For STONE and QB

[Kip Powick]

STONE SAID….I have also found that the ex-military guys are rough on the controls and bring an attitude with them. Also, what high density airports do the military operate into?

So in your vast experience in the aviation world you like to make a blanket statement that Military pilots are rough on the controls, have an attitude problem and, in your ignorance, don’t even know where Military aircraft operate. Without giving you a lecture on manners and respect I would suggest you retract your statement and apologize to all the Military pilots who are now working for airlines, those same pilots who have had weapons fired at them, have done dangerous humanitarian flights into areas of combat, flew missions in woxof wx during SAR missions etc. Naturally you have forgotten those that gave their life while fulfilling their obligation to their country,

Your posting is an insult to every military pilot still flying as well as those that have done their “final” flight..

QB SAID……But to an airline the main advantage of hiring an army guy is, they come with a pension. They're perfectly happy to take the low wage and there's enough of them that the companies can keep the pay low and still fill the seats which is unfair to the civilian guy working his way up. C3 used to do this. I suppose I can live with the boring herc stories, the guffawing at unfunny jokes, and endless acronyms but the real problem is what they do to the industry's wages.

What a load of crap. I joined WD in 1988 and took a $20,000.00 pay drop to fly an A310. It just amazes me how little you know about the Military and how little thought you have given to your comments. At times, one is predisposed to consider that the source of SOME these erroneous thoughts are from individuals who attempted to get in the Military and were refused entrance. Funny, all the time I have been a member of AEF I have NEVER seen a Military pilot bad mouthing a “civy” pilot. Perhaps those guys that tell the boring Herc stories and guffaw at all the unfunny jokes have a little more class than SOME of the more embryonic civy pilots..

but then again that is just my opinion.

[Guest Stone]

Jeez Kip, reading your post brought a tear to my eye. I was almost ready to stand at attention with my hand over my heart.

Anyway, my post that you allude to was directed to bigbigbus, not you. He responded to me, I responded to him. He infered that military pilots were better than civilian, I indicated to him that my opinion was different.

Feel free to join in the discussion, but skip the lecture.

Stone

[Guest bigbigbus]

I said I would take a 3000 hr mil over 5000 hr civ.Did not say anything about being better.

[Guest Stone]

Taking a 3000 hour pilot vs a 5000 hour pilot implies to me that you feel the 3000 hour pilot is better even though he/she has less experience. If that is not your intention then I must have read too much into your statement.

[Guest MikePapaKIlo]

Hmmm, 3,000 or 5,000 hours. 20,0000 or 30,000 ? In my experience, the hours don't matter much beyond finding a line in the sand upon which to base who or how many you want to interview. That applies to both career paths.

There's an old saw somewhere that refers to whether one has a 5,000 hour CAREER Experience, or 5,000 individual (and perhaps repetitive experiences). This is why we have gone to behaviour attitude interviews rather than relying upon how may hours in what type of aircraft, how many type ratings or placing an undue attention upon how many high density airports one has flown to, as a f'rinstance.

Nowdays, compared to the days of yore, we hire the person, not the logbook, so it does not matter whether the person is civilian or military lineage. I once worked for a light colonel whose logged time was all in the CF training systems. He never flew an aircraft larger than the Tutor, and managed to get ultimately make full colonel. His flight experience was 4500 trips in training aircraft, so his hours looked good, but his actual flying experience was minimal. Hell of an administrator though, and a pretty nice guy.

Somedays an outfit could be better off to hire the 3,500 hour guy, and let the 10K guy keep looking.

Then again, I suppose it all depends where your viewing the game from. Are you the interviewer or are you hoping to be the interviewee ?

[groundeffect]

Well said mpk. I remember something a high school teacher told me once;
'Some teachers have taught for 12 years, others have taught 1 year 12 times'
Attitude is everything imo.
cheers

[Guest Marion Vanderlubbe]

This seems like a really stupid argument, crossing the streams and all that. That said, if the question is who is more qualified, how do you answer that until you determine what "qualified" is? What standard are you using to measure that: CRM; greaser landings; TOT? How many wide-body airline crews fly on NODs; employ retrograde manoeuvres; train for threat reaction? Any airline Captains out there ever have their brother jump off the ramp to parachute into an arctic storm at night?

Stone wondered about high-density airports. Launching 70 aircraft in 30 minutes without a single radio call is a fairly intense evolution. Prince Sultan during Desert Storm was the busiest airfield in the world. The sortie rate at Aviano in early 99 put any civilian field to shame. Have a look at the movements out of SJ during Enduring Freedom. Funny, that lack of "high-density" experience doesn't hamper their ability to fit little single-engine jobbos among eight-motor ones on the UNCONTROLLED Red Flag ramp. If the most significant emotional experience you've had in an airplane is an instrument procedure into a high-density airport, I think you've had it easy.

