Why do we not require 1500 hours for a RHS job ?
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On an ideal day?
The 200hr cadet -> 5 year captain archetype has ALREADY flown untold hundreds of thousands of sectors across the years with their fair share of engine failures, smoke/fire events, hydraulic failures, airport closures with minimum fuel and horrible weather, unreliable speed events.. etc etc.
Stop acting like they are yet to be tested. They have been, over and over, and they perform admirably.
The 200hr cadet -> 5 year captain archetype has ALREADY flown untold hundreds of thousands of sectors across the years with their fair share of engine failures, smoke/fire events, hydraulic failures, airport closures with minimum fuel and horrible weather, unreliable speed events.. etc etc.
Stop acting like they are yet to be tested. They have been, over and over, and they perform admirably.
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5 year captain archetype has ALREADY flown untold hundreds of thousands of sectors across the years with their fair share of engine failures, smoke/fire events, hydraulic failures, airport closures with minimum fuel and horrible weather, unreliable speed events.. etc etc.
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I presume you're using a literal interpretation to make a joke 
, but just in case you aren't (or other people don't get it) I am of course talking about all ex-cadet Captains, hence the word archetype.
, but just in case you aren't (or other people don't get it) I am of course talking about all ex-cadet Captains, hence the word archetype.
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Blantoon, a couple of serious serious questions, noting your angle on several threads
Can you not see any negative points to employing a disproportionate percentage of debted new hires?
Thinking with a bigger picture in mind (as a pose to from inside a me-me-me bubble) do you think employing a disproportionate percentage of debted new hires adversely affects terms/conditions for all, potentially industry wide whilst also creating a two tier industry that penalises experience?
All things considered, is it healthy for anybody - other than management and the shareholders of the "large fto" - to have so many debted new hires gushing into the bottom of the career pyramid when there are both experienced guys available, and guys with more experience/substantially less debt from differing training backgrounds that actually tend to perform no differently on type and line training?
Can you not see any negative points to employing a disproportionate percentage of debted new hires?
Thinking with a bigger picture in mind (as a pose to from inside a me-me-me bubble) do you think employing a disproportionate percentage of debted new hires adversely affects terms/conditions for all, potentially industry wide whilst also creating a two tier industry that penalises experience?
All things considered, is it healthy for anybody - other than management and the shareholders of the "large fto" - to have so many debted new hires gushing into the bottom of the career pyramid when there are both experienced guys available, and guys with more experience/substantially less debt from differing training backgrounds that actually tend to perform no differently on type and line training?
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Three Lions, I'm refuting a completely unjustified point made about safety. I didn't mention anything about T&Cs, in this thread nor, as far as I recall, others.
As for your "me-me-me bubble" comment. I'm going to assume that was a unfortunately chosen turn of phrase, and you weren't implying anything.
As for your "me-me-me bubble" comment. I'm going to assume that was a unfortunately chosen turn of phrase, and you weren't implying anything.
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Quite hontestly, he hasn't. There might be something about low hour, low paid or even pay to fly cadets, forced to work as fake contractors that doesn't sit right. And yes, it does put pressure on conditions elsewhere. But they are not the only ones to blame, there is a much larger portion to those pilots already in the company when it all started watching it happen without doing anything.
And then there are those companies that have always taken in cadets as their main source of new pilots and have some of the best conditions out there, the likes of lufthansa, KLM and so on, and even some second tier airlines that have in fact increased their conditions considerably despite taking in only or mainly low hour pilots or even running their own cadet program, despite those new pilots being in debt.
There is no correlation between experience and conditions. There is not even a correlation between experience and safety. However there is a very strong correlation between selection, training environment and both conditions and safety.
And then there are those companies that have always taken in cadets as their main source of new pilots and have some of the best conditions out there, the likes of lufthansa, KLM and so on, and even some second tier airlines that have in fact increased their conditions considerably despite taking in only or mainly low hour pilots or even running their own cadet program, despite those new pilots being in debt.
There is no correlation between experience and conditions. There is not even a correlation between experience and safety. However there is a very strong correlation between selection, training environment and both conditions and safety.
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There is alot of Pay to Fly bashing going on in this forum and many are very hard with your comments regards to "paying for experience" but forcing pilots to complete 1500 hrs on their own before they land their first job is not a problem? Flying in Europe is significantly more expensive than in the USA and with rates from 120 to 150 EUR an hour for a C172 it is impossible to gain hours that way.
