Euro market pilot saturation
Joined: Sep 2008
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From: Been around the block
I don't think there are too many places in the world where pilots commute 5hrs of flight time for their shot haul job. For instance Ryanair has over 80 pilots bases, Delta has 9. Much more opportunity to be based closer to your home.
And the improvement in pay didn't stop jumpseating. It's estimated that 50% of US airline pilots still commute, and the issues with fatigue will still remain. If you want to address fatigue issues address them directly by writing rules to mandate proper rest prior to operating.
The rest of the world has proven you don't need a university degree, you don't need 5000hrs, you don't need instructor time, you don't need to be 30 to be worthy of sitting in the right seat of a Boeing or Airbus. Plenty of first class airlines putting early twenties, non-university educated, well selected and trained individuals into those seats. No evidence "Merika" has the world's best practice.
And the improvement in pay didn't stop jumpseating. It's estimated that 50% of US airline pilots still commute, and the issues with fatigue will still remain. If you want to address fatigue issues address them directly by writing rules to mandate proper rest prior to operating.
The rest of the world has proven you don't need a university degree, you don't need 5000hrs, you don't need instructor time, you don't need to be 30 to be worthy of sitting in the right seat of a Boeing or Airbus. Plenty of first class airlines putting early twenties, non-university educated, well selected and trained individuals into those seats. No evidence "Merika" has the world's best practice.
Joined: Feb 2001
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From: The Winchester
Joined: Mar 2019
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From: Prague
Thank you. I agree 100%. Imagine a scenario of a captain incapacitation in rough weather at night with a 250 hours " pilot" having to bring the plane safely on ground. Few will manage ,from my experience. The risk is unacceptable...and it will happen one day or another.
Joined: Sep 2012
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From: Europe
. And thanks for showing you have at least one pilot with a very !!!!ty attitude 
.
Joined: Sep 2019
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From: yorkshire
Lets face it, planes are also a LOT easier to fly these days. Compare a 1960s Trident or DC9 to todays Airbus with GPS, Alpha-Floor, ILS, HUD, EFIS,ACARS,GPWS, weather radar,laptops etc etc.
A lot of effort has been put in by manufacturers to make aircraft much more foolproof and to try and learn from each and every incident.
G
A lot of effort has been put in by manufacturers to make aircraft much more foolproof and to try and learn from each and every incident.
G
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 502
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From: Up North….
I would hope that a below average 1500hr pilot has a lot more ability than a below average 250hr pilot. At 250hrs you are like wet paint on a wall, and are generally clinging on for bare life against the forces of gravity. At 1500hrs that paint has hopefully had a few fresh coats and set. The paying passengers have a right to feel safe in there seats. Reducing the skill level of new pilots because of the increased reliability of aircraft and the ever increasing push for profits from airlines is not acceptable. There are many many 250 hr pilots out there who would be in a whole world of trouble if the old git in the LHS decided to expire one day.
You dont need a degree to fly an aircraft, you require a specific skill set that isn’t necessarily met by a degree.
You dont need a degree to fly an aircraft, you require a specific skill set that isn’t necessarily met by a degree.
Joined: Dec 2019
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From: Orbit
I would hope that a below average 1500hr pilot has a lot more ability than a below average 250hr pilot. At 250hrs you are like wet paint on a wall, and are generally clinging on for bare life against the forces of gravity. At 1500hrs that paint has hopefully had a few fresh coats and set. The paying passengers have a right to feel safe in there seats. Reducing the skill level of new pilots because of the increased reliability of aircraft and the ever increasing push for profits from airlines is not acceptable. There are many many 250 hr pilots out there who would be in a whole world of trouble if the old git in the LHS decided to expire one day.
You dont need a degree to fly an aircraft, you require a specific skill set that isn’t necessarily met by a degree.
You dont need a degree to fly an aircraft, you require a specific skill set that isn’t necessarily met by a degree.
Not long ago I remember asking my FO what phoen was ..answer? An hair dyer...and he was not jocking.
Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 948
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From: UK
I flew two days back to back in the same conditions to the same destination. On the first day a MPL cadet on his first day after line check. The second day an FO with thousands of hours turbo prop time and also just released from line training on the airbus. The MPL guy was miles better in every aspect, SAW hand flying ops and tech knowledge. If I had passed out in flight I would have been far happier been with the first guy than the second.
I usually find the people who complain most about low hour cadets is the people who have never flown with them or got a chip on their shoulder because they never got straight on to your middle weight jet.
