FAA may reduce required flight time for commercial co-pilots.

[bafanguy]

Sailvi767,

My AFRES contact said this re their affinity for prior flying experience:

"…AFRES uses a complicated formula to pick pilot training applicants. You get the most points from your AFOQT scores and your BATS (computer based aptitude testing where you react to stimuli). He said having pilot certificates and flying time does factor in for points."

And another source said that they credit up to 200 hours prior time in their scoring to hire/not hire a candidate, IIUC.

What I didn't get was what percentage of applicants taken by the reserves/guard actually HAVE any prior time...200 or otherwise.

There are mixed opinions on whether all the 750 hours must be mil time to satisfy § 61.160 Aeronautical experience (and I don't know enough to have a valid opinion about it but "all" civ time counting toward 750 would be logical).

So, if the r-ATP for mil folks is actually lowered to 500 hours (a BIG "if" at this point), an unknown number of people will be helped into the 121 world but I'd guess the number won't turn any tides.

[Derfred]

CFI time is one of the most valuable things a person can have. You are flying an airplane through someone else who is inadvertently trying to crash it, while trying to make him better at flying than you are. If that isn't "Captain development / CRM practice" then I don't know what is! If you have 15 students, you probably have to figure out 15 different ways to explain the same material. You now know that material 15 times better than someone who has not done this. It "cements" the knowledge in you, as a wise pilot examiner once told me. It also teaches you how to deal with various types of personalities in the cockpit. It teaches you your limits, and when and how to take control of an airplane when someone exceeds them. It teaches you how to "guide" someone who is losing the SA plot to regain it before you HAVE to take control. It expands your "comfort zone" exponentially and teaches you how to be a "pilot monitoring". CRM.

You will learn to have the perfect balance of trust and mistrust by soloing students. You will learn that yes people CAN do it on their own when properly trained (by you) and vetted. This will make you better at not being a micromanaging jerk of a captain one day. It will also help you see QUICKLY when someone ISN'T ready for prime time, and teach you to be direct in putting the kibosh on such people when needed.

Being a instrument instructor teaches you to think 5 moves ahead of the airplane, instead of 2.

Twin instructing teaches you how not to freak out when an engine goes away. Because if you teach in piston twins long enough, eventually your student will feather one and won't be able to unfeather it. And you will make a real single engine approach and landing, through him.

Then one day you will train another instructor, and be utterly humbled by how little you really know compared to what the first 1000 hours of your CFI time led you to BELIEVE that you know. That will shock you into NEVER losing your thirst for knowledge. It will make you orders of magnitude more interested in the continuous pursuit of self-mastery within your own profession, while never giving yourself room to be arrogant. You will learn more from your students by teaching them, than they will learn by being taught. This will be a big deal in multi-crew operations. As a first officer you will be willing to flow with the rhythm of a captain you don't "mesh" with and try something new, rather than get bent out of shape and wasting a trip bleating a story in your own mind about being "told how to fly"; you will also learn as a captain to get out of the way and let your first officers do their jobs without micromanaging them.

Having spent time as as a pilot recruiter I can tell you that there is a BIG difference between an applicant to an airline who did the bare minimum CFI time they could, and someone who did a bunch of varied types of instructing and actually liked it. One got nothing out of it but time; they may have even let their CFI certificate lapse. The other learned true command leadership and CRM, cemented basic knowledge and airmanship into his psyche, and probably developed a cool head in unexpected situations.

If you do not respect CFI time I suggest that you go teach for a minimum of 2000 hours, as evenly distributed between PPL, IR, CPL, and multi-engine students as possible. Day, night, IMC, VMC, as many different students of all ages and backgrounds as possible. Teach a few instructors, too, once you've been doing it for a while. Then come back on here and tell me how worthless it is.

Best post I've read in a long time.

Being the best fighter pilot won't necessarily make you a good multi-crew airline pilot. The skill-set required for each role is quite different. There are some great ex-fighter pilots in my airline, but some real weirdos too.

[Cazalet33]

Who needs maturity and experience when you've got yoof and hair gel?

Aged just 26, the easyJet pilot is believed to be the youngest in the world to become a commercial airline captain.

On one recent flight, she and her co-pilot had a combined age of just 45.