Instructing or dropping Skydivers - fine, if you can get such a job!
Apart from that I don't see any good reason why fresh cadets cannot be trained properly and be in the right seat of an Airliner with around 250 hrs.
Many respected Airlines in Europe like Lufthansa, Air Berlin, KLM, Condor, Luxair, Austrian, Swiss, etc do it that way for ages so why not.
Instructing or dropping Skydivers - fine, if you can get such a job!
Apart from that I don't see any good reason why fresh cadets cannot be trained properly and be in the right seat of an Airliner with around 250 hrs.
Many respected Airlines in Europe like Lufthansa, Air Berlin, KLM, Condor, Luxair, Austrian, Swiss, etc do it that way for ages so why not.
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Not only that. Carriers may still ask for hours on type despite the 1500 hour rule if it were to be introduced. And there we go again, prerequisites would be to have at least 1500 TT to get on the RHS of an airliner in a P2F scheme.
The system in Europe is broken. I am lucky enough to be in the process to obtain the right to live and work in Canada and I hope everything will be fine. I think I will forget about Europe for quite a while in the upcoming years...
It's all about ethics and respect for your job. In North America pilots prevented all this from happening to such a large scale as it has happened here in Europe. Low hour pilots really have no other alternatives to make it in the airline industry in Europe because hours on type seems to be the key to at least be called for a selection and interview.
The system in Europe is broken. I am lucky enough to be in the process to obtain the right to live and work in Canada and I hope everything will be fine. I think I will forget about Europe for quite a while in the upcoming years...
It's all about ethics and respect for your job. In North America pilots prevented all this from happening to such a large scale as it has happened here in Europe. Low hour pilots really have no other alternatives to make it in the airline industry in Europe because hours on type seems to be the key to at least be called for a selection and interview.
Last edited by RedBullGaveMeWings; 5th Nov 2014 at 00:13.
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Red bull
"It's all about ethics and respect for your job. In North America pilots prevented all this from happening to such a large scale as it has happened here in Europe."
Are you joking? Have you seen the conditions at regional operators in the US?
All of this admiration of the 1500 rule is pure hot air. It's done nothing but kicked the can down the road. The competence level is the same, the compensation, if anything, is worse than before, and the the calibre of regional pilot remains the same.
UPS, SWA & US all lost hulls last year. Mercifully only 2 fatalities amongst them. These were pure competence issues, completely mismanaged by some of the most experienced flight crews around.
It's all about training.
Are you joking? Have you seen the conditions at regional operators in the US?
All of this admiration of the 1500 rule is pure hot air. It's done nothing but kicked the can down the road. The competence level is the same, the compensation, if anything, is worse than before, and the the calibre of regional pilot remains the same.
UPS, SWA & US all lost hulls last year. Mercifully only 2 fatalities amongst them. These were pure competence issues, completely mismanaged by some of the most experienced flight crews around.
It's all about training.
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And they magically happen to build hours up twice as fast as us (Dual P1 in a spamcan). When I went over in 2007 for a spot of hour building, I couldn't believe it when a local guy asked if he could join me, share the costs so we could both log P1.
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Superpilot,
In our FAR's it is perfectly legal to do so (I think its under 61.51 from what I remember); as long as that pilot was acting as safety pilot and you had a view limiting device on during that time. Most log only a few hours that way (50 -100); but that is still hundreds of hours away from the hour requirement for an ATP. The way the majority of us civilian guys met the requirements for an ATP was via the old fashioned way - instructing.
In our FAR's it is perfectly legal to do so (I think its under 61.51 from what I remember); as long as that pilot was acting as safety pilot and you had a view limiting device on during that time. Most log only a few hours that way (50 -100); but that is still hundreds of hours away from the hour requirement for an ATP. The way the majority of us civilian guys met the requirements for an ATP was via the old fashioned way - instructing.
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1500 hours being useful at making you a better pilot is highly questionable in my opinion. Flying GA for 1500 hours might, just might make make you a better GA pilot but could make you worse and you'd be no better at airline ops for it I'd argue. It's not like you have 6 monthly sim checks and line checks in GA. 1500 hours regional TP flying is a different pot of tea, as that's handling practice on a large complex aircraft, exposure to emergencies, descision making and SOPs all in 1500 hours compared to flying to Northern France VFR for a sandwich in a light aircraft.
