commercial pilot shortage coming?

To begin with, while I will usually give the edge to the military guy, it is due more to the training, and not the quality of the 1500 hours. That said, the quality of those 1500 hours is going to go down because of this stupid new rule. Now, every one of those 1500 hours will likely be, as you say, instructing and most of it in single engine. Now instructing is valuable experience, but I'd rather have a guy coming up on 1500 hours and his ATP with 500-700 hours flying in a twin turbine commuter in a variety of weather and terminal areas mentored by a competent captain. As has been said else where on this forum in the past. Generally, the civil route is just different. In my personal experience I see very little difference between the two routes by the time they get to the bigs. As for the minor leagues, you aren't seeing many military guys there anyway so there is no comparison. Although I was hired 20 years ago, you rarely saw civil and military 1500 hour guys competing for the same job. What I saw was nearly a 1000 hour premium required of most civilians. Military with 1200-1500 hours and civilian guys with 2500-3000. That extra 800-1000 hours was spent flying for a small airline learning how airlines work or some heavier iron in the world of cats and dogs. Either way, it wasn't the boat, it ws the very environment they were going to fly in as an airline pilot. The old way worked just fine. ALPA pushed congress into this ruling because of one high profile accident that had little to do with the co pilots total time and a lot to do with the training of the captain and the trainers and mangers at Colgan that let him slip through.

As long as we are talking about training and experience, consider this. Most pilots at foreign airlines come from intense military style ab initio training programs run by the airline itself. They learn their airline's procedures and policies from day one. In the end they are flying copilot on a B737 or A319 with barely 500 hours. That is not so different than a nugget pilot in the Navy. With the exception of some Asian countries where culture is not condusive to good CRM or mentoring, the safety records of companies that use ab initio training is very good. That is why I say it is more about the training. Military pilots get paid to do far more than just fly from point A to point B. That makes their job more challenging and in the end, perhaps better stick and rudder guys. An airline pilots ONLY job is moving from point A to point B. We don't get paid for putting bombs on target, shutting down an IAD or putting a sling load down on the deck of a pitching ship. Airline pilots are paid solely for their judgment. Smooth landings mean nothing but bragging rights. On time performance is virtually out of the flight crews hands these days. Airline pilots are paid to decide whether or not to make the approach into weather, where he should divert, if the police need to meet the airplane on arrival, what to do with the suspicious device found in the lav, whether to land short of a destination because of a sick passenger, how to deal with the flight attendant cat fight, etc. Absolutely non of that has anything to do with monkey skills. I dare say, the judgement of NFOs have saved many an aircrew and they are not even pilots. Do military guys have the requisite judgment to do the job, certainly. But so do most civilian sourced guys that may have had to deal with the same sort of problems before they went to United. Judgment is exclusive of flight time. Experience can certainly inform judgment, but it is not necessary and experiences can be shared. That is why having a mix a guys in the airline, civilian from commuters, air farce heavy guys, civilians from third tier overseas freight operations, Navy tacair and even army helo drivers is so important.

In the Colgan mishap the weather sucked and procedures and known techniques were not followed. How many hours does it take to know the weather was bad, and the approach wasn't being flown accurately or procedure were not being followed? The co-pilot had all the experience she needed to know those things. She lacked judgment and assertiveness. The Captain was even more handicapped. In any case, it had nothing to do with hours. It is about judgment. Whether military or civilian, some guys some times make a bad judgment call. That is when safety is compromised. Not when a 1800 hour civilian sourced pilot steps onto the flight deck.

You are not going to get this tacair NFO to argue that Navy tacair pilots have not honed a certain pilot skill to near perfection. But honestly, until airlines are landing airliners on a CV (I have landed a MD-80 on the boat in the sim, it will do it), it is a skill set not needed. May as well argue that I want an airline pilot that is an accomplished glider pilot in case he runs out of fuel. At least in that case, we have two actual mishaps where glider flying proved valuable experience for the pilot. If anyone's comfort level with an airline pilot is based on whether or not he was a military pilot, let alone Navy, you might want to validate that with mishap pilot statistics.

