It's bad out there. Frontier is a regional with Airbii. FAA mins are our hiring standards these days. I'm flying with flight instructors with zero jet time. Fun stuff. Fun stuff.
I have had the same experience. I will say, that most of them are pretty good. They need some mentoring on visual approaches and stuff, but that's normal for most people transitioning to a 737.
I just spent a week in Mexico, and the Delta pilots must not have gotten the memo that Boeing planes are unflyable and crash all day, every day. Flights to and from CUN were on 737-900ERs and not a hint of a problem on either one.
I hand flew the downwind to approach and greasssseddd the landing yesterday and made the earlier taxiway without smoking the brakes. Turning off the flight director in the right time and place is nice heading to mob and back to finally be done with this 19 leg trip.
Well then technically the pilot saying his displays blanked out isn't a lie. I mean, if he couldn't see them because his eyes were closed then the displays would appear blank to him. Just sayin. Boeing should have known pilots fall asleep and installed mitigation. Like say electrified seats to jolt pilots back awake. If NHTSA can require self driving car systems to monitor driver awareness, the FAA should too
Yeah as a guy who rides on planes a lot that scares me. Is there any talk about raising the age limit? Seems a shame that you get your ticket pulled at 65. That's not an old man anymore. I know guys in their 70s who haven't slowed a bit cognitively or physically.
Actually, they do. There is a “Crew Awareness” system on the 747-400 (I’d assume the 777 and 787 have it as well). If you don’t touch any of the monitored switches in the cockpit for 15 min an Amber “Crew Awareness” alert comes on with the master caution. If you ignore that for 5 min, it turns into a red Master Warning and associated wailer going off. Domestically, it’s probably not worth having the system installed (IE-737).
The problem is, how do you keep the right ones? I’ve flown with lots of guys in their seventies. Almost all of them were not very good.
Think lowest common denominator, someone who is at the bottom of the cognitive scale at 65-70 yr old. Would you want them hand flying a Cat iii approach at the end of a 14hr duty day? I wouldn’t..
No idea what a Cat III approach is, but I get the point. I guess one guy might as sharp as ever and others may have lost a step. I don't know how you parse it out. I dropped into a school at Montgomery Gibbs a few weeks ago because I'm getting the itch to go after my PPL. The first thing they wanted to know is if I was looking to start a career because if so, I'm likely too old at 44.
Hardly! 20-30 years ago, yes. I did some ATP-CTP sim work a few years ago and had multiple students north of 60 that had been hired at regionals. Mostly accountants/attorneys that had flown on the side for fun and kept getting headhunters soliciting them for flying jobs. They retired and decided to see what flying airplanes for a living was like. I couldn’t believe it because back in the 90’s if you were 55yrs old and even applied to a major, they would have laughed you off the property (after taking your $100 application fee). Argh!! Airline Mother F&$@%R’s! (Gratuitous SouthPark reference) And a cat iii is the lowest approach minimum we can do. Generally it goes down to 600ft of visibility.
I was probably one of the few pilots that was flying part121 that was upset when they raised the retirement age from 60-65. Switched over to part 91 flying for a owner that ended up selling the aircraft .Retired at 62 and don't miss it at all.
Interesting. It’s a moot point because I have no interest in changing careers but still interesting. My curiosity with flying is purely recreational. I enjoy cross country travel by practically any means, so a small plane that can take me and my girl and a few bags from state to state seems like it would be a blast. Also a good way to go broke best I can tell.