Let’s face it a more structured sim training schedule taught for that specific jet is far more beneficial than teaching some else straight and level in a c150 for 1500 hrs.
P.s No I wasn’t a 200hr cadet nor a 1500hr ‘sky god’.
I usually find the people who complain most about low hour cadets is the people who have never flown with them or got a chip on their shoulder because they never got straight on to your middle weight jet.
Let’s face it a more structured sim training schedule taught for that specific jet is far more beneficial than teaching some else straight and level in a c150 for 1500 hrs.
P.s No I wasn’t a 200hr cadet nor a 1500hr ‘sky god’.
Last edited by Mooneyboy; 27th December 2019 at 12:47.
Joined: May 2019
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From: Never home
And what exactly does the 1500 hours on some 20 ton cessna without a yaw damper, VNAV or a decent fms teach you about flying a real jet in a real environment? Nothing. You learn while you do it. Good instruction and capable captains make even the youngest first officers into capable pilots. You need to start somewhere for sure, but why start on a turboprop that has nothing to do with a jet when you can just as well learn on a 737 or an A320
Joined: Jun 2014
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From: Mordor
Yeah, right! Let’s make those 250 hours wonders Captains immediately. Judging from the responses on this thread they know it all and can fly better than us, merely mortals with several thousand of hours of experience...
As for the 1500 hrs in a Cessna - it has no VNAV and autopilot and that exactly makes it a more valuable experience, than sitting in an RHS of an A320 watching “managed” modes doing their thing...
As for the 1500 hrs in a Cessna - it has no VNAV and autopilot and that exactly makes it a more valuable experience, than sitting in an RHS of an A320 watching “managed” modes doing their thing...
Joined: Jan 2018
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From: Amantido
Err Sidestick_n_Rudder, it's not black and white. While a 250 hours pilot is just a snowflake, a SEP instructor with 1500 hours in the pattern isn't better either. It's all about the quality of training, aptitude, attitude and quality of flying.
The 1500 hours requirement in the US was aknee jerk reaction and the fact you can get out with less hours only because you have a degree is laughable.
The 1500 hours requirement in the US was aknee jerk reaction and the fact you can get out with less hours only because you have a degree is laughable.
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 54
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From: San Diego
And what exactly does the 1500 hours on some 20 ton cessna without a yaw damper, VNAV or a decent fms teach you about flying a real jet in a real environment? Nothing. You learn while you do it. Good instruction and capable captains make even the youngest first officers into capable pilots. You need to start somewhere for sure, but why start on a turboprop that has nothing to do with a jet when you can just as well learn on a 737 or an A320
i flew gliders, crop dusters, banner tow, single pilot freight, aerobatics... all in the first 1500 hours. I think I use the skills learned in those first 1500 hours every time I fly. The military does a great job teaching student to be qualified with low hours. The multi crew training doesn’t put you in many manual modes at the edge of the envelope, and there have been incidents where that lack of skill shows. Pilots are great programmers today, but start removing paths and lines and automation and the proficient skill set is diminished. It’s expensive to train to the degree that we’d all like. I have friends at Lufthansa who fondly remember starting out in gliders as part of their program. They believe it’s made them better pilots.
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From: Amantido
Joined: May 2019
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From: Never home
Yeah, right! Let’s make those 250 hours wonders Captains immediately. Judging from the responses on this thread they know it all and can fly better than us, merely mortals with several thousand of hours of experience...
As for the 1500 hrs in a Cessna - it has no VNAV and autopilot and that exactly makes it a more valuable experience, than sitting in an RHS of an A320 watching “managed” modes doing their thing...
As for the 1500 hrs in a Cessna - it has no VNAV and autopilot and that exactly makes it a more valuable experience, than sitting in an RHS of an A320 watching “managed” modes doing their thing...
Joined: Sep 2012
Posts: 261
Likes: 42
From: Europe
Yeah, right! Let’s make those 250 hours wonders Captains immediately. Judging from the responses on this thread they know it all and can fly better than us, merely mortals with several thousand of hours of experience...
As for the 1500 hrs in a Cessna - it has no VNAV and autopilot and that exactly makes it a more valuable experience, than sitting in an RHS of an A320 watching “managed” modes doing their thing...
As for the 1500 hrs in a Cessna - it has no VNAV and autopilot and that exactly makes it a more valuable experience, than sitting in an RHS of an A320 watching “managed” modes doing their thing...
