Official Aviation Thread...

[E30_Pare]

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[E30_Pare]

Heres an sr-71 bending light



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[BlackbirdM3]

Is that with general admission ticket? What' the deal on that? Do tell. Plan on taking the little lady this summer.

Yep, its sitting down on the floor near the M21. There is also the cockpit of an F-18 there as well. They might have the B-29 on display later this year as well. its currently sitting in a type of shrink wrap to keep things all water tight. They also have a Concord and a few other interesting things.

Will

[george graves]

Soooo. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370? 200+ Any theories? Auto pilot into the ground?

Sad....yet not even wreckage showing up.

If it was a water/ocean crash, there is usually the bit of foam, and the tail section that ends up intackted.

[mulletman]

I don't have any theories with any sort of evidence. Wait and see, I suppose.



In other news, an airline I may or may not be associated with has been canceling quite a few flights due to a lack of pilots.

There's no shortage of pilots, just a shortage of pilot jobs worth applying to.

[henryki]

If I could right now I would honestly take any pilot job just to gain any kind of experience. 2 -3 more years till I graduate...

[flyboyx]

I don't have any theories with any sort of evidence. Wait and see, I suppose.



In other news, an airline I may or may not be associated with has been canceling quite a few flights due to a lack of pilots.

There's no shortage of pilots, just a shortage of pilot jobs worth applying to.

hmmmm.......at a certain professional level, there is a huge shortage of pilots right now and it is only going to get worse. for a long time, there were almost no american pilots in the pipeline. from about 2008 to 2012 or so, it was impossible to get a financial loan to cover flight training. combine this with new legislation that says airlines must only hire pilots with atp minimums, this equals a big shortage. there are many more positions available at the regional level then pilots to fill them. the majors aren't having any problems right now, but there are plenty of pilots at the regional level that are willing to fill them. this leaves the regionals in a lurch.

[mulletman]

hmmmm.......at a certain professional level, there is a huge shortage of pilots right now and it is only going to get worse. for a long time, there were almost no american pilots in the pipeline. from about 2008 to 2012 or so, it was impossible to get a financial loan to cover flight training. combine this with new legislation that says airlines must only hire pilots with atp minimums, this equals a big shortage. there are many more positions available at the regional level then pilots to fill them. the majors aren't having any problems right now, but there are plenty of pilots at the regional level that are willing to fill them. this leaves the regionals in a lurch.

And I love it so much. I'm going to have a beer and a victory cigar every time a regional dies. They are a plague that needs to be eradicated.

If I could right now I would honestly take any pilot job just to gain any kind of experience. 2 -3 more years till I graduate...

Not to pick on you, as heaven knows all pilots were once young and enthusiastic.... But this type of attitude is precisely the reason that compensation is in the shitter. Value yourself, even as a low-time guy. You don't have any less responsibility than a guy with a few thousand hours, so you should be paid accordingly.

[henryki]

True true. Me still being in college tho makes me super anxious and want to fly for money instead it just flight training. Don't get me wrong I love every minute I'm up in the air but I wish I could get paid to do it! All in all I know that I have my entire life ahead of me to fly for pay and I should focus more on what's going on right now. But excitement can take over good judgement!

[henryki]

[flyboyx]

And I love it so much. I'm going to have a beer and a victory cigar every time a regional dies. They are a plague that needs to be eradicated.

this confuses me. don't you work for a regional? i don't think killing them off is the answer. the problem is that airlines like mesa and republic are willing to do regional flying for less than it costs to do it. then the complain that they can't make enough money doing the flying they underbid in the first place. once we get this anomaly solved, the regionals will be going through the "renaissance" the majors have gone through with the delta and united contracts that were recently agreed to. the entry level portion of the industry needs repair for sure. fortunately, some of the regionals have voted down their contracts. hopefully this is the beginning of the light at the end of the tunnel.

[mulletman]

this confuses me. don't you work for a regional? i don't think killing them off is the answer. the problem is that airlines like mesa and republic are willing to do regional flying for less than it costs to do it. then the complain that they can't make enough money doing the flying they underbid in the first place. once we get this anomaly solved, the regionals will be going through the "renaissance" the majors have gone through with the delta and united contracts that were recently agreed to. the entry level portion of the industry needs repair for sure. fortunately, some of the regionals have voted down their contracts. hopefully this is the beginning of the light at the end of the tunnel.

