The Senate does something useful, while awaiting the House to gain enough votes to “deem” the Senate’s version of health care reform as having passed:
The Senate late Tuesday unanimously passed a proposal that would dramatically boost the number of flight hours that commercial co-pilots must have before they can fly passengers.
Moving forward on a bill to reauthorize funding for the Federal Aviation Administration, senators approved an amendment offered by Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. The measure would require new co-pilots to have 800 hours of flight experience under specific, rigorous conditions. That’s up from the current 250 hours of general experience.
Of course, from the co-pilot perspective, that just means another four or five years of dragging banners up and down the beach or teaching teenagers and retirees to solo before taking on responsibility for dozens of lives.
Intermixed, of course, with “specific, rigorous” training.
This significant investment of time and money will then allow them to earn as much as $25,000 a year, counting per diem.
Two hundred and fifty hours really isn’t that much in an aircraft requiring two rated pilots. Eight hundred?
Better.
I never knew there was an actual requirement. I always thought it was up to the hiring company and their insurers. Maybe, by saying that the old requirement was 250 hours they were refering to the minimum number of hours someone needed to earn their commercial?
I’m not so worried about the hours that guy in the right seat has, I’m a little more concerned about the guy or gal in the left seat.
Was on a flight to Chicago about this time last year in pretty bad weather. I was listening in on the air traffic channel and our first officer was a woman with a very pleasant radio/intercom voice. I knew she was a woman, because Center asked her if they could slow down. She acknowledged and then a much deeper, gruffer and older voice came on and asked Center why they had to slow down, how long would they have to fly at the new speed and who was going to tell them when they could speed back up. PIC skeaketh.
Ooops, that looks dumb. I meant I knew she was the first officer. Probably ought to read back before I hit submit comment.
Since they say “flight hours,” I’m assuming they mean actual flight in an airplane as opposed to a simulator?
From what I’ve read, many training programs are now pretty simulator-intensive. Anyone have any thoughts on the relative value of sim training versus actual flying, even if only banner towing?
If it’s an approved Flight Training Device, then the hours count. In some ways, the sim is a better tool for teaching than converting dollars into forward motion as the instructor and student can concentrate on learning a task (without the distractions of ATC, other aircraft, weather…etc). The instructor also has far many more ways to induce emergencies (icing, wind sheer…etc) that are impossible to do safely in the air.
Glad cooler heads prevailed and didn’t make the starting mins 1500 hours (although that’s usually what airlines look for anyway).
B
There are time requirements during the process of going from zero to the ratings needed for flying pax. The 250 is about the minimum (200 for the commercial ticket alone) and schools such as Flight Safety can get you those hours pretty quick. I’d never heard of anyone getting hired with less than about 500 hours. Since I’m somewhat less than omniscient, there are probably a few of those out there.
Several years ago I would have made a playfully snarky response about Lex going to the Airlines, but I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy these days, even in jest. However, Lex’s background is what the Airlines really need. But, since the military has increased the obligation from 5 to 10 years for a newly rated pilot, the military has become a less than stellar provider of pilots for the Airlines these days.
Not knowing the “rigorous” condition of the time accumulation and what the “rigorous” training consists of, I can’t judge if Shumer’s idea has any component of good sense or not.
For some idea of context, to become an Army Warrant Officer Rotorhead in 1976 took about 300 hours of training.
I apologize in adavance if I’m out of line here, but after having flown on them, and reading up on them quite a bit, I absolutely refuse to fly on any regional airline again.
If it isn’t at least a 737, with a large airline flying it, I ain’t going aboard. I’ll rearrange my schedule to take the train or the bus, thank you very much.
I contacted Lt. Col. Fred Clifton about getting rated in the L-39 (military jet trainer) which is a fairly basic jet when compared to, for example, an F-16. It’s certainly far more complex than most general aviation aircraft. The FAA requires 1,000 hours w/500 hours PIC to be eligible for a type rating in that plane. The air Force handed the keys of an F-15A to Col Clifton with only 200 hours total flight time. I think we would all agree that the F-15 is considerably more airplane than anything in the civilian world. It’s all in the quality of training.
More hours towing banners will make you better at towing banners. Training that allows a step function in handling emergencies and airplane operations in a passenger plane is more appropriate. Hours in a turboprop King Air are superior to years of instruction teaching students to solo a C172. Extended Sim time in advanced training devices that model the appropriate plane (CAE, Flight Safety) would make a big difference.
Directionally, more hours are better than less hours but it will not necessarily make better regional jet pilots and first officers.
Concur on your second paragraph. Hours in type are what build the level of skill for a particular class of aircraft. Flying Multi at 350Kt attunes one to a finer level of Situational Awareness, in most cases, than Single at 180Kt. I say ‘in most cases’ because there are some folks who are unsafe at any speed.
True Mongo. Not sure a commuter pilot would be necessarily talented at crop dusting or banner towing either.
l-39, eh? This is the first reference I’ve seen to one of those since the last Aviation Day we had at our local airport. (We’ll never have another Aviation Day, between the anti-aviation neighbors, the security pigs, and the corporate jet folks.)
That was a cute little jet. I talked to the owner-pilot, and he gave me a catalog of what he seemed to think were model airplane supplies. All radio-controlled, and thus not real model airplanes.
Anyway, I stood behind that jet when he started it up and taxied away, and I did not get singed, or blown over, or anything. It’s a very mild-mannered jet, for something with military pretensions.
Not _directly_ behind it, and not too close. I’m not that stupid.
I did stand directly behind the F4U, and real close, when the Double Wasp was started.
That may be the beginning of a pilot shortage. Everyone would like to believe that the bulk of the airline pilots out there are coming from the military, but I don’t believe that’s the case – the civilian world just doesn’t pay enough compared to the military, and as Lex has mentioned in other posts, unless you’re at the top of the stack, the working conditions pretty much suck. If that ruling translates to an 800 hour requirement to get the commercial ticket, that’s probably going to triple the cost to get rated. In rotor wing that cost is about $65000 right now, and I believe fixed wing is close to the same. I’m all for properly qualified pilots in the airlines business, but I don’t believe the morons in congress are in any position to determine proficiency. Bear that in mind the next time you buy an airline ticket.
Since Schumer is involved, I’m fairly sure there’s no beneficent purpose intended. Maybe a handout for the pilot’s union? More stringent requirements => higher barrier to entry => fewer pilots => higher wages? And would that then drive some airlines out of business, increasing the oligarchy of major airlines?
The virtue of Military training is the essentially cloistered life you live in an aviation sense. It’s intense and fulltime. In the AF it’s twelve hours a day. It was about that in the Warrant program in ’76 and lasted 9 months back then. The AF calls it 12 months of hell.
Programs like Flight Safety’s duplicate that atmosphere in the civvie world and the training is weighted towards airline service instead of military line flying, for obvious reasons. I have the feeling that Shumer’s desire is really eyewash and will solve no problems. The problem is the conditions you have to accept to fly for the airlines these days. The pilot that crashed in NY was overworked and probably lost it due to a fogged brain from lack of rest. No training can compensate for poor cognition caused by overwhelming fatigue.