320/737 25-year-old commander and 19-year-old first officer

[alienpilot]

Syllabus is definitely not what you have listed. How about LOFT? The syllabus may not be exhaustive and may be they are trying to take refuge into min requirements fulfilled. Things were no different for years. There are low calibre expats floating around as well, you would agree. There are many who were no good anywhere but landed up in india. That is not to say some are not good. Easy to pass judgement by lot of people sitting thousands of miles away. If you would recall most incidents including mumbai airport closure last year involved experienced expats..... they dont outnumber indians by the way.

[alienpilot]

tupolov154, you may be wishing and hoping for accidents to happen in india for your reading which you are eagely waiting for, i wish you do that in your grave.
Its amazing instead of voicing informed and mature opinion or gather information some people write as if sun shines through their a*^se.

[Gooneyone]

Tupolev 154 said (Post #35) "Meacham field was full of em. and they all were 2 and 3 time exam takers, 300 hours plus, eventually given tickets on the condition that they never fly in the US."

Am I the only one to find this the most frightening thing in the entire thread??

[Seagul1]

well said alienpilot. Age is a number as they say. No replacement for experience but in terms of hours or monsoons not in years. If good training and standards are maintained age will not matter. Ive seen some very good very young guys and some very experienced old guys, dum asses who dont know their front side from thier back side. For all those wishing and betting on an accident in india hope it happens closer to your home so u can c it rather than read about it. its a shame.......

[mini]

Guys, this is an old chestnut. The key word is judgement.

Years of experience, training etc are worthless if the attitude and aptitude of the recipient doesn't assimilate all this into sound judgement of a situation.

Some achieve this early in their careers, some later and some never. It needs individual assessment to determine.

Assuming it can come automatically is deeply flawed IMHO.

This applies to all leadership roles.

[Ignition Override]

Stator Vane:
We are the same age. My decision might be fairly obvious.
The point is simply to describe one of a large number of situations which are not always easy to evaluate by simply having young pilots memorize loads of data, 'flow patterns' etc and blindly follow book/SOPprocedures, especially on the last day of the trip.

Some gate agents only want to know "Are you ready to board?"
How many First Officers would quickly state-when already running late-that they are not comfortable with a given situation?

How many (very young) pilots would offload about 6,000 lbs of fuel (already on board-tankered for cost) before departing for an airport with only short runways?

[misd-agin]

Ignition Override
Over 1000 posts and I obviously don't want a Personal Title which I could get just by clicking here.

Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Down south, USA.
Posts: 1,475



Stator Vane:
We are the same age. My decision might be fairly obvious.
The point is simply to describe one of a large number of situations which are not always easy to evaluate by simply having young pilots memorize loads of data, 'flow patterns' etc and blindly follow procedures, especially on the last day of the trip.

Some gate agents only want to know "Are you ready to board?"
How many First Officers would quickly state-when already running late-that they are not comfortable with a given situation?

How many (very young) pilots would offload about 6,000 lbs of fuel (tankered for cost) before departing for an airport with only short runways?


How about telling us your command decision instead of trying to guess at it? Your decision might be obvious to you but it's not obvious to all the lurkers.

Did you go with only 2 generators (one engine, 1 APU) or decide that was too dangerous?

Is that configuration more dangerous than the two generator operation I dealt with today? My flight had 2 engine generators and no APU.

Which is more dangerous? Why?

Would you ever except two generator operations?

[Ignition Override]

Misd-again:
After twice asking the FO in private, for any concerns he might have (once I had to close the c0ckp1t door, so that our 'colorful' Lead FA 'fellow' from south Texas would leave us alone and not interject every 10 seconds...), we both agreed to cancel the flight.

We had asked the two inbound pilots if they would accept it. They had said "No" just before they went to the hotel. My FO felt that the APU might be less reliable than an engine generator. Even with an inop APU generator, I would always cancel the flight with similar destination weather which was forecast to remain around the airport. Our contract allows us to cancel for inop autopilot, APU, or an engine generator, even manual pressur. with no special explanations.

With the huge level of outsourced maintenance, many of us are not so confident in less-than-normal system redundancies. And two line mechanics told us that they were ordered to do fewer line checks than necessary. Something wrong might be found. One was called by one of his company VPs.

[stagn8]

Not all passengers are stupid either

If an airline chooses to hire and fly young inexperienced crews then it doesn't take long for the pax who travel a lot to figure out what is going on. (They are the bored looking ones who know more than the cabin crew about what is really going on).

Pax select airlines often on the basis of being more likely to walk or drive home. I know I do. A good airline has well trained crews, with reliable captians and decently maintained aircraft. You pay more for this, and willingly, after all it is your life. So crew ability (and good maintenance) should be a competitive differentiator. Bring forth the airline that publishes the experience of its commanders along with the age of its aircraft !!

I also agree with the poster who pointed out military pilots have different objectives than civil ones !!

[GlueBall]

misd-agin

"...Did you go with only 2 generators (one engine, 1 APU) or decide that was too dangerous?
"Is that configuration more dangerous than the two generator operation I dealt with today? My flight had 2 engine generators and no APU.
"Which is more dangerous? Why?
"Would you ever accept two generator operations?. . ."

As a 74 captain at my company these matters would be governed by what's known as a "MEL" or "CDL" [minimum equipment list/configuration deviation list] . . . approved operating protocol that would not be according to the whims of crewmembers' individual or collective feelings. MEL, CDL, SOPs would not be effective if crews were allowed to individualize procedures.