MPK says that a pilot with 4500 hours in nothing bigger than a Tutor has minimal flight experience. In those 4500 hrs, in a bird without much endurance, how many cycles do you suppose he flew, esp with the usual round of closed patterns? There's a theory that you learn more from the debrief than the flight, how many times do you think he did that? Driving a short-legged single-engine jet with fairly primitive instruments around in weather, you don't think that takes a certain amount of skill? How much multi-heavy time did Yeager, Hoover, Gabreski, Cole, Zemke, Rutan, LeVier, Gibson, Olds, Hartmann, St-Expery, Rudel, Buerling, Boyington, Galland, Sakai, Kozedub, Scott, Cunningham, Snir et al have? These are my heroes, but if a number is all that matters, most or all would have MPK's "minimal experience." It's a matter of quality, not quantity, Stalin not withstanding.

But what difference does it make? Different standards, different objectives, different criteria. So, again, how do say who is more "qualified?"

[Guest Marion Vanderlubbe]

Stef Demers, a Sea-Pig pilot, wrote an article that if I remember correctly was published in a recent article of Helicopter, sister pub to Wings. He articulated the differences between mil and civi pilots in a much better and more diplomatic way than I could. If those following this thread can find it, it might end the whole argument.

[Guest Marion Vanderlubbe]

The link, at least when I hit it, only gives a bit of the article, an abstract as it were. The body gives a very balanced view of the situation. Stef left the CF for awhile, decided to come back giving up a rank in the process. Maybe he wasn't happy with long hair, taking drugs and voting NDP, maybe his perspective as a SAR rotortete isn't relevant to the widebody perps here, but I've worked with him and always found Corax to be one without bias in any way, shape or form. He's not here, he's in the Gulf, I can't speak for him but if you're accusing him of a bias you have made yourself an enemy.

[Guest Marion Vanderlubbe]

Piss on polite. Try reading the entire article, if it's not too much trouble, before you condemn him for having "a bias."

We don't fight for King and Country, nor for Truth, Duty and Valour. We fight for our friends, our squad, our company, our Regiment. Corax has spent more than half the last year in the GOO protecting our sorry asses. He's not here to tell you to stuff your "bias," and knowing him I imagine he wont be at all upset that I have.

Friends of my enemy, enemy of my friends, and all that...

[Guest Marion Vanderlubbe]

Piss on polite. Try reading the entire article, if it's not too much trouble, before you condemn him for having "a bias."

We don't fight for King and Country, nor for Truth, Duty and Valour. We fight for our friends, our squad, our company, our Regiment. Corax has spent more than half the last year in the GOO protecting our sorry asses. He's not here to tell you to stuff your "bias," and knowing him I imagine he won't be at all upset that I have.

Friends of my enemy, enemy of my friends, and all that...

[Guest Rob Assaf]

you sent for me?

Sorry, just trying to lighten things up a little on this thread.

I'm not military trained myself. Take out the personality factor (10% of any group will be a$$holes) and just looking at the flying and related skills aspect of a military pilot.

Military flights are really all training flights, tight budgets in the CAF dictate squeezing out every last drop of value from a flight of any kind. This has already been beat to death below.

Military pilots have other "usefull" skills that they've aquired while serving. High altitude indoc, French speaking (now that I fly to Quebec and overnight there on occasion, I appreciate someone with the skill to get me a beer and a burger, I'm pretty much lost in the language dept!), they also pick up other useful skills such as being trained as flight safety officers, accident investigators, TRAINED as instructors, etc. Somehow I think possible employers might value some of these skills, especially at airlines where people are expected to multi task, unions also benefit from having these skilled people to fill committee roles.

I never saw a simulator til I got hired at airBC, I suspect most don't. Mil guys do.

No glass cockpit time in the military? I just got onto EFIS myself recently at age 42, not a huge leap for me and I'm an average guy. Also, the photos of all those cool all glass flight decks still have a small "mechanical" horizon and compass card. If the chips were down, I'd probably appreciate someone who had some experience using them.

Personally, I know I've probably flown with more civi trained than mil trained pilots but I can honestly say while I've seen some "interesting" decision making from some civi trained pilots, I can't say the same about mil pilots. On the whole they seem to be a pretty sharp bunch.

Airlines draw a line to start looking at resumes just because of the huge amount they would have to look at otherwise, do they miss some gems with lower hours than the min? You bet, they also miss some civi gems too, but the manpower to sift through all that paper would be huge as well.

While I've probably now drawn the ire of the anti mil crowd, I'd like to point out that it's not how many hours you have but how you got them, whether civi or mil. So YES, 3000 mil MIGHT beat 5000 civil.

Course I could be wrong, it's just my opinion