
2. Now for the age, there are very small numbers of people who are actually getting upgrades in the age bracket of 25-30. this is because for many years there were few jobs. I would not put the number beyond 50-75 captians in all of the roughly estimated 1500 -2000 Indian commanders in the country.
3.Most of these small numbers have been flying in the airline enviroment for 5-7 years. They got jobs at the ages of 19-21 yrs and so are bound to have 4-5000 hrs by the time they get command.
4. Now coming to the age v/s experience. There are two sides to the coin. There are lots of military aviators including those who flew only fighter jets(mostly of the russian kind) who are taken as direct entry captains on the same airplanes. The cockpits and type of flying done by them over the 15-20 years of their carrers is not remotely close to the airline enviroment.
All you nay sayers tell me are these prople adequately equipped. These folks have a 300 hr training program which means they are released to fly in command with about 300 hrs on TYPE without any other commercial airliner experience.
(to be fair there are lots of them who are good yet there are as many who don't know CRM and are still on a mission oriented trip)
5. This is not the first time that market demands have got people upgraded early. It has happen in the very same country in the mid 90's too. i know of no mishaps due to the age.
6. To all those predicting doom i hope you are saying things like this only because of ignorance and silght misguidance by the article.
7. If what is being said in the article were true how could there be almost 500 expat captains flying on a total fleet strength of about 350 commercial aircraft all airlines in india included. (This is not withstanding my stand on the age issue and is just to give some facts).
Trining is the ket issue and as long as they don't compromise on that we will be just fine. rarely are times good for the pilot job market and this is one time lets make the most of it and let a few get lucky. now don't go getting jealous cause you had a difficult time moving up the ladder.
Now the ground reality
1. Almost every airline is keeping a minimum experience of atleast 2500 hrs TT to command a turbo prop and 3500 hrs for a narrow body. This is for non military pilots
2. Now for the age, there are very small numbers of people who are actually getting upgrades in the age bracket of 25-30. this is because for many years there were few jobs. I would not put the number beyond 50-75 captians in all of the roughly estimated 1500 -2000 Indian commanders in the country.
3.Most of these small numbers have been flying in the airline enviroment for 5-7 years. They got jobs at the ages of 19-21 yrs and so are bound to have 4-5000 hrs by the time they get command.
4. Now coming to the age v/s experience. There are two sides to the coin. There are lots of military aviators including those who flew only fighter jets(mostly of the russian kind) who are taken as direct entry captains on the same airplanes. The cockpits and type of flying done by them over the 15-20 years of their carrers is not remotely close to the airline enviroment.
All you nay sayers tell me are these prople adequately equipped. These folks have a 300 hr training program which means they are released to fly in command with about 300 hrs on TYPE without any other commercial airliner experience.
(to be fair there are lots of them who are good yet there are as many who don't know CRM and are still on a mission oriented trip)
5. This is not the first time that market demands have got people upgraded early. It has happen in the very same country in the mid 90's too. i know of no mishaps due to the age.
6. To all those predicting doom i hope you are saying things like this only because of ignorance and silght misguidance by the article.
7. If what is being said in the article were true how could there be almost 500 expat captains flying on a total fleet strength of about 350 commercial aircraft all airlines in india included. (This is not withstanding my stand on the age issue and is just to give some facts).
Trining is the ket issue and as long as they don't compromise on that we will be just fine. rarely are times good for the pilot job market and this is one time lets make the most of it and let a few get lucky. now don't go getting jealous cause you had a difficult time moving up the ladder.
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Age....?
It has nothing to do with age. I don't want to generalise as I do know a 2 good pilots from the subcontinent. But I wouldn't be happy with a 55 and a 45 year old indian crew. I trained about 20 of them pre 1991, 'Top gun boomers' Rich parents, thought it would be better than being a doctor or a chemist. But nearly all without exception could not grasp the fundamentals of flight. Meacham field was full of em. and they all werre 2 and 3 time exam takers, 300 hours plus, eventually given tickets on the condition that they never fly in the US.
They can't ride bicycles in a straight line, and don't know how they work, so should not be allowed anywhere near a jet. Their whole peer system also makes the co-pilot nothing more than a radio operator, unable to question the captain. Add the incompetence of the traffic controlers, a nation that is conditioned to following instructions and not thinking out of the box, and you will have for me an amusing string of accidents that I will relish reading about in years to come.
Life is cheap in India. 1000 people died last week because they are living on a flood plain. Whats a few hundred a year in aviation accidents matter? Good for aviation sales though. Go Airbus!
They can't ride bicycles in a straight line, and don't know how they work, so should not be allowed anywhere near a jet. Their whole peer system also makes the co-pilot nothing more than a radio operator, unable to question the captain. Add the incompetence of the traffic controlers, a nation that is conditioned to following instructions and not thinking out of the box, and you will have for me an amusing string of accidents that I will relish reading about in years to come.
Life is cheap in India. 1000 people died last week because they are living on a flood plain. Whats a few hundred a year in aviation accidents matter? Good for aviation sales though. Go Airbus!