You exaggerate what we are saying, exactly as you exaggerate the value of those 1500hrs. All that some of us are pointing out is that being a good pilot is not a matter of getting those 1500hrs. It is a matter of proper training, proper attitude and aptitude. If you get someone out of flight school with those qualities, they can be miles better than the guy that comes from 1500hrs or more of flying around on whatever else type of plane, picking up (bad) habits that don't work on the type you fly and who is slow to adapt.
You obviously haven't had the luck to come across some of the good new pilots. I have. No one is suggesting they are 250hr wonders. But they come into the plane, do things by the book, pick up practical experience quick, ask the right questions etc. Hell, most of them will take any chance to hand fly, especially with a nudge of encouragement to do so. It is too easy to discount fresh pilots because they do not have 1500hrs. You would rob yourself of a good amount of pilots sitting next to you in the cockpit, who have a solid foundation and aptitude for airline flying and will only get better with experience.
Spoken as a mere mortal in the LHS with several thousand hours of experience (non automated turboprop hours included)...
In my opinion a 1500hr wall would perhaps be a short term improvement, but exactly those kids you guys hate will be the ones that will climb over the wall. Those kids with more money than ability.
Joined: May 2019
Posts: 21
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From: Never home
Many hours in a small plane can teach you how to fly. These are all machines with wings and the 4 forces, but crews seem to forget that. There are several recent accidents where crews spend time watching screens while the plane slowly departs from controlled flight.
i flew gliders, crop dusters, banner tow, single pilot freight, aerobatics... all in the first 1500 hours. I think I use the skills learned in those first 1500 hours every time I fly. The military does a great job teaching student to be qualified with low hours. The multi crew training doesn’t put you in many manual modes at the edge of the envelope, and there have been incidents where that lack of skill shows. Pilots are great programmers today, but start removing paths and lines and automation and the proficient skill set is diminished. It’s expensive to train to the degree that we’d all like. I have friends at Lufthansa who fondly remember starting out in gliders as part of their program. They believe it’s made them better pilots.
Joined: May 2000
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From: SV Marie Celeste
While I agree that experience is not the only metric
Every "good" pilot gets better with experience
Every "Bad" pilot gets a little less bad with experience
On top of that It is always better to scare yourself !!!!less on your own in a little Cessna and swear to never do that again than to do the same as a captain in a 737.
There are capts in Europe that have never diverted, never done a GA, never have had to use the QRH in flight. They are flying with guys that are trailing twelve miles behind the tail. The only reason nothing happens is because these are extremely reliable machines
Every "good" pilot gets better with experience
Every "Bad" pilot gets a little less bad with experience
On top of that It is always better to scare yourself !!!!less on your own in a little Cessna and swear to never do that again than to do the same as a captain in a 737.
There are capts in Europe that have never diverted, never done a GA, never have had to use the QRH in flight. They are flying with guys that are trailing twelve miles behind the tail. The only reason nothing happens is because these are extremely reliable machines
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 54
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From: San Diego
While I agree that experience is not the only metric
Every "good" pilot gets better with experience
Every "Bad" pilot gets a little less bad with experience
On top of that It is always better to scare yourself !!!!less on your own in a little Cessna and swear to never do that again than to do the same as a captain in a 737.
There are capts in Europe that have never diverted, never done a GA, never have had to use the QRH in flight. They are flying with guys that are trailing twelve miles behind the tail. The only reason nothing happens is because these are extremely reliable machines
Every "good" pilot gets better with experience
Every "Bad" pilot gets a little less bad with experience
On top of that It is always better to scare yourself !!!!less on your own in a little Cessna and swear to never do that again than to do the same as a captain in a 737.
There are capts in Europe that have never diverted, never done a GA, never have had to use the QRH in flight. They are flying with guys that are trailing twelve miles behind the tail. The only reason nothing happens is because these are extremely reliable machines
someone keeps mentioning “1500 hours in the pattern” and I don’t really know anyone who actually just does 1500 hours in the pattern. That being said, I agree that if someone spends 1500 hours teaching flying, that’s not especially valuable experience. I do find that teaching things like L/D, laminar flow, shifting CP, etc makes one think about those concepts and brings one to a better understanding. Ask most pilots to explain Mach tuck and how the shock wave changes the CP and I’ll bet you get a weak explanation.
to the OP asking about the market, do I understand correctly that Different pilots at the same carrier operate on different contracts? It seems like the airlines can easily use this to divide the pilot group.
the US has benefited from a strong economy for the airlines, a shortage of qualified pilots, and pilot groups that are cohesive. It’s like a marriage. Once someone gets hired at an airline, they tend to think that’s their life and they work to make it better. I may be wrong, (I’m only saying this from reading on here), but it seems like a lot of people with an airline job in Europe keep shopping for a different job. It’s definitely a different market.