I think where hours is only useful is keeping a pecking order that assists progression. A better way was the old way, basic CPL/IR for short haul, build up some hours and jet time to allow you to apply for anything long haul. Not for any safety reason, just keeps the flow. It's stopped now though.
I think where hours is only useful is keeping a pecking order that assists progression. A better way was the old way, basic CPL/IR for short haul, build up some hours and jet time to allow you to apply for anything long haul. Not for any safety reason, just keeps the flow. It's stopped now though.
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I think where hours is only useful is keeping a pecking order that assists progression. A better way was the old way, basic CPL/IR for short haul, build up some hours and jet time to allow you to apply for anything long haul. Not for any safety reason, just keeps the flow. It's stopped now though.
Not sure I follow completely your train of thought. Some moons ago I was kicking a B767, or was it a B757, around the Greek islands. IFR but very VMC and do your own thing type of flying. In the days when guests were allowed I had a B747 TRE from a fellow company on the jump seat. (He had to go on holiday some where and was slumming it with us.) He really enjoyed watching the operation and all that it involved and entailed. I was doing 30 sectors a month with one end such places and home base a multi rwy ILS'd nest. He was doing 8 sectors a month all into ILS nests. He was also a senior honcho in the national union. The union still had the dinosaurian idea that bigger meant more dosh. As a TRE my salary was 1/2 his. Who earned the crust more? He also admitted that B747 was a doddle to fly. There was a station manager at both ends to make all the commercial decisions. All he to do was get it off the ground and back on again. He thought our days were more fun. I asked him to discuss the merits of the union philosophy about salaries. Stunned silence.
Back to the thread. I don't agree you need more experience to be F/O on long-haul. I suggest that the multi-sector short-haul environment has PM working far harder, and might more often need an authoritative advocacy input than the minimum long-haul drone on & drone on type of 3 crew flying.
The thing is: 1500hrs for a RHS jet job is not a solution to cure the problem. It's the quality of the flying you did before you climb aboard your first airliner. These days are gone, but I was so lucky to end up in a B732 via 5 years of single engine GA flying, Biz-jet, Biz-twin prop, single crew twin prop air taxi, crop spraying: Only then did I sprout epaulets. and I felt very green, but hell I learnt fast.
As someone has said before, the new world is irreversible; true, but purely 1500hrs ain't the answer to all the woe's. It depends on the quality of those 1500hrs. If there has been quality training; and there in lies the rub/debate, 250hrs of focused training can be enough with the right person. 1500hrs with the wrong person still doesn't cut it.
Not sure I follow completely your train of thought. Some moons ago I was kicking a B767, or was it a B757, around the Greek islands. IFR but very VMC and do your own thing type of flying. In the days when guests were allowed I had a B747 TRE from a fellow company on the jump seat. (He had to go on holiday some where and was slumming it with us.) He really enjoyed watching the operation and all that it involved and entailed. I was doing 30 sectors a month with one end such places and home base a multi rwy ILS'd nest. He was doing 8 sectors a month all into ILS nests. He was also a senior honcho in the national union. The union still had the dinosaurian idea that bigger meant more dosh. As a TRE my salary was 1/2 his. Who earned the crust more? He also admitted that B747 was a doddle to fly. There was a station manager at both ends to make all the commercial decisions. All he to do was get it off the ground and back on again. He thought our days were more fun. I asked him to discuss the merits of the union philosophy about salaries. Stunned silence.
Back to the thread. I don't agree you need more experience to be F/O on long-haul. I suggest that the multi-sector short-haul environment has PM working far harder, and might more often need an authoritative advocacy input than the minimum long-haul drone on & drone on type of 3 crew flying.
The thing is: 1500hrs for a RHS jet job is not a solution to cure the problem. It's the quality of the flying you did before you climb aboard your first airliner. These days are gone, but I was so lucky to end up in a B732 via 5 years of single engine GA flying, Biz-jet, Biz-twin prop, single crew twin prop air taxi, crop spraying: Only then did I sprout epaulets. and I felt very green, but hell I learnt fast.
As someone has said before, the new world is irreversible; true, but purely 1500hrs ain't the answer to all the woe's. It depends on the quality of those 1500hrs. If there has been quality training; and there in lies the rub/debate, 250hrs of focused training can be enough with the right person. 1500hrs with the wrong person still doesn't cut it.