The recently-promoted Miss McWilliams flew last week from Gatwick to Malta alongside Luke Elsworth, who earlier this year became the UK's youngest pilot at 19 years old.

26 year old Airbus skipper rostered with 19 year old FO.

[RAT 5]

This is going to one very steep learning curve for both. Exciting at times; and I'm sure a little nervy too. When I was flying air-taxis & night freight single crew I had a steep learning curve, also. Exciting and sometimes scary. CRM was a conversation with yourself. I had some 2 crew biz jet & twin prop time to fall back on in my decision making. After 6 years of that I had 7 years of airline flying before a pax jet command. That was after excellent training and excellent varied line flying with very competent captains. Years of basic flying, both GA & airline, before the modern new computer game stuff. The 1st year of command was exciting, but rarely nerve racking. The apprenticeship had been comprehensive. Flying was not the problem, you could or you couldn't. Simple. The decision making, both to be reactive and solve problems and also to be proactive and avoid them; that was the biggest difference between LHS & RHS. That takes time and exposure and good demonstrations of what to do and when. The pax climb aboard with total faith that the captain will 'save the day', as does the crew. Solid leadership. Most problems that need captain's intervention & judgement happen on the ground. There are no QRH's for what to do when you have 180 angry pax up your backside. They need strong authority to calm down; preferably strong leadership to keep them calm in the first place. Handling agents are no help. There are no station managers in LoCo's or charters. It's captain's call.
This is not a comment about individuals. I admit it is a generalism, but IMHO if you apply TEM and risk management to captain's experience of a pax commercial jet operating into 'out of the way airfields' I wonder if 3000hrs and <30years old would pass the assessment.
In 1988 I had a discussion with an HR dept of an EU major airline about captain's age. They had B732 captains of 28. Their answer to age was "the captain flies the a/c into only major EU airfields. Any problems outside the a/c will be solved by the station manager. Only flying skills with crew & pax management was required."
It will be a very circular debate with many varied opinions; no right or wrong.

[Pace]

I thought it was the insurance which determined required hours ? Who is better a pilot with 1500 hrs in a Cessna 150 or one with 500 hours turbine?

It shouldn't be quantity but quality

Having said that How does that pilot build quality hours if someone won't give them the chance to do so or cannot?

[bafanguy]

So, no further scuttlebutt re this alleged legislative effort from the OP ?:

Advisory Panel Would Relax Rules for Co-Pilot Experience - WSJ

The wheels of the kakistocracy turn slowly most of the time. :-)

The WSJ article said this. The info is a secret so they can't tell us:

"Certain military pilots with as little as 500 hours of flying experience would be allowed to become commercial co-pilots, according to people familiar with an advisory panel’s recommendations, compared with the mandatory at least 750 hours required today.

The proposal comes from a joint industry-labor group created by the Federal Aviation Administration to help it draft new regulations amid worries by the airline industry that there aren’t enough pilots to keep up with demand. None of the recommendations have been released, and further details are expected to remain confidential until top FAA officials decide how to proceed."

What is this "joint industry-labor group" ? Who's on it ?

[Aluminium shuffler]

More EZY PR bs. If there is a competition for the lowest age flight crew, then RYR beat them with 24 year old Capts with 19 year old FOs together on 737s. But I don't really see what it has to do with anything - they do the same training, are tested to the same standard, and the HR vetting and continuing observation of performance and attitude generally ensures they behave in a suitably mature way. I'm only calling "BS!" because I hate EZY's continuous media trolling and their fictitious claims.

[Tom Bangla]

AS, RAT5 makes the valid point about maturity in reacting to and anticipating problems that only extensive experience can bring. That's not to say, of course, that a 20-something capt and a teenage FO wouldn't have the technical capacity to handle unexpected problems competently, but it's likely that many on here of a certain age can think back to times when they would have dealt with an issue differently (better?) purely on the basis of experience.

[RAT 5]

I ask the simple question:

If in 80's (Britannia, Monarch, BA, B.Cal, Air 2000, etc.) 5000hrs/7 years was considered the norm for command threshold (4000 in exceptional circumstances if you had that total all with in the company) what has changed in our industry that by 2000 the threshold had dropped to 3000hrs? That is not a gentle readjustment, but a huge reduction and might be achieved within only 3.5 years. Add to that an F/O with less than 1 years aviation experience. In 80's a 5000hr new captain had a 2000hr+ F/O next door because the recruitment criteria was higher. Cadets were the rarity. It's not just a massive reduction in command upgrade experience, it is a large reduction in total flight deck experience.

