Diminished Skill

LOL. Like I said... here we go!

@BalooAirService , it's pretty hard to earn those seats. Not as easy as one might think.

Others all ****y about Baloo... you were where he was once, too. Chill. One of the above posters who got ****y wasn't an airline pilot less than six months ago even. You know who you are. Haha. You earned the seat, but easy there killer! LOL
 
BalooAirService said:
ok dude lol.
wow.
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See, you've posted what, 2-3 times now since your original ignorant post. So it's obvious you still meant what you wrote.

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It's not absolutely true, but there is an element of truth in the assertion that a portion of airline pilots are not where they should be when it comes to handflying in IMC, let alone while accomplishing EP patterns in handflown IMC (they call it raw data, though to be pedantic, one could fly behind a flight director without it being A/P coupled).

BHM UPS 1354, Colgan 3407 are some of the more recent examples of this over-reliance on higher levels of automation working against airline pilots and unmasking deficiencies in hand flying. For some airline pilots, the sound of "click click" is like kryptonite. For others, that's about the one time a day they're not bored to tears with their jobs.

Is it a widespread problem? That cannot be established imo mainly because the high level of reliability in modern avionics has masked this issue to a great degree. I can tell you from private conversation with co-workers that some Southwest senior guys actively bid to avoid the classic (soon to be completely phased out, to their collective sigh of relief). It ain't because the NGs have better cushions let's put it that way...

As to airline pilot involvement in GA, based anecdotally on my work place I've found it to be rather limited. But those who do, absolutely invest a great deal of time and resources to it. Amazing aerobatic aircraft, niche bush planes, spendy vintage radials, even legacy fighter jets. In that regard, no better job than a high paying airline job to fund your expensive hobby, and the time off required to really dabble into it to your heart's content. They are true aviators in that they fully absorb the lifestyle and put their money where their mouths are. Whereas other airline pilots are dead inside, actively deriding the piston planes they had "to endure" to get to turbine equipment, and never touching an airplane for recreation on their day off. Meanwhile deriding pedestrian workers as some sort of suckers for paying for their recreational flying. Hypocrite much?

Personally, I would consider some form of general aviation participation as a prerequisite to tolerating the airline thing. That flying is way too boring for my taste. But the paycheck and time off is a an attractive and useful trade to me versus starting over in medical/dental school at this juncture of my family's life.

I love this board. Poo flinging is an olympic sport on here. :D
 
lol, I love this capt Thorpe guy.
I bet the transmissions between him and ATC are hilarious lol.
 
Very diffrent worlds, truly - skills and muscle memory and depth of knowledge; yeah, someone flying fighters or bombers or airliners exclusively is gonna be shaky in a GA taildragger. Or even a 172. . .and vice versa, of course.

Flying for pay, I think with the profiency gained in regular flying, constant reinforcement, recurrent training, most/most of those folks are plenty skilled, both systems and stick-and-rudder. Hours is just hours - 1500 in fighters is a lot; 5,000 in airliners, not so much. If you have 2,000 hand-flying a GA airplane, and plenty of it recent, that is a lot.
 
Sundancer said:
Very diffrent worlds, truly - skills and muscle memory and depth of knowledge; yeah, someone flying fighters or bombers or airliners exclusively is gonna be shaky in a GA taildragger. Or even a 172. . .and vice versa, of course...
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"Gonna be" sounds like an over-generalization to me.
 
Sundancer said:
Very diffrent worlds, truly - skills and muscle memory and depth of knowledge; yeah, someone flying fighters or bombers or airliners exclusively is gonna be shaky in a GA taildragger. Or even a 172. . .and vice versa, of course.

Flying for pay, I think with the profiency gained in regular flying, constant reinforcement, recurrent training, most/most of those folks are plenty skilled, both systems and stick-and-rudder. Hours is just hours - 1500 in fighters is a lot; 5,000 in airliners, not so much. If you have 2,000 hand-flying a GA airplane, and plenty of it recent, that is a lot.
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I think you and the OP overestimate the difficulty of flying a GA plane. Think about it. Someone off the street can learn to fly sufficient to solo in 10 hrs or less. Flying is a skill kind of like riding a bike, once you get the basic concept you tend to remember the fundamentals. Airline and fighter pilots have learned that skill and are still exposed to some of it even if they aren't flying GA. There might be a little rust, but nothing that can't be knocked off in an hour or so.

At one point I went well over 10yrs without flying GA. My first BFR back, I didn't have even the slightest difficulty, and it was in a plane I had never flown previously. I would guess that my experience would be representative of most professional pilots. There are some differences, but it just isn't that hard.
 
I have seen a couple of ATPs get checked out in a 172 for the first time in years. Their first couple of landings were pretty ugly. Then like a light being turned on, the next few were damn near perfect. That's about all it takes.
 
BalooAirService said:
Before I started flying (flight training and just small planes only/since) I always thought the "guy in a little piper/cessna" private plane was just an average pilot, no where near a 747 pilot (for example). This is common thinking among most people. But as time went on my view on this has completely switched around.
Airline pilots are spoon fed (I work in the airline industry as a non pilot and see this everyday) everything except literally having the auto pilot turn itself on automatically at 100 AGL after takeoff.
Almost dumbed down to a point that given certain bad situations I personally think a lowly private pilot in a piper would react better than an FO (even with yearly recurrent training) who has 3000 hrs flying an A319 or a CRJ. Just because I think certain skills and real feel are not being used the way they were before they started flying super highly advanced aircraft. So many incidents/crashes has proven this.