I wouldn't use the Colgan pilot's comment that she had never seen ice before like she was witnessing that evening as an indictmentof her experience level leaving her unprepared. Very few military guys, especially tacair guys, would have seen ice like that in their two fleet tours. Does that make them too inexperienced to fly a twin turbo prop commuter in the northeast? I think we can agree that judgment is vital to safe aviating We must also agree that even military guys have lapses in judgment that compromise the safety of their flights. If I had a choice between two guys with equal hours I would rather a civilian trained guy with superior judgment over a military guy with spotty judgment and a cavalier attitude flying my family.

May I submit that a bunch of military pilots answering the question,"Is military flight experience important?" is like having a bunch of monkeys discuss the merits of throwing poo. Of course they're going to be pro-shit throwing. Actually, both those groups are likely in favor of that, now that I think of it.

HAL Pilot nails it! "Military flying =/= civilian flying."

I should have been alerted when as a new hire at CAL, when a former Blue Angel busted his upgrade from FE to F/O, 2 or 3 times. They almost fired him because they thought he 'could not fly'.

From my experience, even though I was concurrently flying F-14s in the Reserves, my B-737 major airline IOE instructor pilot doubted my flying experience, I was so bad. Never mind the V-1 cut NATOPS procedures for the F-14 would crash a B-737...as I found out in the sim more times than I care to remember.

Airline flying is totally different, and it takes some adjustment. It took me awhile, but I got it, finally. And later, I became an expert. But that did not happen overnight, despite even my sterling Naval Aviator, TOPGUN, and Boat experience.

I saw similar things with new F/Os, the former military guys making mistakes the ragged and younger commuter pilot would never make. But as one might expect, with some experience, the former military guys eventually excelled, not only in piloting skills, but also in command skills, company skills, union skills, people skills, CRM skills, PR, etc. Many civilian guys excelled too, but not nearly as well or as often as former Naval Aviators. Naval Aviators were not screened, nor accepted nor winged as Naval Aviators for nothing. And when they change jobs, just expect some adjustment before they shine again.

Totally agree. I think all but one of the Company Chief Pilots ( a VP posting) I have had over the last 20 years at what was once (alas) the biggest airline in the world was a military guy. The very best, in my estimation, was a Navy VF alum. I think all of the chief pilots at my crew base have been military, including a VS guy who was a RAG classmate. As Cat said, somewhat true for our union, including some guys that worked either before or after in the chief pilot's office. That may seem odd as Kbay's question suggests. One has to wonder how a bunch of generally conservative independent minded individuals with management experience, who eat and and breath personal responsibility and merit, would end up as baseball bat wielding union thugs working for a COLLECTIVE. Fallonflyr's answer is not completely satisfying.

Sure. Former military pilots transitioning to commercial airlines are not as a group know to be, "pro-union." But that changes rapidly. Not only do they mostly become favorable to their pilot's union, but also they often become intimately involved in their pilots' union organization and activity.

Be it at the local or national level, pilots "associations" (unions) are a complex and multi faceted organizations. To function adequately, they require a diverse and multitude of skills for success – negotiatiating, scheduling, health & insurance, administration, incident investigation, finance, budgeting, public relations, flight operations, safety, etc.

Because of their normally more extensive education and organizational experience in addition to their flying skills, former military officers are an excellent match for union work. And many - often to their own surprise - not only seek it out, but they also enjoy it. And they are very good at it!

It can be quite a thrill to negotiate a contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars, or to represent a fellow pilot who is seriously in need. In most all cases you work for the common good and betterment of both the airline and the pilot you represent. And in those more rare but very difficult situations, you need a trained warrior who possesses the skill and integrity to do battle with a devious or intransigent, bean counting management.

Anecdote: My early flight instructor in the RAG later became the Air Line Pilot Association's (ALPA) Chairman at his airline. Later he became Executive VP for the international union. We met at the Washington DC ALPA headquarters years later, swapping old sea stories. We also celebrated his promotion to Rear Admiral in the Naval Reserve!