Co-pilot time for ATPL

[frozen solid]

The "experts" already do respect your right-seat experience. Exactly half as much as they would if it was left-seat experience. You co-pilots really do think there's no difference, don't you? I guess the only people who don't think so is every captain, ever.

I don't understand why it's such a hardship to wait another year or so to get a "airline pilot" license without ever being responsible for an aeroplane, ever. The fact that it's even possible seems like a pretty good deal to me. But I'm jaded from having spent so long protecting aeroplanes from co-pilots.

[Oliver Close-off]

I value your assessment of the mix of experience types that you've seen make well-rounded pilots that can take responsibility for an airplane.

This thread isn't about that though - it started out as a paperwork issue, and now it's a hate-on for guys that didn't put up with the shit that someone else did to get where they are. Guys want to jump on a guy who gets his paperwork signed off 'early' under proposed new rules, but if I wait until I accumulate 3000 to get it signed off, the guys on this thread still wouldn't accept that.

The company is going to make the final decision on upgrading someone who has the required qualifications, not transport. Having an ATPL and being the Captain of a two crew airplane are two different things.





Q: How many hours do guys/girls have when they upgrade in a two crew aircraft in the CF?

[Colonel Sanders]

How many hours do guys/girls have when they upgrade in a two crew aircraft in the CF?

That's a valid comparison because military and civilian flight training and ops are identical.

[Oliver Close-off]

How many hours do guys/girls have when they upgrade in a two crew aircraft in the CF?

That's a valid comparison because military and civilian flight training and ops are identical.

Right. So different training, development and mentoring experiences produce different results.

[frozen solid]

Right. But the issue being discussed isn't changing the training, development and mentoring of AT pilots. What's being discussed is dropping/significantly reducing existing requirements without concomitant enhancement of any of the others. They're making the license LESS WORK to achieve. Nothing is "different" or "better". Pilots with less experience will now qualify for the license. That's it.

[rac007]

Pilots with less experience will now qualify for the license.

But number of hours is not always directly proportional to amount of experience. In some companies a co-joe is just there to take up space and satisfy insurance and/or operational requirements. They are told to shut up and not touch anything.
While in other companies a co-joe does more than half the workload, sometimes flying entire legs by himself while the Captain sleeps off a hangover.
In a perfect world acquiring an ATPL should be on a case by case basis.

[shimmydampner]

The company is going to make the final decision on upgrading someone who has the required qualifications, not transport.

Yes, and quite likely for many operations that decision will be influenced by financial considerations. Sure, your CP might like to have experience up front, but if a company needs say, 3 1900 captains, given the choice are they going to hire 3000 hour King Air 200 captains, or 1500 hour King Air 200 copilots who will happily do the job for a collective $100,000/ year less than the aforementioned group? Do you think the bean counters might try to influence the outcome?

The push to marginalize professional pilots is already on. It is nigh impossible for airlines to cut costs on things like fuel, insurance, maintenance, etc. Pilot salaries however, are more malleable. Lowering the required experience level is a brilliant way to facilitate that. It is not a stretch to see that less experience will demand less compensation. A 1500 hour copilot will happily take his captain's job for a good chunk of change less and still think he's got the world on a string. The bean counters will laugh all the way to the bank about how they suckered the kid into working for less than market value while still making him think he's won the lottery.

It reminds me of a story. Two fellas walk into a bar and find a seat at a table. After a few minutes one walks up to the bartender and proposes a bet. He places a glass at the opposite end of the bar and bets the bartender $500 he can piss across the length of the bar into the glass without so much as one misplaced drop, even offering to clean up if he fails. Anxious to make an easy $500 the bartender accepts. The man drops his drawers and proceeds to urinate wildly completely missing the glass. When he's done, the bartender fist pumps and excitedly takes $500 from the man who is also oddly happy. The bartender asks the man how he can be happy after losing $500 on such an obviously bad bet. "Well," said the man, "I bet my buddy over there $1000 that I could piss all over your bar and you'd be happy about it."

Most of us want to be viewed as skilled professionals performing a job that requires a considerable amount of training, knowledge, and practice (among other things) to be proficient at. Lowering the bar of experience required to hold the highest licence available is highly counterproductive to that end.

[Oliver Close-off]

Right. But the issue being discussed isn't changing the training, development and mentoring of AT pilots. What's being discussed is dropping/significantly reducing existing requirements without concomitant enhancement of any of the others. They're making the license LESS WORK to achieve. Nothing is "different" or "better". Pilots with less experience will now qualify for the license. That's it.

I'm right there with ya.

Whether you are on the side that says that 2:1 is BS because you don't need it in US and because you are an above average pilot that doesn't think the rule should have to apply to you, or if you are on the side that says that 1:1 is BS because "no way pal, I had to make sacrifices in my career instead of taking the 'easy route' (?) and now I know too much to believe that a 1500 hour right seater should have that authority"...

