AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 20

PROFICIENT PILOT

CFIs MIA

BY BARRY SCHIFF

Could retiring airline pilots fill a training void?

BARRY SCHIFF

also authors the
popular quiz, "Test
Pilot," which he
introduced in 1994
and for which he
has thus far developed 3,486 challenging questions.

20 | AOPA PILOT August 2018

THROUGHOUT MY CAREER there have been several
threats of a pilot shortage. None ever materialized.
Until now, that is. For the first time, there really does
appear to be a shortage. The major airlines are siphoning candidates from regional carriers at a startling rate,
and the regionals are finally having to pay pilots what
they're worth. Starvation wages are becoming a thing
of the past.
The demand for pilots is increasing for two reasons.
Increasingly more pilots are reaching the mandatory
retirement age of 65, and the airlines are expanding their
fleets. There is, however, a third reason for the shortage.
In 2013, the FAA substantially increased the minimum
requirements to qualify as a first officer (co-pilot) on
a U.S. air carrier. This was partially in response to the
crash of Colgan Air Flight 3407 near Buffalo, New York,
in 2009 (the last fatal crash of a U.S. airliner). Instead of
needing as little as a commercial pilot certificate with
only 250 hours logged, new applicants now must have
an airline transport pilot certificate (ATP) and a minimum of 1,500 hours (with exceptions).
As someone retained to conduct an in-depth study of
the performance and backgrounds of the pilots involved
in the Colgan crash, I can state emphatically that these
increased requirements would not have helped to prevent
the Colgan accident. This tragedy was not caused by a lack
of experience. It was caused by incompetence. The captain
was incompetent, as was the airline for having hired and
retained him. His record of failures was alarming.
As a matter of fact, I cannot think of any U.S. air
carrier accident in the jet age that would have been prevented had these increased requirements been in effect.
Nevertheless, they are contributing to the pilot shortage
because they discourage many who cannot afford the
substantially increased cost of obtaining the required
training and flight hours.
Perhaps the most popular and expeditious way to
build flight time is to work as a flight instructor. In some
cases-and perhaps many more than we realize-flight
instructors eyeing an airline career perform a disservice to their students because they are not as dedicated
to the business of flight instructing as they should be,
thus shortchanging their students. And when these usually young CFIs obtain the necessary flight time, they're
spring-loaded to jump off to the big leagues, thus leaving
their students and flight schools high and dry. The result
is an increasing shortage of flight instructors.

There is, however, a large pool of potential instructors that could be tapped. These are the thousands of
airline captains forced to retire at age 65. Many of them
miss flying and would consider returning to the game.
Think about it. Wouldn't you love to obtain instrument training, for example, from someone who has been
there, someone with tens of thousands of hours who
has actually flown through blizzards, shot approaches
in pea soup fog to Cat III minimums, coped with frontal
systems of all sizes and shapes, and knew all the while
how to do it safely? Wouldn't you love to tap the wisdom of such a pro?
The industry-perhaps with FAA assistance-
might consider developing a recruitment program
to convert some of these professionals into flight
instructors (particularly those with general aviation backgrounds). It would be important, I think,
to incentivize them by creating a more direct and
less tortuous route to the flight instructor certificate. After all, these people are already experienced
instructors because of having spent decades instructing and coaching their first officers. (Yeah, I know.
Not all airline captains are good instructors. I could
tell you some horror stories along those lines, but that
is a column for another day.)
Such "senior" instructors have so much to share, and
they could provide their students with more meaningful experiences.
In the meantime, there currently are many instrument flight instructors (CFIIs) who have never even
been in actual IFR conditions. Seriously. Many of them
were trained at desert airports in the Southwest, for
example, and don't even know what a cloud looks like.
I'm obviously exaggerating, but when weather moves
into these desert areas, you don't want to be in a small
airplane. Conditions can change from beautiful to violent in a flash. There is rarely a benign layer of stratus
there to practice actual arrivals and departures. You'd
also be surprised how many instrument ratings and ATP
certificates are issued to pilots who have never been in
actual conditions.
One of the most frightening experiences a new
instrument pilot can have is penetrating weather and
shooting an approach for the first time and when alone.
It's spooky. Training from a retired airline captain could
ameliorate that.
AOPA
www.barryschiff.com


http://www.barryschiff.com

AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018

Contents
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - Intro
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - Cover1
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - Cover2
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - Contents
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 2
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 3
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 4
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 5
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 6
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 7
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 8
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 9
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 10
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 11
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 12
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 13
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 14
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 16
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 17
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 18
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 19
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 20
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 21
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 22
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 23
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 25
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 26
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 29
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 30
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 33
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 34
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 40
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 42
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 43
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 45
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 46
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 47
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 48
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - R-1
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - R-2
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - R-3
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - R-4
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - R-5
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - R-6
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - R-7
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - R-8
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 49
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 50
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 51
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 52
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - Cover3
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - Cover4
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