[Pace]

RAT 5

Going back crews flew together and with BA it could take many years to achieve the position of Captain
Now Pilots are trained to a standard and in some ways not to think for themselves and rarely fly with the same crew.
The principal being to have cloned crew who can mix and match

That picture has to be a bit of a marketing exercise as its unlikely they will come across each other very much as Captain FO

My son flies for EasyJet first on the 737 and then Airbus at the age of 19 through CTC He was 26/27 when he moved to Captain.
There were inevitable comments from PAX at 19 and his first solo Captain flight had me worried but probably because we all think of our kids as kids

I always see myself as the disaster area MK1 and him the perfected MK2 version but we are both pilots ))

[Spooky 2]

For the record, both TWA and CAL had Boeing 727/707 Capts under the age of 26. CAL even had a Captain that had to wait until his 23rd birthday prior to the start of training on the 727. Both of these airlines, especially TWA had very difficult initial operating experience programs in effect at that time.

[barrow]

Compass airlines with bases in SEA MSP and LAX, operating 65 ERJ 175 aircraft have at least 10 captains that upgraded at 23 years old and are flying the line with 21 year old restricted ATP holders in the right seat. They continue to upgrade pilots that have the required 2,500 hours total with at least 1,000 hours FAR part 121 time. More and more 21 year olds are getting hired at 1,000 hours total at this airline, and making it to the left seat in less than two years on the job.

[Pace]

Things changed a lot post 9/11 and the silver haired worldly wise image of a Captain.
The difference back then was the crew mixed more freely with the passengers

It was normal once in the cruise to invite families and kids up front and for the Captain to often go back and chat with his customers a bit like a chef visiting the restaurant to put a face behind the cooking.

Now crews are faceless to the passengers with the crews locked away, rarely flying together and not often seen so from the passengers perspective the fact they have a Kid flying doesn't show and I talk of Kid as a perception not ability )

[RAT 5]

No-one has answered the question of how/why the basic requirement for command upgrade has slipped from 5000/7 years to 3000hrs/4 years?

[Pace]

Quite simple supply and demand There has been a fall of young people becoming pilots daily due to the ridiculous costs and reluctance of Airlines to assist with initial type ratings
With Captains retiring and the 65 limit which I have never understood with other people being encouraged to work to 67 or beyond those hour movements have been to fill a hole from below

[bafanguy]

So, no further info related to the issue in the original post ? I've seen/heard nothing.

[RAT 5]

So, Pace; standards/qualifications slip because it is inconvenient to maintain them? Or are we now on the era of, "well it hasn't caused any problems, yet, so it must be OK." Is that true? If so, what about knocking another 1 years experience off the threshold? Let's increase the MPA training to include numerous LOFT exercises of common known problem scenarios; then, after a couple of OPC's & LPC's of average + you are ready to leap across and allow the non-stop expansion of LoCo airlines. Captains can be manufactured in an enhanced training system? The level of automation is increasing very fast; the improvement of ATC & airfield infrastructure is rapid. There will be airlines whose network is only between large radar ILS/RNAV served airfields. Punch the numbers in an i-pad, load the FMC, point the shiny tube down the runway, reach a number and haul back, gear up CMD ON, and sit back until autoland at the other end. It really could be microsoft-sim comes to reality. Money will talk.
Glad my days are over and I'll be grounded as a pax before this happens. Never say never in this game.

[bafanguy]

The USAF would like to see civilian/commercial requirements lowered:

"Air Force chief of staff Gen. David Goldfein said Tuesday he’d like to see a federal regulation adjusted that requires private pilots to have 1,500 flight hours before they can fly for a commercial airline, in order to ease pressure on the military’s pilot shortage."


https://www.stripes.com/air-force-ch...ement-1.452920

[bafanguy]

Recent statement by ALPA of their position on F/O criteria. Not much if any change AFAIK. Scroll down to pages 9 & 10:



http://www.alpa.org/~/media/ALPA/Fil...ying.pdf?la=en

[ahwalk01]

This is a pretty good deal for those who can take advantage of it

https://mil2atp.com/