5 ms·

I have mixed feelings about unions overall. But, pilots' unions seem to be an important "check and balance" to maintain safety in a capitalist aviation world.

I have mixed feelings about unions overall. But, pilots' unions seem to be an important "check and balance" to maintain safety in a capitalist aviation world. Pilots are not machines, and can't be expected to have a 0% error rate.

psunavy03 3y ago
As a former aviator who is likewise union-agnostic, ALPA is absolutely the exception. The pilot in command has absolute authority under the Federal Aviation Regulations to take whatever actions are needed for safety of flight. He or she absolutely needs to have a union standing behind them in order to be able to tell non-aviator managers to pound sand when they want to compromise flight safety in the name of saving a buck or two. Otherwise stand by for: - "You don't really NEED that much fuel reserve, it's expensive." - "You can fly with one of those redundant components failed, stop whining." - "You don't NEED those inconvenient crew rest requirements. Stop whining, pound some coffee, and fly tired." - "We don't NEED to do all this expensive maintenance." - "We don't NEED all these expensive boomer pilots with 10,000 hours of experience and combat time over Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan. Fire them, hire the rookie from the regionals, and pay them $50,000 a year. Pilots are just bus drivers anyway."
- lowbloodsugar 3y ago
  >We don't NEED all these expensive boomer pilots with 10,000 hours of experience and combat time over Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan. Genuinely curious: what aspect of flying an F18 in a hostile environment with a goal of destroying things while trying to stay alive is useful for flying a 400-passenger airliner? You might say "well, the trying-to-stay-alive portion is relevant", but that involves things like high-g turns which airliners are not so good at, and ultimately ejecting is the final option, also not so good with 400 passengers on board. "It's a jet engine!" Ok? So? Does that mean I can't drive an EV if I qualified on gasoline? Does that mean I am qualified to drive an 18 wheeler because I've previously driven a Ferrari? (No, it does not). It seems to me that F18 flight hours contributing towards Boeing 787 pilot certification is a jobs program for military pilots. Not saying that's not a good idea: we need (for now) a strong human air force.
  - StreetChief 3y ago
    it's not about WHERE they flew, it's about the fact they have _experience_ flying large, heavy, mechanical machines filled with fuel, in the air! These days, there are extremely limited possibilities to get experience flying planes because of drone usage. The military barely needs pilots anymore, what with all the drone usage.
    - philip1209 3y ago
      Military pilots probably have a lot more relative hours doing stick flying instead of autopilot, too.
      - aaronmdjones 3y ago
        They're also far more accustomed to, and better at following, procedures, rules and regulations, because that's the culture they advanced in.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - xcv123 3y ago
    Military pilots would have superior manual flying skills and proven ability to stay calm and make the right decisions under highly stressful conditions. Unlikely that they will panic and become completely incompetent when something goes wrong. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/extreme-fear/201112/how-panic-doomed-airliner https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/extreme-fear/201112/... "In the case of Air France 447, it appears that Bonin, in his panic, completely forgot one of the most basic tenets of flight training: when at risk of a stall, never pull back on the controls. Instead, he held back the controls, in a kind of panicked death-grip, all the way down to the ocean. Ironically, if he had simply taken his hands away, the plane would have regained speed and started flying again."
    - lowbloodsugar 3y ago
      Lots of really good replies to my question. "Staying calm" has been a shared thread. I looked up the pilot in the Quantas A380 near disaster, and it says of of the Captain de Crespigny's time in the RAAF: "He went on to join the RAAF at age 17 in 1975. During his first training flight the instructor did not stop him from putting the plane into a downward spiral, after which he left de Crespigny to stop the plane from plummeting to the ground alone. The incident left him terrified but heightened his awareness of the dangers of complacency and human error in flight." This team of pilots was able to bring back the largest passenger plane in the world back to a safe landing even after an engine effectively exploded and punctured the wing, fuel tanks, and fly-by-wire electronics. So I am thinking that the next time I am on a plane, I hope the pilot has military training.
- MaxBarraclough 3y ago
  All those things are enforced by strict regulation, not by unions, no?
  - StreetChief 3y ago
    who do you think got the government to make those regulations?
    - MaxBarraclough 3y ago
      Aviation safety is part of the FAA's mission. I'm open to evidence of their regulations being substantially driven by airline unions, but I've never heard of this. edit I think I just found exactly that. From page 23 of this 2014 MSc thesis [0] > Airline labor unions have fought to increase on the job safety for their members through litigation, supporting regulations, and member education. Labor unions were instrumentals in pushing for the adoption of safety measures such as TCAS and the anti-fatigue rest rules of FAR117. [0] https://commons.und.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1398&context=theses https://commons.und.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1398&con...
InCityDreams 3y ago
>I have mixed feelings about unions overall. If you enjoy your weekends and are equally grateful kids don't work 12 hour days, and someone didn't die at work today, perhaps you could get off the fence.
- StreetChief 3y ago
  "this union is absolutely required for preventing death" and "i'm on the fence about unions" are two wild takes to see together. Why the triangle shirtwaist factory fire isn't enough to encourage people to like unions, I'll never know: > Because the doors to the stairwells and exits were locked[1][8] – a common practice at the time to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks and to reduce theft[9] – many of the workers could not escape from the burning building and jumped from the high windows. link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fi...