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I was exceptionally lucky. I was sponsored through the CAP509 programme in the early 1980's, arrived with shiny frozen ATPL at base training and after three weeks ground school and a very stiff exam found myself in the RHS of a twin jet sim with a highly experienced P1 converting to type in the LHS.
The highly experienced P1 and the rest of the training team cajoled, caressed and kicked me through the training, then followed circuits at Prestwick, stamp on license before line training.
I had a PPL before starting so was in the RHS of an Airbus with 402 hours TT. I did 20 sectors with a safety pilot on the jump seat, another thirty with a line trainer and then was signed off with the caveat "no auto-lands until trained at first VBC/IBC." 200 hundred hours later I landed the beast alone after the P1 was knocked out by a silly accident down the back.
15 000 hours later I know now what I didn't know then, and I'm still learning fast, and all of my colleagues from the CAP509 course are all senior captains somewhere.
I've looked at the current integrated courses, and while the graduates seem very young they are steeped from day one in the SOP's of the company they are being trained by. They arrive at the base training stage thoroughly knowledgeable about how their company works, then it is a question of learning to fly the aircraft properly, and that skill applies to newcomers and to highly experienced pilots.
Talking recently with the head of training at a large European LoCo I asked about the MPL, and was surprised at the good results his company has achieved with it. And in that case the flying is less than 100 hours with a huge concentration on simulators.
A couple of hundred hours to the RHS of a 200 seat jet may not seem much, but in my view it depends on how that 200 hours is used and how the culture of airmanship is taught as well as how the new pilot is put through his base and line training and up-grades that follow. Where I currently work we require 1 500 hours for a P2 and I'm not sure that is necessarily the best way to go, I'd rather recruit off an assessment of abilities, but then the insurance premiums would go up a long way.
The highly experienced P1 and the rest of the training team cajoled, caressed and kicked me through the training, then followed circuits at Prestwick, stamp on license before line training.
I had a PPL before starting so was in the RHS of an Airbus with 402 hours TT. I did 20 sectors with a safety pilot on the jump seat, another thirty with a line trainer and then was signed off with the caveat "no auto-lands until trained at first VBC/IBC." 200 hundred hours later I landed the beast alone after the P1 was knocked out by a silly accident down the back.
15 000 hours later I know now what I didn't know then, and I'm still learning fast, and all of my colleagues from the CAP509 course are all senior captains somewhere.
I've looked at the current integrated courses, and while the graduates seem very young they are steeped from day one in the SOP's of the company they are being trained by. They arrive at the base training stage thoroughly knowledgeable about how their company works, then it is a question of learning to fly the aircraft properly, and that skill applies to newcomers and to highly experienced pilots.
Talking recently with the head of training at a large European LoCo I asked about the MPL, and was surprised at the good results his company has achieved with it. And in that case the flying is less than 100 hours with a huge concentration on simulators.
A couple of hundred hours to the RHS of a 200 seat jet may not seem much, but in my view it depends on how that 200 hours is used and how the culture of airmanship is taught as well as how the new pilot is put through his base and line training and up-grades that follow. Where I currently work we require 1 500 hours for a P2 and I'm not sure that is necessarily the best way to go, I'd rather recruit off an assessment of abilities, but then the insurance premiums would go up a long way.
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Because we can't see the woods for the trees
Experience is not about how many hours you attended classes or how long you spent on the john.
Time is just a marker - as in a musical composition. Without time there is no history or future.
Leaving the Military trainees (who actually have more like 300 to 400 hours flight time over a couple of years before they reach the front line but can cope solo in close formation, I/F, deal with realistic simulated emergencies in real aeroplanes, in real time (no pausing SIMs), in less flying hours than the MPL), Lufthansa and maybe pre 2012 BA cadets out of this, the current civilian low hours to RHS of a jet Airliner route is not the answer to the huge drop (according to both Boeing and Airbus) in piloting skills and the corresponding rise over the past 14 years in LOCI events.
First off the biggest issue with civilian training is the student is the paying customer and is milked for as much $$$ as the FTO can justifiably extract. As such, less than ideal candidates will pass to minimum EASA standards under idealised conditions. Put more emphasis on SIM time and less real flying makes this even more controllable. Insisting on SOPs alone does not build airmanship or resilience to unusual/ real flying events.
