Have around 300 pilots left RYR lately?

[Narrow Runway]

Not at all. Carry on with your rants about what individuals must be like to fly with.

I take offence to the bracketing of captains being afraid of OFDM or too lazy for some reason. Don't tar "most captains" with that brush.

The facts are there has been a huge increase in the numbers of commercial aviators in the last 20 years.

Combine that bulge with lower experience levels for entry jobs, or command in many companies and you have the beginnings of the recipe. Add to it, a recruitment system based on ability to pay and not actual ability at all......

It's rather like the FMS: rubbish in gives you rubbish out.

It shouldn't be about whipping people into shape. They should already be the right shape to begin with. Right back to initial training and selection, standards have dropped significantly.

[McNulty]

We are not 'nervous control freak captains' as alu-shufler dares to say, but fed up flying into challenging ops with no experience on the right side. Cadets are released on line but far from capable and load up even on a sunny day.

I need a collegue, to support me, not a student, and now my job is on the line I indeed will not allow any more visuals, the Autopilot stays on until 500 ft and if have any doubt(and believe me, or just ask the cabin crew, the number of 'impacts' instead of landings are on the rise) i do the landing.

No visuals? Autopilot to 500 feet?....sorry but you do sound like a nervous control freak. I let my FO's fly the aircraft, and even when they start making mistakes I try to let it go as long as possible in the hope they'll see the mistake themselves and make the appropriate corrections. This way they can learn from their mistakes....alot more so than if they have some over-bearing stressed out control freak in the left seat using them as voice operated auto pilots.

The best thing about becoming a captain was no longer having to fly with totalitarian despots in the left seat anymore.

[speed_alive_rotate]

I just pray when I commence my commercial flying that I am sitting next to McNulty, and others of the same opinion. The examples McNulty gives of letting FOs try to find their own mistakes etc. and generally helping them progress as a better pilot is surely the way to go. In all industries, do you guys expect new graduates to just walk in the first day and know everything inside out!! Just my opinion.

[space pig]

As is often the case, posts are easily misread

I started my previous post by stating that letting the Fo learn by doing and making mistakes is a good thing, however,

Times have changed.


Now i have been relying on my sound judgement for more then 3 decades in aviation and will not continue an approach if i even remotely consider it to be unsafe.
My point is that we are forced to focus all our attention on one point only, the 500 ft gate, that split second, where all has to be just right, instead of relying on the big picture and deciding it is safe to continue.

Even worse, if it is off by even a knot, i will be demoted,or sacked.

For most of my 2 decades as captain and instructor i have let my collegues'mess around' like i have been allowed during my time as a Fo.

But i was not under the threat of loosing my job.

So the AP stays on till 500 ft and no visuals, because i refuse to take the brunt for the huge influx of cadets that are learning to fly on the line on the expense of myself and the fare paying passengers.

Same reason that i have to write 'just my humble opinion' under every post....

So the above was just my humble opinion...

[Mr Angry from Purley]

Interesting article in the Mail On Sunday with MOL and his "softening" of attitude towards SLF. Not one mention of his appreciation of his Staff.

[Aluminium shuffler]

Tonka, you show signs of the same attitude as the more benevolent and helpful captains who have commented here. It would be reckless to allow FOs completely "off-leash" - the captain is always responsible and no-one is suggesting we don't supervise them and help out when they reach their personal boundaries, except Narrow anyway. As a new captain, your limits and your confidence have yet to reach their potential, and you are still learning the skill of assessing your FOs' limits and predicting their errors, so are wise to be a little more restrictive with them than the experienced captains, but you still see the benefits of letting them handle progessively harder situations with less and less guidance to help them develop their command skills. Good for you.

Line training of cadets is just to a minimum standard that they should be of help, not a liability. It's like getting your driving licence - it's a licence to learn. The only place that FOs gain useful experience is on the line; simulator exercises are great for learning basic profiles and some stick and rudder basics, but they are far too limited to teach airmanship or handling skills in bad weather. They can only learn that on the line, and only with captains willing to help them in that learning. I learnt far more from line shags than trainers, and I endeavour to pass on as much of that knowledge, acquired over generations, as I can. I would hope to see all captains do so, but sadly this is not the case, as demonstrated here.

[Narrow Runway]

Aluminium Shuffler,

I have no idea where you think you are going with your petty sniping.

Do you feel inadequate somehow?

I don't live in fear of OFDM, or of an FO making an error. Experience teaches you that.

Let the trainers do the training, let the line run itself. Or, you can rewrite the book if you like.

[captplaystation]

Gentlemen,

The two immediately above me . . . . you both have a (very valid) point, and I totally understand the need to "cover your @ss" BTW, when you are dealing with as managers (my Humble opinion M'Lud) , so , apologies Narrow for my previous.

At the end of the day, in the "good old days" we could all set our personal "comfort zone" based on the likelihood of being annihilated by some kid failing to fly the Bugger. Now however, dismissal is a more prevalent threat, so the learning/teaching is being screwed (along with pretty much every aspect of our profession) by edicts from those who know naff all about our profession.

[McNulty]

To keep claiming that it is "unsafe" to put cadets in an airliner, despite the evidence to the contrary, just makes you appear like a bitter idiot.