As a casual outside observer, it seems the BA strike didn’t achieve much. I wish it had. We are all better served by a strong market for pilots everywhere.
Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 25
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From: UK, Paris, Peckham, New York
This is an extremely interesting debate.
Firstly, supply and demand dictates wages in Europe in the main, with some union nudging. The 1500hr rule was knee jerk in USA, causing the shortage which drove up wages.
Does does 1500hrs make someone a better pilot? Maybe.
Sometimes a candidate requires experience to grow themselves, mature their character, it’s not all just hand eye coordination, a lot of soft skills to learn. I see this a lot with new cadet firsts officers, lacking in people and communication skills, then you see a mature second career modular cadet pilot that has all these attributes from their previous career/life experience. Perhaps the 1500hrs flying will involve a few hundred banner towing being self sufficient, a few hundred instructional, giving briefings, learning how to honestly debrief students, a few hundred flying single pilot freight work, IFR at night etc etc, producing a well rounded candidate,
Also a huge portion of this is down to selection and training as well. For example the military, looks in-depth at personality traits and leadership potential, then has a highly regimented officer training followed by flight training which will see people on the front line in something very fast and pointy after about 400 (not 100% sure) or so hours.
The selection process in flight training schools, is basically can you pay for it (they pretend to do tests, I doubt anyone fails..) the training is then often taught by a few categories of instructors, new CPLs doing their first job passing through n bad habits they were taught a few months before, or instructors that have never passed an airline selection for various reasons and become career instructors (even if they are not suitable to teach...) or retired Air Force/airliner types often fairly ancient and with dated attitudes to teaching, or the rarest kind, someone that loves teaching and has or is currently an operational pilot for the love of it.
The training syllabus is then also ancient, teaching things as pointless as timed turns (when was the last time this was done in anger? WW2?) It needs dragging into the modern days, being relevant to the skills and techniques relevant to the class/type of operation the student will go into.
Then at some airlines the last selection process is just some maths tests, a “tell me a time when”type interview and go in the sim for a v1 cut and raw data ILS.
This is still leaves untested much of the soft traits that you can rarely see until it is too late on the line, sometimes during a non normal event.
The entire process is not fit, designed by ancient regulators out of touch with reality after being lobbied by airlines desperate for crews that want to lower standards and speed up the process.
Firstly, supply and demand dictates wages in Europe in the main, with some union nudging. The 1500hr rule was knee jerk in USA, causing the shortage which drove up wages.
Does does 1500hrs make someone a better pilot? Maybe.
Sometimes a candidate requires experience to grow themselves, mature their character, it’s not all just hand eye coordination, a lot of soft skills to learn. I see this a lot with new cadet firsts officers, lacking in people and communication skills, then you see a mature second career modular cadet pilot that has all these attributes from their previous career/life experience. Perhaps the 1500hrs flying will involve a few hundred banner towing being self sufficient, a few hundred instructional, giving briefings, learning how to honestly debrief students, a few hundred flying single pilot freight work, IFR at night etc etc, producing a well rounded candidate,
Also a huge portion of this is down to selection and training as well. For example the military, looks in-depth at personality traits and leadership potential, then has a highly regimented officer training followed by flight training which will see people on the front line in something very fast and pointy after about 400 (not 100% sure) or so hours.
The selection process in flight training schools, is basically can you pay for it (they pretend to do tests, I doubt anyone fails..) the training is then often taught by a few categories of instructors, new CPLs doing their first job passing through n bad habits they were taught a few months before, or instructors that have never passed an airline selection for various reasons and become career instructors (even if they are not suitable to teach...) or retired Air Force/airliner types often fairly ancient and with dated attitudes to teaching, or the rarest kind, someone that loves teaching and has or is currently an operational pilot for the love of it.
The training syllabus is then also ancient, teaching things as pointless as timed turns (when was the last time this was done in anger? WW2?) It needs dragging into the modern days, being relevant to the skills and techniques relevant to the class/type of operation the student will go into.
Then at some airlines the last selection process is just some maths tests, a “tell me a time when”type interview and go in the sim for a v1 cut and raw data ILS.
This is still leaves untested much of the soft traits that you can rarely see until it is too late on the line, sometimes during a non normal event.
The entire process is not fit, designed by ancient regulators out of touch with reality after being lobbied by airlines desperate for crews that want to lower standards and speed up the process.