The lowly cessna pilot flying into the Alaskan bush, off airport-ers, and the piper guy taking his family cross country without an auto-pilot or FMS.. these pilots are my heroes.
NOT the guy flying a 787 14hrs to Beijing.
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I'd think you would know that there is a check ride every 6months for IFR folks.

That said, it's a different game, flying a 787 into major airports, vs a PA18 to sand bars, different mission, different skill set, ones not better than the other or harder.
 
Cooter said:
I think you and the OP overestimate the difficulty of flying a GA plane. Think about it. Someone off the street can learn to fly sufficient to solo in 10 hrs or less. Flying is a skill kind of like riding a bike, once you get the basic concept you tend to remember the fundamentals. Airline and fighter pilots have learned that skill and are still exposed to some of it even if they aren't flying GA. There might be a little rust, but nothing that can't be knocked off in an hour or so.

At one point I went well over 10yrs without flying GA. My first BFR back, I didn't have even the slightest difficulty, and it was in a plane I had never flown previously. I would guess that my experience would be representative of most professional pilots. There are some differences, but it just isn't that hard.
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I think you missed my "exclusively", and I don't think it would be all that hard, as you say - I have all the respect in the world for professional pilots, and I'm sure they can get up to speed in a cub or a 172 much, much faster than a non-pilot off the street, no doubt. But the physical kills required in one don't map to the other. And those first few landings can/can be gruesome, for anyone who hasn't flown a tail-dragger. I don't think a pro, with decades out of the GA cockpit, would jump into a cub or a Pitts, or even a 172, and handle the airplane particularly well. Just as a bush pilot, or crop duster, or helo driver wouldn't perform so hot in an airliner. There's just such a wide variation in performance, handling, systems, etc.

I recall a F-111 pilot joining my C-130 reserve unit; he picked it up, of course, but it was a far, far different world for him. Three engine takeoff was a "startling" experience for him, for example. He was professional enough to recognize it wasn't going well right away, and to call the first attempt off. Doing approach to a stall in a C-130, the aerodynamic buffeting is quite noticeable: unless you've never really felt that before. Had to be pointed out to him by the IP. But yeah, he got it all figured out, did real well. Just took a bit of training.
 
mscard88 said:
Guess you don't realize many of those 'unskilled' airline pilots own GA planes, and a lot live on grass strips.
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I can attest to this. I fly out of a very small airfield with a 2800x40 ft strip surrounded by trees. A couple of months ago, a guy and his buddy were passing through in a very nice Pacer tail dragger, really nice guy, got to talking to him, he was an A320 Captain for American....

Palmpilot said:
Hasn't there been some discussion in the airline industry recently, about having their pilots do more hand-flying?
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I had jurty duty earlier this year, we had one alternate that happened to be an A380 Captain for American that flew overseas, got to talk to him a lot over the course of the week (and learned a ton from him), and the thing that surprised me the most was how much hand flying he said they did. Said there were very few restrictions on when they had to use the AP (I think certain DP's were required but that is it if I recall correctly). To my surprise he said a good portion of approaches were actually flown by hand as well. Thought that was pretty cool.
 
TRocket said:
I can attest to this. I fly out of a very small airfield with a 2800x40 ft strip surrounded by trees. A couple of months ago, a guy and his buddy were passing through in a very nice Pacer tail dragger, really nice guy, got to talking to him, he was an A320 Captain for American....



I had jurty duty earlier this year, we had one alternate that happened to be an A380 Captain for American that flew overseas, got to talk to him a lot over the course of the week (and learned a ton from him), and the thing that surprised me the most was how much hand flying he said they did. Said there were very few restrictions on when they had to use the AP (I think certain DP's were required but that is it if I recall correctly). To my surprise he said a good portion of approaches were actually flown by hand as well. Thought that was pretty cool.
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I did not know that American had any A380s. In fact, I do not think they do.
 
I did a lot of checkouts for our rental planes so based on my experience and mine only here goes: 3 checkouts remain vivid in my diminishing mind. Both were 121 pilots, both were captains and flew 747 and L1011 international flights so lets safely assume they had lots of experience. That being said, both readily admitted they hadn't been in a 172 for quite some time. I wasn't a hard *ss when it came to pilots on checkouts but I did want to see ability to fly safely and not miss radio calls. These 2 were a piece of work! The 747 captain, who's son was my student, was totally embarrassed for being wwwaaaayyyy behind the airplane. To fly and talk on the radio at the same time took him out of his comfort zone. Took SEVERAL landings to get him to quit flaring 30 feet off the ground. But he finally overcame his deficiencies after about 1 1/2 hours (his call) in the 172. He was looking at the time to purchase an Aztec and asked me if I would get him up to speed in it. I agreed and we had a lot of fun getting his GA pants back on.

The L1011 captain missed every radio call, had the same flaring problem, and on an engine cut on downwind would never had made the runway had I not intervened. I'm not knocking these two gentlemen. I'm sure if they had recently flown a GA aircraft they would have been fine. But it had been 10+ yrs. since they had. You get comfortable in your daily regime and I have no doubt at all in their big iron birds they were excellent pilots. But taken out of that world, well lets just say I have checked out more proficient 172 pilots.

For comparison, I checked out a 727 FO who was an active flight instructor. We never left the pattern! Heading, altitude, radio work, mca -- perfect. But then again, he was actively instructing in GA planes and was easily content in both.
 
I hadn't flown a GA plane for probably 12-13 years. Did my checkout in a C172 (along w/ a FR) and did ok, only the first 1-2 landings were a little rough. Had no problem w/ maneuvers at all.
 
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