The final word on this thread is going to end up being, "Don't hate the player, hate the game."


...we're just really, really good at hating the player.

[frozen solid]

You guys are twisting words around to form rhetoric:

..."or if you are on the side that says that 1:1 is BS because "no way pal, I had to make sacrifices in my career instead of taking the 'easy route' (?) and now I know too much to believe that a 1500 hour right seater should have that authority"..."

How about the side that says "the responsibility of being in command of an aircraft is a very important learning experience, and therefore time spent in that capacity should be accorded more value than time spent in the capacity of a subordinate crewmember". You keep accusing people of a sour-grapes attitude, where it's equally possible the same people simply believe in standards. Discounting the opinions of people older and more experienced than you is a hallmark of youth and inexperience.

"...But number of hours is not always directly proportional to amount of experience."

But you're arguing that half the amount of experience is now just as good as the previous total? You seem to be forgetting, they're not increasing anything to compensate. They are just proposing to cut in half the amount of co-pilot time required to qualify for the license. How does that correspond to the value of the experience again? It's you co-pilots who are resentful that pilot-in-command time is presently considered to be more valuable. Well, guess what- IT IS!

" In some companies a co-joe is just there to take up space and satisfy insurance and/or operational requirements. They are told to shut up and not touch anything.
While in other companies a co-joe does more than half the workload, sometimes flying entire legs by himself while the Captain sleeps off a hangover."

Oh, balls. You make it sound like co-pilots are some kind of oppressed ethnic group. You're not. You're co-pilots. As in "not Captains". I can't tell you the number of times I've gone out and done most of the work because the co-pilot has been hung-over, or simply can't participate equally because he doesn't have a clue what he's doing. Not to mention having to seize the controls with the reflexes of a rattlesnake in order to keep the ship on the runway or right-side up, on the co-pilot's supposed leg.

The one common thing to all you guys is that when you eventually become Captains you inevitably come back with some kind of comment about not having realised what it was like to be in the left seat while you were trying to figure out how to fly.

You're right, I don't "hate the player". I think the co-pilot's position is very important and also a very appropriate place for someone to start the process of learning the skills and responsibilities it takes to be a top-of-your-game pilot. I just don't happen to agree that, in trying to quantify the value of the average "hour" spent working, that copilots are equipped to understand just how much higher the stakes are for the person in the Captain's chair, and to what greater extent a pilot-in-command, especially in a single-pilot plane or one with a very inexperienced copilot (like one who hasn't enough hours for his ATPL) has to never screw up, ever in order to keep both of your lives from changing forever. It's one of life's great injustices that copilots are seldom aware of how dead they would have been without the skipper being there the last time they screwed up. For a certain amount of time after every co-pilot begins working at his or her first job, the aircraft they are in is actually LESS SAFE with them in it than it would be if they had been left on the ramp. It's actually quite magnanimous on the part of employers and captains alike that your presence in the cockpit is tolerated at all without some requirement that you know what it's like to be all alone in an aeroplane sitting next to a guy who seems to be actively plotting to kill you. It doesn't seem like too much to ask that you either fly a plane by yourself for a certain amount of time, or do double time as a "protege", before qualifying for a higher license.

[rac007]

Wow, sounds like you've had some really bad co-pilots. Just FYI, not everyone is the same. Some pilots (both right AND left seat) are not worth the paper their licence is printed on. While others have an amazing amount of aptitude and skill.

[Doc]

Pilots with less experience will now qualify for the license.

But number of hours is not always directly proportional to amount of experience. In some companies a co-joe is just there to take up space and satisfy insurance and/or operational requirements. They are told to shut up and not touch anything.
While in other companies a co-joe does more than half the workload, sometimes flying entire legs by himself while the Captain sleeps off a hangover.
In a perfect world acquiring an ATPL should be on a case by case basis.

You keep dreaming that dream. The hero copilot to the rescue. An ATPL should be issued only AFTER a pilot requires one to fly a transport category aircraft. Otherwise, there is NO value to the licence.

The days of hung over captains went out before most of you folks were out of grade 6! So have the days of "just sit on your hands there, sonny...."

Having an ATPL so you can fly around in a Navajo is a total joke!

[rac007]

I agree, having an ATPL and flying small aircraft is a joke. Unfortunately that's the insurance regulated world we live in.

[frozen solid]

Don't "FYI" me, laddy-buck! I've made a career out of flying next to brand-new little twerps and I've seen "different levels of aptitude" aplenty. And a brand-new little twerp is exactly the kind of people we're discussing here... the guys who don't meet the time requirement for an ATPL, already stunningly low despite the fact that whole armies of co-pilots think it's too high!