The students comment " but it doesn't fly like the simulator!"
GA and the Airlines and indeed the Military could do more to learn from each other instead of working in isolation.
GA could do with more pilot mentoring and take what is good from Airline SOPs and Military emergency handling techniques to improve flight safety. It would then be a more consistent breeding ground for new aviators and provide opportunities for apprenticeship like schemes such as gliding, instructing, Biz Av etc....
Sadly some Airlines in the EU have slashed their in house training depts, sub-let their staff training to 3rd party FTOs and their hiring to non aviation minded HR companies. Now "self employed"/3rd party Flexi / temporary contract labour is more commonplace.
Such 6 monthly placements are no place for continuity of learning. Replacing staff frequently reduces worker commitment and quality.
Training alone is not going to fix this problem. Practice still makes perfect whether an ice skater or pianist. But where are the opportunities for practice? Even if not self funded, where did Bonin get his high altitude handling skills? 10,000h on automation in an A320/330?
How many of Captain Lee Kang Guk's 9,793 hours of flying experience were actively engaged in directing and understanding the flight path and energy state of a B777? Especially when the average flight time would have been around 5 hours per sortie?
Compare that to an Alaskan Q400 or Susi Air pilot who is working their way up a very long 1500h ladder.
Pyramid schemes fail for a reason and it's the inversion of the Egyptian builders structure to put more on top of less. The traditionally built Pyramids (deeper and broader foundations) tend to last a fair bit lot longer!
Time is just a marker - as in a musical composition. Without time there is no history or future.
Leaving the Military trainees (who actually have more like 300 to 400 hours flight time over a couple of years before they reach the front line but can cope solo in close formation, I/F, deal with realistic simulated emergencies in real aeroplanes, in real time (no pausing SIMs), in less flying hours than the MPL), Lufthansa and maybe pre 2012 BA cadets out of this, the current civilian low hours to RHS of a jet Airliner route is not the answer to the huge drop (according to both Boeing and Airbus) in piloting skills and the corresponding rise over the past 14 years in LOCI events.
First off the biggest issue with civilian training is the student is the paying customer and is milked for as much $$$ as the FTO can justifiably extract. As such, less than ideal candidates will pass to minimum EASA standards under idealised conditions. Put more emphasis on SIM time and less real flying makes this even more controllable. Insisting on SOPs alone does not build airmanship or resilience to unusual/ real flying events.
The students comment " but it doesn't fly like the simulator!"
GA and the Airlines and indeed the Military could do more to learn from each other instead of working in isolation.
GA could do with more pilot mentoring and take what is good from Airline SOPs and Military emergency handling techniques to improve flight safety. It would then be a more consistent breeding ground for new aviators and provide opportunities for apprenticeship like schemes such as gliding, instructing, Biz Av etc....
Sadly some Airlines in the EU have slashed their in house training depts, sub-let their staff training to 3rd party FTOs and their hiring to non aviation minded HR companies. Now "self employed"/3rd party Flexi / temporary contract labour is more commonplace.
Such 6 monthly placements are no place for continuity of learning. Replacing staff frequently reduces worker commitment and quality.
Training alone is not going to fix this problem. Practice still makes perfect whether an ice skater or pianist. But where are the opportunities for practice? Even if not self funded, where did Bonin get his high altitude handling skills? 10,000h on automation in an A320/330?
How many of Captain Lee Kang Guk's 9,793 hours of flying experience were actively engaged in directing and understanding the flight path and energy state of a B777? Especially when the average flight time would have been around 5 hours per sortie?
Compare that to an Alaskan Q400 or Susi Air pilot who is working their way up a very long 1500h ladder.
Pyramid schemes fail for a reason and it's the inversion of the Egyptian builders structure to put more on top of less. The traditionally built Pyramids (deeper and broader foundations) tend to last a fair bit lot longer!
That been said the legacy European carriers have had a long history of success with in house cadet programs. However the key difference is that those legacy carriers ran their own cadet programs. Since the airline was paying the freight for all the training they culled all the less than exceptional cadets and so the product was of a uniformly high quality.
Now of course the airlines are sourcing all their new hires from third party airline puppy mills. Now money not ability is what matters, something that works for the bean counters but will inevitably end badly......