[320capt.]

I would agree with that.. the MEL.. CDL..SOP are the governing documents.. if there is a problem with going while you have 2 out of 3 generators then why go with say
one pack inop.. or one bleed inop.. Then we could all do things as we felt..

My copmany too has the the same procedures.. very rarely in some very exceptional circumstances would one consider over riding them. please do not bring up age..

In any case if the maintainence is shoddy why are you in this company anyway. Specially if the company is telling its maintainence personel to do infrequent checks. I would fear for my own life.. Is this what age teaches you?

[Bigmouth]

Sounds like a lot of young, low time captains weighing in with their opinions here and being mighty defensive about the issue.
But if we all agree that age and ability are unrelated, then let's get rid of the seniority system in a hurry and compete amongst ourselves for the jobs and salaries that are out there. Just like everybody else.
I'm all for a level playing field and being judged by my performance.

[GlueBall]

Bigmouth . . .

". . .But if we all agree that age and ability are unrelated, then let's get rid of the seniority system in a hurry and compete amongst ourselves for the jobs and salaries that are out there."

Seniority [date of hire] is based on length of service and has nothing to do with age and ability. In fact, many airlines have very senior "permanent F/Os" who could not qualify for the left seat. But these F/Os are still "senior" to junior F/Os.
It's not a matter of competing for jobs, it's about a privilege of bidding for base assignments, for vacation and for rostering.

[320capt.]

Why are you again mixing things up. Seniority has nothing to do again with age. Its when you joined a company at whatever age 19 or59.

In any case if you wanna discuss the seniority issue please go to the correct thread there is a fairly long discussion on it. This is discussing another article

[groundbum]

experience DOES matter

I think you're all pulling examples of young captains out the air, and I'm sure there are lots of examples of these kind of people, but I also bet they are the exception and not the rule.

Lets face it you don't get to, say, 500 hours, and then plateau in terms of knowledge and skill. So more is better, at least until say 50 or so when you get jaded. As a passenger I would feel *much* safer knowing that the captain and FO are both very very experienced, with as many hours as possible.

Why? Because that way they have made tiny mistakes and booboos over the past 10 years or whatever. But luckily all the odd and weird tiny gotchas that can happen once 1000 hours have been seen before, and hopefully caught by the trainee FO and his/her experienced captain before they escalate to something major.

Whereas put two junior people on the flight deck and I am sure tiny things that don't happen very often will overwhelm the two inexperienced people and things will sprial nastily. Far Far better to make the mistakes as an FO, let the captain watch you dig yourself into an ever deeper hole, and then rescuse you when he's convinced you've scared yourself silly. That's sometimes the only way to learn. And it does take time and repetition.

(and no, I'm not a pilot, but have mentored and managed enough people to enjoy watching new people stuff it up totally, and then explain nicely a few things they could try differently next time).

[Helen49]

Groundbum.......what eminent sense. I totally agree. No doubt subsequent posts will endeavour to refute your experience!
H49

[8846]

Seniority..

Yes..that's a good point, basing, holidays e.t.c. should be based on date of joining - it's the only fair way really.

But command positions.... well we have a few things to consider here...

Commanding an Airbus/Boeing - whatever, is a learned skill.

People learn at different rates. A bright young thing who has been through RAF/BA selection will have demonstrated the ability to learn quickly - that's all. That's what the tests are about.

What several people are eluding to is wisdom:

'..experience and knowledge together with the power of applying them.'

Oxford English Dictionary

Now.. That's the quality that we're after.

How are you going to measure that?

Is age nothing more than a good starting point?

Has it got very little to do with it?

Any ideas?

[Ashling]

Every reputable airline will have a minimum experience level to be met prior to being considered for command. Hours, time on the line. A-lot of airlines overlay this with a seniority system which, in general, means that by the time your number comes up you have the minimum experience and often a great deal more. These seniority systems have therefore often prevented some very capable young operators gaining a command as early as they otherwise would of. With the advent of LOCO's all that is changing as in general they do not have a seniority system. So suddenly we are getting younger commanders. I'm not having a go at seniority systems, its just a fairly obvious observation.

The key here is minimum experience to be considered for command. You still have to pass a command selection and then training. That ought to look after the various variables mentioned here if the training department are doing their jobs properly. Unless, of course, you do not trust the training departments. Maybe in certain countries there is an issue but in the UK I feel the airlines get it right.

Surly the correct response is to applaud someones success whether they are 25 or 55 and to encourage those with the ability to push on and succeed. That success has been hard earned. Some of you sound like grumpy old men.

I do however totaly agree that we need to select and train the right people and if that is not happening in India or elsewhere it is a cause for great concern but it is not age that is the key factor.

As an aside you can train non tech skills effectively.

[Visual Calls]

Everyone's getting hung up on the age issue. The frightening thing is surely 1500hrs TT to get a command, as the Indians have apparently mooted. That rather more serious issue seems to be ignored.
If you're good enough, with good experience, who cares what age?
However, 1500hrs TT is just ridiculous.

[8846]

Ashling/Visual Calls

Perfectly put both.

A far more eloquent couple of posts than I was able to manage....

As another aside - Ashling - what do you mean by what you said about non-technical skills being taught effectively?