[Doc]

I agree, having an ATPL and flying small aircraft is a joke. Unfortunately that's the insurance regulated world we live in.

Well, if an ATPL didn't exist below the transport aircraft level, the insurance industry would have to reflect this. It's a no brainer.
Slowly now....if the highest licence a pilot could hold to fly the mighty Navajo was the CPL, the CPL would be what the insurance company would require.
I used the have a SCPL. Perhaps we need to bring those back? News Flash: Having an ATPL will not result in increased penis size. It's a piece of paper. Well okay, it's a stupid little booklet.

[Doc]

Don't "FYI" me, laddy-buck! I've made a career out of flying next to brand-new little twerps and I've seen "different levels of aptitude" aplenty. And a brand-new little twerp is exactly the kind of people we're discussing here... the guys who don't meet the time requirement for an ATPL, already stunningly low despite the fact that whole armies of co-pilots think it's too high!

One of your little "twerps" hopefully will be your captain some day. Your attitude towards your subordinates is exactly what we're trying to weed out of the industry.

[Krimson]

It's you co-pilots who are resentful that pilot-in-command time is presently considered to be more valuable. Well, guess what- IT IS!

Nice way to talk to your colleagues.

Guess what. Some people choose to be a co-pilot of a larger machine for a good company where you can be home every day; instead of PIC in a navajo flying around with multiple snags constantly, worked to exhaustion. Why does that mean people need to take your abuse because you're a self-entitled captain? Thankfully there are people out there who do not let it go to their head. Work is work, you need a co-jo. Done. He's not there to rub your ego.

This comes down to the piece of paper, no one is getting upgraded any differently. A piece of paper will not change a thing. But what you are saying is that c172 time is better than right seat of a 1900 for an airline transport licence.

[Nwtflier]

Well as of right now you can't get an ATPL if you do just one or the other(except instructing which is a hot topic that I want no part in discussing) and although the magic numbers for your ATPL are flawed in my opinion, the basic idea is that there is no substitute for PIC time. Unless I'm reading it wrong there will still be the 250 PIC requirement, correct? In that case you will still have to flog around in the mighty 172 or something all the way up to king air/twin otter. I don't see why everyone wants an ATPL at 1500 TT anyways? What would you even do with one? Maybe contrails king air/99 skipper? Even then you'll be WAY short on the hours requirements for the rest of the "matrix". I just don't see the benefit or need.

[frozen solid]

I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying left seat in a B100 or B99 or DHC 6 is. I'm sorry you're feeling insulted, and you're probably right about the C172. Probably better off acquiring time in the right seat of you 1900.

I don't think there is any negative way to take the comment you posted. It's just a fact that in terms of experience, PIC time should and does trump S.I.C. time. I might have sounded insulting to you, but if you want to use the term self-entitled, look no further than the inexperienced pilots who feel entitled to a higher class of license and feel slighted because there are people who don't share their opinion that they are ready. Shimmydampener outlines a perfectly believable scenario in his post. I would rather trust the regulator as well as the companies to decide who is ready for upgrades, rather than just trusting the companies themselves.

I apologise to all the co-pilots I insulted with my comments. The main thrust of my opinion is this: The government is proposing lowering the experience requirement necessary to qualify for an ATPL. I don't believe it's possible for this to increase safety, and I do believe it makes it possible to decrease safety. You don't need an ATPL to be the second-in-command of a large aeroplane, therefore the lowering of the requirement must only be good news to those who feel that they were being held to an unfair standard under the existing system. Maybe it IS unfair when you consider that a 172 pilot is considered to be further along than a 1900 co-pilot. Maybe the whole thing needs to be re-vamped like Doc says to take into account experience on a multi-crew aircraft. But when you start using hung-over captains as a good reason why co-pilots should receive quicker promotions, or trying to argue that time in the right seat of a B100 should be considered at par with time in the left seat of the same plane, you are exposing yourself to some derision, I think.

[shimmydampner]

Guess what. Some people choose to be a co-pilot of a larger machine for a good company where you can be home every day; instead of PIC in a navajo flying around with multiple snags constantly, worked to exhaustion.

As is your right. But you make that choice knowing full well that, as it stands, that time only counts for half. So don't complain or expect requirements to be altered to suit your next career move because you chose not to endure the perceived hardship of gaining command experience in an aircraft or situation that you feel is beneath you or too difficult for you to handle. Doing so reeks of entitlement. You made the bed you're lying in.

[Krimson]

If we are considering the same machine, left seat time is a lot better than right seat time to get hired at another company. If you are happy where you are, then what difference does it make? Pay raise. It will come along with the experience required. The paper will not make a difference one way or another. There is no need to look at co-pilots as "you people", or twerps. We are people doing the same job as you.

