wktaylor
Well-Known Member
AVWeb Insider... When 1500 Hours Equals 10...
https://www.avweb.com/insider/when-1500-hours-equals-10/
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What I didn’t expect was Stewart’s bone chilling assessment of the state of flight training and the terrible prognosis for the professionalism of the industry. In a nutshell, the 1500-hour rule has resulted in a generation of ATPs who have only the vaguest idea how to fly any airplane, much less a 100,000-pound jet.
I actually had a tipoff to this going into the interview. I made the acquaintance of one of those people who make you question all your life choices. He’s a 737 captain in his mid-30s who’s accomplished more in aviation than any 10 pilots I know. His frank assessment? When he gets a new hire on his right side he assumes he’s flying as a single pilot.
So I hit Stewart with that with my first question and to say he ran with it would be an understatement. After decades as an instructor, he says he’s never seen such unmotivated, unskilled and generally clueless students on their way to the airlines. There are some exceptions, for sure, but in general the vaunted ramp-up of flight training might as well be pumping air into the right seats of the nation and it has him terrified.
He puts the blame squarely on the 1500-hour rule that was ordered by Congress after an accident in Buffalo, New York, that killed everyone on a Colgan Air Dash-8 Q400. The new law was supposed to have ensured that anyone with an ATP has the experience under his or her belt to competently fly big iron. In fact, it has led to a situation where one of those 1500-hour wonders can reach that all-important milestone with only 10 hours of solo flight time.
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https://www.avweb.com/insider/when-1500-hours-equals-10/
... ...
What I didn’t expect was Stewart’s bone chilling assessment of the state of flight training and the terrible prognosis for the professionalism of the industry. In a nutshell, the 1500-hour rule has resulted in a generation of ATPs who have only the vaguest idea how to fly any airplane, much less a 100,000-pound jet.
I actually had a tipoff to this going into the interview. I made the acquaintance of one of those people who make you question all your life choices. He’s a 737 captain in his mid-30s who’s accomplished more in aviation than any 10 pilots I know. His frank assessment? When he gets a new hire on his right side he assumes he’s flying as a single pilot.
So I hit Stewart with that with my first question and to say he ran with it would be an understatement. After decades as an instructor, he says he’s never seen such unmotivated, unskilled and generally clueless students on their way to the airlines. There are some exceptions, for sure, but in general the vaunted ramp-up of flight training might as well be pumping air into the right seats of the nation and it has him terrified.
He puts the blame squarely on the 1500-hour rule that was ordered by Congress after an accident in Buffalo, New York, that killed everyone on a Colgan Air Dash-8 Q400. The new law was supposed to have ensured that anyone with an ATP has the experience under his or her belt to competently fly big iron. In fact, it has led to a situation where one of those 1500-hour wonders can reach that all-important milestone with only 10 hours of solo flight time.
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