J.O.

3 hours ago, Trader said:

The biggest danger, in my opinion, is having a situation where you upgrade a relatively inexperienced FO into the left seat and have them fly with a very inexperienced FO. That is the situation that will soon rear its head for many companies and is the one that has to be avoided.

It’s already happening in some places. 

... and the ones in the right seat along side those DECs will grumble that someone is sitting in their chair. 

I know a couple of school principals who have transferred into another jurisdiction at the same job level.

He can go pound sand. 

6 hours ago, Malcolm said:

I quite agree with you Kip but I don't think "common sense" or reality have anything to do with our current government's decisions. 

From my experience, that disability is not isolated to the current one. 

Gee, which one makes money from the operation, TC, or the operator? It’s not like aviation is the only business where companies are held accountable. Quite frankly I’m tired of our industry blaming its faults on someone else. It’s time to put our big boy pants on and accept responsibility for the good and the bad.

19 hours ago, blues deville said:

but after 40 years of flying airplanes for a living and knowing what I know can happen to the best laid plan there’s no way I will ever be a passenger in a pilotless aircraft. 

I won’t say never, but the only way I’d do it would be if the remote pilot was strapped to an electric chair that administered the appropriate “feedback” based on the success of the flight. 

Skin in the game folks. Skin in the game.

When I questioned a certain MEC chair on that subject, his snide response was, "Screw them. I'm not going to negotiate for someone who isn't here yet". When I replied that some day in the future, his own pension could be threatened by the company's inability to crew their operation due to a shortage of people, he laughed and called me naive. 

The “operations control” tag is a fairly broad brush. It can mean anything from the management team itself to their supporting processes like dispatch, weight and balance, flight planning and such. The devil is in the details which have not been shared publicly. 

Initial reports saying it was a Westwind Aviation aircraft. The only aircraft in their fleet that would carry that many people is the ATR 42

https://globalnews.ca/news/3916092/multiple-injuries-in-plane-crash-near-fond-du-lac-sask/

I believe that the VTOL capability is an option - and indeed it is an option Canada doesn't need. But if you talk to the front line guys, they'll tell you there's no other choice than the F35 if we want to modernize our capabilities. The Super Hornet just isn't in the same atmosphere.

Malcolm, FYI there should be a prompt to "remove formatting" when you paste text from another source. Makes it look a little cleaner.

Typically, the quoted news story missed a key point. The insulation is not in the fuel tanks. There are avionics cooling lines that are routed through the fuel tanks. The faulty insulation is inside those lines. Not all aircraft have the faulty lines installed. They came from one subcontractor, more than one is supplying the cooling lines. 

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/16/politics/us-air-force-grounds-f-35/

To be clear and despite all the hype, the F35 is working and is deployed in an operational role.

Not surprisingly, if you talk to the pilots who fly them, they'll tell you it's no contest. If you're going to buy the Super Hornet, you may as well keep the cash and put it toward keeping the original F18s in the air. Otherwise, the F35 is the future.

And if the author of those requirements has a political reason to ensure that the F35 is not excluded, then a requirement for two engines will not be on the list.

On ‎2016‎-‎07‎-‎07 at 4:39 AM, boestar said:

Build the requirements list for the new aircraft.  Test multiple aircraft against the requirements list.  pick the aircraft that meets the requirements.  If one of our requirements is a twin engine fighter then the F-35 immediately does not make the cut.  Pretty simple in my book.

Are you familiar with the term "predetermined outcome"?

On another the forum, the anti-Airbus / anti-France conspiracy nuts are well engaged in rants on how they're working together to bury the "real" story.

34 minutes ago, DEFCON said:

FOX News is reporting that a message had been previously spray painted on this aircraft by person(s) unknown in Arabic, which advised that this particular aircraft  would be taken down.

Providing more fodder for Trump's insane ramblings.

How can you tell when O'Leary is lying? His lips are moving. He needs to say that to continue justifying the indentured service that is a flying job with Ryanair. I'd rather walk.

Seeking 500 pilots a year, PSA Airlines sweetens the pot

PSA Airlines Inc. has announced another strategy to attract more pilots as it now needs to hire 500 per year over the next few years.

The Dayton-based company will offer a $20,000 retention bonus to active first officers beginning this month, to be paid in quarterly installments over two years or until they upgrade to captain. PSA also is instituting a $250 monthly allowance for pilots to offset the cost of commuting hotel expenses.

This marks the latest hiring strategy of PSA, the only commercial passenger airline headquartered in Ohio and one of the fastest growing in the business. The regional carrier of American Airlines (NYSE: AAL) began offering a $5,000 sign-on bonus for all new pilots hired in 2016.

The retention strategy comes as PSA looks to boost employment as its fleet rapidly grows on orders from its parent company. PSA also has an agreement that allows pilots career advancement into American Airlines, another factor contributing to its need to recruit new talent.

PSA is headquartered in Dayton with major operations here including 920 local jobs, according to the 2015-2016 DBJ Book of Lists. The company has been growing thanks to an order by its parent company that will mean it operates 150 Bombardier aircraft over the next two years. It currently has 106 Bombardier passenger aircraft in its fleet.

The carrier has grown significantly including upping its number of local employees from 600 a few years ago. PSA also has started on a new $14 million maintenance hangar at the Dayton International Airport, which will double the number of aircraft it keeps in Dayton overnight. Last month it held a job fair to fill another 70 jobs to help crew in that hangar.

Overall, PSA has nearly 2,400 employees and operates 700 daily flights to 90 destinations. It has flight crew bases in Dayton, Cincinnati, Knoxville, Tenn. and Charlotte, N.C. It also has maintenance facilities in Dayton, Canton, Cincinnati and Charlotte.

http://www.bizjournals.com/dayton/news/2016/05/09/seeking-500-pilots-a-year-psa-airlines-sweetens.html

I applaud Jazz for being very forward thinking. When demand outweighs supply it's always in your favour to have an inside line to new resources. 

It's a very effective program and not everyone graduates. 

It's funny how some things really matter, like the age of physical incompetence, until commercial interests decide they don't.

Hmm. I've never seen it phrased quite that way before. If age were the only benchmark of competence (or a lack thereof), the life of a check pilot would be soooo much easier. We've all seen folks on the downward side of the birthday counter who were still as sharp as a tack and young folks who didn't belong in an airplane. My concern is that there's been nary a whisper from the folks in charge of administering aviation medicals as to how the implications of an increasing pilot age range will affect medical assessments.

Japan just raised their mandatory retirement age to 67 because of the implication of pilot shortages. It may be a pinky-sized Band-Aid on a severed jugular, but I suspect they are first of what will be many countries to do the same thing.