Also, the scenario provided by ShimmyDamper is one situation. There are countless others where people start on the ramp and never make it to an airplane and leave to start again somewhere else. 4 years gone.
Or those who make it to co-pilot from the ramp and get 2000 hours in 4 years, still short 1000 hours on their As to slide over to the left seat. Still another 2 years away. Compare that to someone flying floats in a single, gets 1600hours in 2 years and is hired at the same company. After 1 year to build multi time (2100 hours) gets upgraded to captain. Who is ahead now? Works one more year to get 2600 hours and gets hired at AC, meanwhile buddy who started on the ramp has spent an extra 2 years in the industry and is still 1 year away from becoming captain and only dreams of AC. After finally getting the upgrade and some experience in the left seat, AC starts a "cost-cutting" hiring freeze. Once the they start hiring again, he has a baby and now cannot afford the pay cut and has to pass on his dream.

Stories can be written any way, there are so many factors involved. I'd say most of the time the guy who started as a co-pilot of larger machines will be farther behind than someone getting their PIC time elsewhere for their ATPL, because of the 50% rule. I however agree that there should be time required on a 705 machine to require an ATPL and multi-crew hour requirement, but that is not happening, so this rule is for the best for now.

[Krimson]

Guess what. Some people choose to be a co-pilot of a larger machine for a good company where you can be home every day; instead of PIC in a navajo flying around with multiple snags constantly, worked to exhaustion.

As is your right. But you make that choice knowing full well that, as it stands, that time only counts for half. So don't complain or expect requirements to be altered to suit your next career move because you chose not to endure the perceived hardship of gaining command experience in an aircraft or situation that you feel is beneath you or too difficult for you to handle. Doing so reeks of entitlement. You made the bed you're lying in.

I am not complaining. You know what, it would actually be better for me if this rule did not pass. I meet all requirements, less competition. But it is the right thing to do. Co-pilot time should be counted 100%.

[AirMail]

Congrats school kids, reading what you've been debating back and forth on killed what few brain cells I had left, please stop posting.... seriously!

News Flash: Having an ATPL will not result in increased penis size. It's a piece of paper. Well okay, it's a stupid little booklet.

I dunno Doc, some here think otherwise.

Fact: There is always going to be good and bad pilots. Bad pilots who get their atpl and go left seat. Good pilots getting stuck in the right seat. No matter if the requirements are 100 hrs or 10,000 hrs, there will always be bad pilots in the left seat.

The other purpose to the ICAO standardization purposal was for the medicals. Yes most companies pay for em, but it sure as hell is nice not having to go twice a year! Some of you dingleberries should consider the purposal is a benefit for more pilots than not, and again, atpl requirements doesn't stop bad pilots from going left seat... fudge...

Now lets make a 2 page debate on my post please, with quotes and multi quotes, because there hasn't been enough bad posting.

[shimmydampner]

We are people doing the same job as you.

But, you're not. You are not in command. There is a hierarchy. The guy at the top sits in the left seat, is in command of the aircraft and crew and bears the ultimate burden of responsibility. The guy below him sits in the right seat, is not in command of the aircraft and crew and does not bear the ultimate burden of responsibility. The fact that the crew structure is not egalitarian seems to be eluding you.

[Colonel Sanders]

We are people doing the same job as you

You're kidding, right? You really don't understand what PIC
is - because you've never logged any - yet you want your
right seat time to be counted equally?

Oh wow.

[complexintentions]

Command experience is one of those things that until you gain it, you just don't understand it. And even then yes, there are some knobs who still don't...

It isn't about being smarter or better or whatever. It's solely about responsibility. When you're an FO and you get into a tense situation operationally, you look over to your left and there's someone you can rely on to make the correct decision or use his (hopefully) higher experience level to sort things out.

When you're the captain and you get into a tense situation and you look over to your left all you see is your reflection in the window.

Yes, I simplify. Of course the FO in a proper operation is an invaluable asset, and in my "tense situation" may very well be the one with the solution - which it is my job to utilize! But that doesn't change the fact that it will be my name signed in the aircraft logbook.

I get paid more than the FO not because I'm smarter but because when I screw up, it's my responsibility. And when he/she screws up, it's also my responsibility.

Licensing takes this reality into account by acknowledging that having the final responsibility for a flight is more valuable than not. I do not think this is unreasonable.

I don't think they should touch the 50% rule. Having spent time in both seats, I categorically reject that SIC time equals PIC because you're "doing the same job". If its about streamlining with ICAO then I presume they're also going to bring in frozen ATPL's? (*sarcasm*)

But perhaps a closer examination of what should constitute valid command time towards an ATPL is in order. There IS a slight absurdity that the highest license in Canada can be obtained by simply accumulating enough hours in the most basic trainer in Canada. That is not a shot at those who obtained their license that way, but at the system itself. Before the more sensitive in the crowd start crying again about their instructor time.