Monday, July 8, 2013

My $0.02

At my overnight for my only 2 day trip of the week.

My weekend was spent reading news sites and watching the news about Asiana 214.

I don't work for the NTSB.....or the FAA...and have never flown a 777, so I won't speculate on the cause.

One thing that has annoyed me is the topic of the "inexperience" of the pilot and that this was a "training" flight.

From my understanding the First Officer had over 10,000 of flight time. He came off the 747 which he had landed before at SFO.

The public has no concept of flight time, all they hear is "training" and assume he is inexperienced. Here's something most readers of this blog know, everyday pilots sit in a plane for the first time and fly passengers around.

When I was hired by my airline I was trained in a FAA approved simulator and then tested in the same simulator before I ever touched the real plane. My first flight in the real plane was in December 2007 in moderate snow...with paying passengers in the back. The Captain was an IOE (Initial Operating Experience) Captain specially trained to fly with new pilots. I was signed off in about 34 hours and maybe 10 landings. It's common. I think only small airlines and aircraft without a simulator use the real plane (empty) for training.

Two years ago when I transitioned to my current aircraft, again I was put into a simulator. When I passed my FAA checkride I was then allowed to fly real passengers. I was again paired with an IOE Captain until he felt I was capable to hit the line. In that case it was one trip, about 20 hours and maybe 6 landings.

I get really annoyed watching "Aviation Experts" on TV...especially ones who claim to be pilots.

That's all for now....gonna step off the soap box.

2 comments:

  1. I had similar thoughts---Does not every pilot have a "1st landing at SFO"? Does not have every pilot cross the 43 hour in-type threshold"?.99.99% sans incident....geez media....

    ReplyDelete

If you are a spammer....your post will never show up. Move along.