I do work for a regional. In my opinion, I don't see any difference between a "regional" or a "mainline" airplane. An airplane is an airplane, and pilots are pilots. If Delta wants a 70-seat jet operated in their colors, then Delta Air Lines pilots should be doing the operating. If Alaska wants some Dash-8 service, then hire some pilots to Alaska Airlines, and buy some airplanes. A CRJ/ERJ/Dash should simply be the junior airplane at a mainline company. When you become senior enough, bid out to a Boeing or Airbus product. I remember mainline America West flying Dash-8-100's, Delta flying the little DC-9's with similar seating capacity to RJ-900's, some Fokker F-100's.... all operated by mainline pilots on mainline seniority lists for mainline money. Go back in history to before the giant scope-clause sellout, and you'll find a great many "little" airplanes flown by mainline guys. There's absolutely no reason that a big airline can't fly their own little airplanes.

The problem that is caused by this whole sub-level of the industry is the ability for management groups to move flying around pretty much at will. This creates an environment where no one can get paid what they're worth, because if your regional gets a little bit more expensive to staff, the flying will just be given to someone else, and the revolving door of shitty pay continues. A regional airline is simply a staffing company. When a contractor can come along and move their work from one staffing company to the next, there will be no pay increases.

You mention going through a "renaissance" of sorts. If that happens, the regional airline's costs go up. Then they have to negotiate higher prices for their CPA's with the mainline partners. At a certain point, the majors will be unwilling to pay what the regional will be asking. This is the point at which flying will be brought back in-house at the major company. There's no solving the "anomaly" of a Mesa or RAH. Someone will always be the bottom feeder. Old Colgan, Mesa, Gulfstream, GoJet, Freedom, Skybus, Piedmont, PSA, Great Lakes, Key Lime... the list is long. The only way to eliminate the bottom feeder, is to eliminate their entire category.


Until the name on the paycheck is the same as the name on the tail, we will make very little progress in this industry. I have a regional job because that's what was available. If we can focus on reducing the number of regional jobs while increasing the number of mainline jobs, we'll be doing well. I know I'd sure as hell rather fly a CRJ for Delta, than fly the same airplane for SkyWest/GoJet/Mesa/whoever.

[flyboyx]

I agree that your points above are generally valid. for example, back in the day, "major" airlines flew lots of "small" airplanes such as the convair 640 which was a turbo prop that held around 30ish passengers.

in retrospect, there have been many blunders in the industry that were a serious detriment to the profession. it starts with one company and then the ball rolls through the entire industry like a plague. after deregulation, frank lorenzo fucked first eastern then continental by breaking their pilot unions. the rest of the industry followed suit soon thereafter. american with its "b" scale, united with its concessions and so on down the line. history tells us that there would have been no saving eastern, but had the continental pilots not given in, the landscape of the industry would likely be so much different now.

fast forward to 1995 or so.......the biggest blunder of our era was when the delta pilot's union first allowed comair to fly the crj200. at that time, no one could foresee the industry would be inundated with thousands of little jet airplanes flown by low wage pilots. no one saw the precedent this was to set for the industry. at the time, they were thinking: ah, what the hell....20 airplanes? that can't effect us in a negative way........! this unfortunate oversight paved the way for every regional airline that flys little jets today with crappy contracts and relatively low wages.

it is going to be a difficult journey to find a way out of this rut because it saves so much money and there are so many companies willing to do it so cheaply and-dare i say-poorly.

take skywest, for example. they run a lean and profitable organization. they somehow found a way to eek out 150 million in profit last year with their business model. as far as i know, they are one of the only regional feed companies that sees any sort of decent profit. generally, it is a company looked at by outsiders as a pilot group with stockholm syndrome. somehow, management has found a way to keep them from unionizing. they have a "contract"/agreement with the company but it gets walked over frequently with no recourse. its going to be pretty difficult for them to get all the other companies under their umbrella to march to the beat of that drum. lots of them would rather let it burn to the ground.

about the only real bargaining power pilots have right now is the lack of pilots available to fill seats in the cockpit at the regional level. majors aren't having a problem yet, because there are still thousands of qualified pilots at the regional level. i guess i will be interesting to see if regional pilot unions can find a way to use this leverage in their favor.......i'm not holding my breath.

[BlackbirdM3]

Epic shot that will never happen again. The last two Martin Mars flying boats. Posted by Tyler Zoet on Facebook (I'm giving him photo credit since he posted it.)


What I'd do to be flight crew on one of the Mars. (One is still a fire bomber, the other has been returned to US Navy configuration with plans to send it to the Naval Aviation Museum, but the deal seems to have fallen through.

Will

[einhander]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/04/02/this-amazing-image-captures-a-days-worth-of-planes-taking-off-from-l-a-airport/?tid=sm_fb