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1500hr command... no thanks
As im reading this thread ive just been trying to sort out my paperwork to unfreeze my ATPL.
So here i am with just over 1500 hrs. Ive had top quality training at a well respected school and passed with flying colours (excuse the pun). Ive been lucky enough to work for two airlines in the uk and recieved high quality training from both, one on a boeing and one on an airbus. Without sounding too cocky i like to think ive worked hard and achieved a high standard thoughout my short career so far. Sim checks are going from strength to strength and i get a lot of positive feeback from the skippers i fly with. Am i ready for a command??... hell no!
Just when i start to think "ive got the hang of this", something happens that ive never seen before and blows away all that cocky confidence and my capacity along with it! Its then that the captain im with (who i was starting to think was incompetent because he couldnt bothered to make SOP altimeter calls) suddenly steps in and makes a calm and measured command decision based on his/her vast experience on this type (or at this airfield or with this type of weather etc) and sorts the situation leading to a safe outcome. No amount of training, top marks or natural ability can substitute that in my humble opinion.
So here i am with just over 1500 hrs. Ive had top quality training at a well respected school and passed with flying colours (excuse the pun). Ive been lucky enough to work for two airlines in the uk and recieved high quality training from both, one on a boeing and one on an airbus. Without sounding too cocky i like to think ive worked hard and achieved a high standard thoughout my short career so far. Sim checks are going from strength to strength and i get a lot of positive feeback from the skippers i fly with. Am i ready for a command??... hell no!
Just when i start to think "ive got the hang of this", something happens that ive never seen before and blows away all that cocky confidence and my capacity along with it! Its then that the captain im with (who i was starting to think was incompetent because he couldnt bothered to make SOP altimeter calls) suddenly steps in and makes a calm and measured command decision based on his/her vast experience on this type (or at this airfield or with this type of weather etc) and sorts the situation leading to a safe outcome. No amount of training, top marks or natural ability can substitute that in my humble opinion.
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Age has little to do with it, experience and maturity has every thing to do with it. So if we consider the 25 year old captain who has say for the last 5 years flown ILS airfield to ILS airfield just what experience does he or she have to pass on to the new young FO. Sweet F.A. so it really does come down to training. Perhaps someone who operates in India could enlighten us all to the standard of training there. Companies like ryr, easy, etc rely on strict, intensive and seemly every changing sop's to try and keep out of trouble, do Indian airlines copy this practice or is the industry just to young there to have managed to get this level yet. I do understand that there has been a huge influx of experienced western pilots into the area over the last few years, perhaps the experience they bring will be enough to ensure that a safe operation can be achieved.
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I have 800hrs TT and fly single pilot IFR in a light twin. I am 44 years old and have (non aviation) "command and judgement" experience coming out of my ears. This works in the air while the only ass(es) on the line are mine, and a few well informed passengers. I have flown IFR in some testing conditions, time and again I have had to learn new lessons the hard way, with no voice of experience in the other seat.
Do I think that if I changed my career and racked up 1000 hours on a 737 (less than a year I understand), that I would be ready to take a 100+ members of someone elses family on an aircraft that I was Captaining, without a significant amount of doubt in my mind. No I do not, it is not my place to learn at the expense of risking other innocent lives. In this stage I would be chronologically old, but "technically young".
Of course age is not every thing, really its the passage of time which is important. If at this stage of my life I flew as FO to a 5000hour 35 year old Captain, I would consider him/her to be "technically older" than myself as far as operating the aircraft is concerned, balanced with a good level of maturity and life skills. I would not be able to consider a 5000hr 25 year old captain in the same way, and would need to take a closer look at his/her maturity levels, before reaching a rounded conclusion as to "technical age".
In my professional life, which has had its own hairy moments, I have learned that age and maturity teach you to question your own judgement in a more timely and appropriate fashion. Some people get old and still never learn, but those who are still young have not had the chance to learn that they are not invincible, and therefore are a risk in an industry which, in a perfect world, wants to have a perfect no accident record.
Yes the military have younger pilots, but they also (excluding transportation) have a higher casualty rate due to the mission profiles.
Some one mentioned Guy Gibson and the dams raid. To be honest you would have to lack either judgement, doubt or both (but certainly not courage), to think that you could pull it off, and indeed more than half of 617 sqn failed to return from the raid, and they were not all shot down!
Gibson was taken off flying duties after two tours and was so restless he was always in trouble (mainly shagging other peoples wifes if Max Hastings is to be believed) that they put him in the air again in a Mosquito as a master bomber, where he eventually died, not during a raid, but because as his tolerance to danger grew, the raids were not enough and on the trip back he would drop down to low level to strafe enemy installations, and eventually got caught out.
There is a very good reason that the military needs young leaders, and it is almost diametrically opposite to the needs of a 100% safe air transport operation, experience and maturity has a very large part to play in the process IMHO
Do I think that if I changed my career and racked up 1000 hours on a 737 (less than a year I understand), that I would be ready to take a 100+ members of someone elses family on an aircraft that I was Captaining, without a significant amount of doubt in my mind. No I do not, it is not my place to learn at the expense of risking other innocent lives. In this stage I would be chronologically old, but "technically young".
