Flight Training - March/April 2020 - 48

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FOR PILOTS.

ADVANCED PILOT CAREER PILOT

TRAINING TRAVAILS
WHY ARE SOME NEW HIRES STRUGGLING?
BY PETER A. BEDELL

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THE PILOT SHORTAGE has brought a

demand for pilots not seen in my lifetime.
But with the demand comes a lowering
of hiring standards. Regional airlines
and fractional-ownership companies are
no longer choosing the best 25 of 500
candidates, for example. They need to hire
almost all the applicants who meet the
minimums to keep up with the demand to
put butts in cockpit seats. Naturally, this
means that the training departments are
seeing more students challenged, some
to the point of washing out of training
altogether.
I spoke with many pilots who had
just completed training at regional or
major airlines. All of them wished to
remain anonymous to protect their
careers. Many of my sources witnessed
other pilots who struggled to get
through at least one aspect of training.
A new-hire pilot at a major cargo airline
witnessed her classmate, a former Air
National Guard F-16 pilot, struggle with
the automation and vertical navigation
(VNAV). He also had some issues with
regulations, telling her, "There are all
48 FLIGHT TRAINING MARCH/APRIL 2020

kinds of FAA regulations that we don't
know very well because they rarely apply
to us." Military pilots often have training
issues since fighter pilots, for example,
have never been exposed to crew operations and often are challenged by civilian
ATC communications.
"I can honestly say the transition
was harder than I thought it was going
to be," said a new hire at a regional
airline whose background was strictly
Part 61 general aviation flying. For him,
the transition to glass was a challenge.
In the Beechcraft Baron he previously
flew, a quick glance of needle position
told him everything he needed to know.
"With glass, you need to read, ingest, and
understand. It's information overload.
Suddenly, I had to search for information and also had an airplane yelling
at me, 'traffic, traffic.' Being that overloaded, I wasn't learning."
After locking himself in a hotel room
to study and watch instructional videos,
he was able to plod through the transition, albeit with a few extra simulator
sessions for which he was very apprecia-

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Flight Training - March/April 2020

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