Worldwide pilot experience too low?
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Flown with a few MPLs on the A320 and found them fine, no issues at all. Flew with a few graduates of P2F outfits in Eastern Europe and Indonesia, I frankly wouldn't leave the cockpit and I made sure to use the lav during the turnaround to ensure this is how it would be.
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While all the above are good points, commercial aviation continues to be safer than just about any form of transportation. The cynic in me says there is an "acceptable" hull loss rate, and as long as fatalities remain below a certain level there will not be much motivation to make any changes that will cost a lot of money in terms of pilot hiring or training.
The chicken finally comes home to roost.
Flown with a few MPLs on the A320 and found them fine, no issues at all. Flew with a few graduates of P2F outfits in Eastern Europe and Indonesia, I frankly wouldn't leave the cockpit and I made sure to use the lav during the turnaround to ensure this is how it would be.
Join Date: Nov 2015
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My concern is that new pilots are not being taught airmanship, and as a consequence do not acquire a feel for or an understanding of the delicate balancing act which is flying. Perhaps memory of the Asiana 214 crash at SFO in 2013 is too prominent in the remnants of my brain. Oh, and then there is Colgan Air/Continental Connection 3407 and ...
Plastic PPRuNer
In surgery, as in flying, it is possible to train people to do two or three things very well indeed. With pressures towards ever increasing specialisation they may never do anything else, and have a CMG and a vast reputation at the end of their career.
Naturally, it is possible to train them to do these two or three things quite quickly. New Consultants now have about the same age and experience as the newly appointed Senior Registrar of old. The demand for perfect results has led to early superspecialisation (read automation if you will).
The difference is that previously, Senior Registrars would have five or more years experience before getting a Consultant appointment. When a young Consultant today meets an unexpected situation s/he is far less likely to be able to deal with it adequately than the Consultants of old.
Naturally, it is possible to train them to do these two or three things quite quickly. New Consultants now have about the same age and experience as the newly appointed Senior Registrar of old. The demand for perfect results has led to early superspecialisation (read automation if you will).
The difference is that previously, Senior Registrars would have five or more years experience before getting a Consultant appointment. When a young Consultant today meets an unexpected situation s/he is far less likely to be able to deal with it adequately than the Consultants of old.
Join Date: Feb 2000
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Of all the clap trap that’s been written on this site, this is by far and away the most outrageous bit of literary faeces I’ve ever seen. To claim that those coming through the ranks now are “taking advantage”, that they “want something for free and without any effort” is so disingenuous it shouldn’t really warrant a reply.
Those coming through the ranks now are going about it the only way they see possible, and paying a great deal for it. They are a product of corporate greed from the generation that went before them - those that claim to be the last remaining sky gods. Coinc
I don't wonder if the present crop of wannabees is a little arrogant and spoiled; I would be!
How would you like to be sitting in the back when he does his first command flight, with a FO who is a product of the current training system and has never flown an airplane with passengers in it before?
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Anyone who can breathe and has 1500 hours on anything (or 700 hours on a helicopter if he is Army trained) is guaranteed a job immediately without even having to apply
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It's not like they take a new hire, give him his ATP, MEL, and type rating and make him a Captain and send him out with an FO that hasn't flown with a CKA for their first 30-100 hrs.
In the U.S., as long as it's not a new fleet type, one of the pilots has to have 100 hrs in type.
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An effective pilot needs training, understanding, knowledge, skill and experience. Some of these factors (if above average) can make up for deficiencies in the others but mostly I would say skill and experience are the most important and those are the ones a new pilot cannot get from reading a book or listening to a briefing or watching videos on Utube. We are losing, through attrition, the ones that do have the right stuff and replacing them with those who have only a superficial understanding of what the job requires. I don't have to be Nostradamus to predict the results.
Psychophysiological entity
Fear. Have we had a post about fear?
I based the opening chapter of my novel on an experience I had as a Viscount FO. I did not know it was possible to experience that much fear, especially for nearly two hours. No weather radar and FL170 or 180 most of the early IT's to Spain. Lots of learning to be had, and mostly okay, but just one night for me was beyond belief. Horizon bar off the scenes time and again, and below MSL over the mountains, then to be thrown out the tops to the stars only to fall back into the maelstrom. 45mins on one 20 min leg. Blood and sick down the cabin ceiling where the poor souls had unstrapped to kneel and pray.
The return flight turned out to have a very funny end, despite a 4" hole through the wing. The skipper had just struck his Zippo when the bang happened. His face, lit by the little flame, was a picture I'll never forget.
I had to give myself a serious talking to to carry on. All that work, can't give that up now! Had to master the fear and channel it into concentration when things got tacky. Really, it's not fair expecting these 'Children' to be put in the position of a captain incapacitation without some awareness of what it might be like to get a real thrashing one 'dark and stormy'. They need at least an awareness.
I based the opening chapter of my novel on an experience I had as a Viscount FO. I did not know it was possible to experience that much fear, especially for nearly two hours. No weather radar and FL170 or 180 most of the early IT's to Spain. Lots of learning to be had, and mostly okay, but just one night for me was beyond belief. Horizon bar off the scenes time and again, and below MSL over the mountains, then to be thrown out the tops to the stars only to fall back into the maelstrom. 45mins on one 20 min leg. Blood and sick down the cabin ceiling where the poor souls had unstrapped to kneel and pray.
The return flight turned out to have a very funny end, despite a 4" hole through the wing. The skipper had just struck his Zippo when the bang happened. His face, lit by the little flame, was a picture I'll never forget.
I had to give myself a serious talking to to carry on. All that work, can't give that up now! Had to master the fear and channel it into concentration when things got tacky. Really, it's not fair expecting these 'Children' to be put in the position of a captain incapacitation without some awareness of what it might be like to get a real thrashing one 'dark and stormy'. They need at least an awareness.
Really, it's not fair expecting these 'Children' to be put in the position of a captain incapacitation without some awareness of what it might be like to get a real thrashing one 'dark and stormy'. They need at least an awareness.
Five minutes in the simulator of hand flying in a selection of moderate to severe turbulence is all that is needed for cadet pilots to learn the instrument flying skill needed to cope with severe turbulence. Motion sickness is likely so common sense and care needs to be applied by the instructor not to overdo it.
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There's no substitute for experience. I did several years instructing on singles and light twins VFR and IFR, aerobatics instructing and aerial photography.
Aside from handling skills it gives you captaincy skills from day one. You have no one else to help you or rely on except yourself when a difficult situation crops up or a go/no go decision has to be made. Also you often don't have the system redundancy as in pax jets with GA aircraft often being quite old so comms failures, flaps locked, engine problems and other types of situations happened from time to time. Sometimes coupled with poor weather.
So to say 1500 hours instructing in the circuit is useless is a bit naive really.
When I moved into the airlines and it came up in conversation with Captains they always said that they saw something was lacking from the guys coming directly from flight school in comparison.
Aside from handling skills it gives you captaincy skills from day one. You have no one else to help you or rely on except yourself when a difficult situation crops up or a go/no go decision has to be made. Also you often don't have the system redundancy as in pax jets with GA aircraft often being quite old so comms failures, flaps locked, engine problems and other types of situations happened from time to time. Sometimes coupled with poor weather.
So to say 1500 hours instructing in the circuit is useless is a bit naive really.
When I moved into the airlines and it came up in conversation with Captains they always said that they saw something was lacking from the guys coming directly from flight school in comparison.