Of course age is not every thing, really its the passage of time which is important. If at this stage of my life I flew as FO to a 5000hour 35 year old Captain, I would consider him/her to be "technically older" than myself as far as operating the aircraft is concerned, balanced with a good level of maturity and life skills. I would not be able to consider a 5000hr 25 year old captain in the same way, and would need to take a closer look at his/her maturity levels, before reaching a rounded conclusion as to "technical age".
In my professional life, which has had its own hairy moments, I have learned that age and maturity teach you to question your own judgement in a more timely and appropriate fashion. Some people get old and still never learn, but those who are still young have not had the chance to learn that they are not invincible, and therefore are a risk in an industry which, in a perfect world, wants to have a perfect no accident record.
Yes the military have younger pilots, but they also (excluding transportation) have a higher casualty rate due to the mission profiles.
Some one mentioned Guy Gibson and the dams raid. To be honest you would have to lack either judgement, doubt or both (but certainly not courage), to think that you could pull it off, and indeed more than half of 617 sqn failed to return from the raid, and they were not all shot down!
Gibson was taken off flying duties after two tours and was so restless he was always in trouble (mainly shagging other peoples wifes if Max Hastings is to be believed) that they put him in the air again in a Mosquito as a master bomber, where he eventually died, not during a raid, but because as his tolerance to danger grew, the raids were not enough and on the trip back he would drop down to low level to strafe enemy installations, and eventually got caught out.
There is a very good reason that the military needs young leaders, and it is almost diametrically opposite to the needs of a 100% safe air transport operation, experience and maturity has a very large part to play in the process IMHO
Last edited by rmac; 21st Aug 2007 at 11:49.
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"Some people seem to be getting mightily confused between age and experience. "
Yes they certainly are. Flew with some youngsters (18/19/20) in baesystems in Jerez who went straight into GB Airways (with 200+ hours) who were known by everyone there to be excellent. One ended up flying with another ex-student of Jerez who made LHS at 25. So you don't have to look as far as India.
Yes they certainly are. Flew with some youngsters (18/19/20) in baesystems in Jerez who went straight into GB Airways (with 200+ hours) who were known by everyone there to be excellent. One ended up flying with another ex-student of Jerez who made LHS at 25. So you don't have to look as far as India.
I worked for an airline who had an F/O in his early fifties. Thousands of hours in his logbook and several type ratings. He was so keen he even paid for type ratings on different aircraft out of his own money.
Top bloke. Commander? Not as long as he has a hole in the front of his face to stuff food in. Age and experience are not the only criterea here.
Same airline made a Commander a Training Captain as soon as he had the requisite number of hours to be so. He was young, keen, extremely good company and above all a very good airman and operator.
Training and culture also have their part to play and I think I may be happier with very young crew in some countries than in others.
Doc C
Top bloke. Commander? Not as long as he has a hole in the front of his face to stuff food in. Age and experience are not the only criterea here.
Same airline made a Commander a Training Captain as soon as he had the requisite number of hours to be so. He was young, keen, extremely good company and above all a very good airman and operator.
Training and culture also have their part to play and I think I may be happier with very young crew in some countries than in others.
Doc C
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I'd also observe that in several instances older experienced F/Os and Capts have failed to cut it when transferring from a low density operation to a high density loco one. The 19 yr old ex cadet who is now 25 knocks spots off them. Many of the cadets I fly with are as bright and capable as the people I flew with in the RAF. A few will upgrade on min time the others will take longer but when they are ready why deny them the opportunity ?
If you are using age as an arbiter you are predjudiced, pure and simple.
What we should really be addressing are the reports that certain carriers are putting people with an inappropriate level of experience/ability in the LHS.
If you are using age as an arbiter you are predjudiced, pure and simple.
What we should really be addressing are the reports that certain carriers are putting people with an inappropriate level of experience/ability in the LHS.
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Min training!
As several of us who use this I.D. are in the Training Deptartment for Air India or Air India Express, I can only share the following;
First Officer - type rated only (so right from the sim), 8 sectors on the Jumpseat, then 2 Assessment Sectors as PNF, then 3 Route Checks (of which one could be a PF) - and he / she is relased!
That's min. 5 (five) sectors as CM2 and away you go.
PICUS - 15 sectors. Then 2 route Check sectors and maybe 10 more sectors folowed by 2 Route Checks and released as P1/CM1 together with above.
Alot of pressure to move people through the system.
So min. experience = maximum reliance on the aircraft and its systems.
First Officer - type rated only (so right from the sim), 8 sectors on the Jumpseat, then 2 Assessment Sectors as PNF, then 3 Route Checks (of which one could be a PF) - and he / she is relased!
That's min. 5 (five) sectors as CM2 and away you go.
PICUS - 15 sectors. Then 2 route Check sectors and maybe 10 more sectors folowed by 2 Route Checks and released as P1/CM1 together with above.
Alot of pressure to move people through the system.
So min. experience = maximum reliance on the aircraft and its systems.
Last edited by AIEXPATS; 21st Aug 2007 at 17:09.