The statistics prove this to be correct. However, that has also been true of many events in various industries. Then one day the manure hits the air conditioning; the boss is away from the job = incapacitated, and the juniors, trained though they might be, have to carry on and sort it out. Things go from bad to worse and people start asking questions; such as "how could this happen, how could this be allowed to happen." etc. etc. To date this has not yet hit the front pages; oh wait. AF 447. And I am in no doubt that many other near miss are under the carpet. Luck should not be the guiding factor here. Proactive prevention is the name of our game. Oh wait. It costs money.

An interesting point, and to put it in perspective lets have a look at the actual hours of the AF 447 crew:

There were three pilots in the aircrew:

-The captain, 58-year-old Marc Dubois (PNF-Pilot Not Flying)[15] had joined Air France (that was still Air Inter) in February 1988 and had 10,988 flying hours, of which 6,258 as captain, including 1,700 hours on the Airbus A330; had carried out sixteen rotations in the South America sector since he arrived in the A330/A340 division in 2007.

-The first officer, co-pilot in left seat, 37-year-old David Robert (PNF-Pilot Not Flying) had joined Air France in July 1998 and had 6,547 flying hours, of which 4,479 hours on the Airbus A330; had carried out thirty-nine rotations in the South America sector since he arrived in the A330/A340 division in 2002.

-The first officer, co-pilot in right seat, 32-year-old Pierre-Cédric Bonin (PF-Pilot Flying) had joined Air France in October 2003 and had 2,936 flight hours, of which 807 hours on the Airbus A330; had carried out five rotations in the South America sector since arriving in the A330/A340 division in 2008.

So whilst the 11000 hour pilot was out of the cockpit, the 6500 & 3000 hour co-pilots assumed control of the aircraft. I believe a crew consisting of 6500 & 3000 hours would be considered highly experienced in some companies. I wonder how the headlines would go, if say the captain had 3000 hours and the co pilot had 300 hours....would make for very interesting reading indeed I would imagine.

[kungfu panda]

Mcnulty - of course you can use statistics to justify ultra low experience crews to operate jet aircraft. The levels of total crew experience which we are now looking at are untried. We now just hope that state of the art aircraft will protect these crews and passengers.

[McNulty]

I'm not using statistics to justify ultra low experience crews....quite the opposite in fact.

If there was ever an accident involving an ultra low experience crew, the media storm would be so intense that it would force the law makers to amend crew experience requirements over night. See the FAA raising the minimums for FO's to 1500 hours on the back of the Colgan air crash for reference.

[flash8]

I have flown with Captains with 20K TT and those with 3K TT and often the guys on the lower end are much more on the ball.

Equating TT/experience with ability is a recipe for disaster, when the " hits the fan" is the only time in our glass/radar cosseted environment the men are separated from the boys.

[kungfu panda]

You're trying to wind us up now aren't you Flash8.

It is well recognized isn't it that 25 year old drivers are so much safer and on the ball than 50 year old drivers.

[737 Jockey]

Captplaystation... On the money as always!

In my humble opinion of course!

[Narrow Runway]

CaptPlayStation

No need for apology, but gratefully accepted. Thank You.

We all have differing thoughts and methods of putting them across.

Personally, having flown charter, long haul scheduled, low cost european and VIP private ops I can honestly say that all have been different - with different pressures from managers and even owners.

I completely agree that all good captains would allow FO's to thrive and develop. This is, of course, limited by a number of factors - not least FO ability, captain ability and the confidence displayed by both of them.

I have never really understood the OFDM problem. Surely, by acting professionally and aiming to stay a step ahead of the game ensures that OFDM doesn't become an issue.

I always try and stay a little bit "grandpa" in my approaches. I don't have too many grey hairs yet either

[LNIDA]

TT or T on type boils down to experience, the problem is that for some 10 years is no more than 10 x 1 year !

What experience should teach us is the same thing (most of) us learnt as kids if it hurts don't do it again, of course there is limit to the trial and error approach of learning whilst flying.

I personally think route experience is far more relevant when dealing with the threats say from the non radar environment of the Greek Islands on a busy night with TS activity

[despegue]

Any Professional airline uses the FDM to monitor trends and to inform crews of a potential dangerous situation on one of their flights in order to train, inform and remedy, NOT TO PUNISH.( unless there is intentional endangering of the crew and aircraft by major breaches of SOP and aircraft limitations)

As a result, in any Professional Airline, no crew is afraid of the FDM, which is there to help discover potentially dangerous trends, not to kick you in the a$$.

Any airline that uses FDM to fine. Punish or fire is an airline that should not have an AOC in any developed country.

[Jetdriver]

Have around 300 pilots left RYR lately?

Back on track please. There are other threads dealing with crew experience issues involving all the same contributors.

[TypeIV]

Ryanair claims there is no shortage or no one leaving but how comes they are even considering DEFOs? and people are being rostered to fly 70 hours in June, during the first two weeks of the month... that is.

[Pablo_Diablo]

Jetdriver reckon it has to be more now considering the adīs lately, hear some fly max already more or less so they are really short.

Didnīt believe the ad also initially. Had to take off my yellow/ green Raybanīs and turn down the volume on Sean Paul on the stereo and have another look.

Still same thing. DEFO, DEC even non-rated, cadets, the whole nine yards.