psunavy03 3y ago

As a former aviator who is likewise union-agnostic, ALPA is absolutely the exception. The pilot in command has absolute authority under the Federal Aviation Regulations to take whatever actions are needed for safety of flight. He or she absolutely needs to have a union standing behind them in order to be able to tell non-aviator managers to pound sand when they want to compromise flight safety in the name of saving a buck or two. Otherwise stand by for: - "You don't really NEED that much fuel reserve, it's expensive." - "You can fly with one of those redundant components failed, stop whining." - "You don't NEED those inconvenient crew rest requirements. Stop whining, pound some coffee, and fly tired." - "We don't NEED to do all this expensive maintenance." - "We don't NEED all these expensive boomer pilots with 10,000 hours of experience and combat time over Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan. Fire them, hire the rookie from the regionals, and pay them $50,000 a year. Pilots are just bus drivers anyway."

lowbloodsugar 3y ago
>We don't NEED all these expensive boomer pilots with 10,000 hours of experience and combat time over Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan. Genuinely curious: what aspect of flying an F18 in a hostile environment with a goal of destroying things while trying to stay alive is useful for flying a 400-passenger airliner? You might say "well, the trying-to-stay-alive portion is relevant", but that involves things like high-g turns which airliners are not so good at, and ultimately ejecting is the final option, also not so good with 400 passengers on board. "It's a jet engine!" Ok? So? Does that mean I can't drive an EV if I qualified on gasoline? Does that mean I am qualified to drive an 18 wheeler because I've previously driven a Ferrari? (No, it does not). It seems to me that F18 flight hours contributing towards Boeing 787 pilot certification is a jobs program for military pilots. Not saying that's not a good idea: we need (for now) a strong human air force.
- StreetChief 3y ago
  it's not about WHERE they flew, it's about the fact they have _experience_ flying large, heavy, mechanical machines filled with fuel, in the air! These days, there are extremely limited possibilities to get experience flying planes because of drone usage. The military barely needs pilots anymore, what with all the drone usage.
  - philip1209 3y ago
    Military pilots probably have a lot more relative hours doing stick flying instead of autopilot, too.
    - aaronmdjones 3y ago
      They're also far more accustomed to, and better at following, procedures, rules and regulations, because that's the culture they advanced in.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- xcv123 3y ago
  Military pilots would have superior manual flying skills and proven ability to stay calm and make the right decisions under highly stressful conditions. Unlikely that they will panic and become completely incompetent when something goes wrong. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/extreme-fear/201112/how-panic-doomed-airliner https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/extreme-fear/201112/... "In the case of Air France 447, it appears that Bonin, in his panic, completely forgot one of the most basic tenets of flight training: when at risk of a stall, never pull back on the controls. Instead, he held back the controls, in a kind of panicked death-grip, all the way down to the ocean. Ironically, if he had simply taken his hands away, the plane would have regained speed and started flying again."
  - lowbloodsugar 3y ago
    Lots of really good replies to my question. "Staying calm" has been a shared thread. I looked up the pilot in the Quantas A380 near disaster, and it says of of the Captain de Crespigny's time in the RAAF: "He went on to join the RAAF at age 17 in 1975. During his first training flight the instructor did not stop him from putting the plane into a downward spiral, after which he left de Crespigny to stop the plane from plummeting to the ground alone. The incident left him terrified but heightened his awareness of the dangers of complacency and human error in flight." This team of pilots was able to bring back the largest passenger plane in the world back to a safe landing even after an engine effectively exploded and punctured the wing, fuel tanks, and fly-by-wire electronics. So I am thinking that the next time I am on a plane, I hope the pilot has military training.
MaxBarraclough 3y ago
All those things are enforced by strict regulation, not by unions, no?
- StreetChief 3y ago
  who do you think got the government to make those regulations?
  - MaxBarraclough 3y ago
    Aviation safety is part of the FAA's mission. I'm open to evidence of their regulations being substantially driven by airline unions, but I've never heard of this. edit I think I just found exactly that. From page 23 of this 2014 MSc thesis [0] > Airline labor unions have fought to increase on the job safety for their members through litigation, supporting regulations, and member education. Labor unions were instrumentals in pushing for the adoption of safety measures such as TCAS and the anti-fatigue rest rules of FAR117. [0] https://commons.und.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1398&context=theses https://commons.und.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1398&con...

InCityDreams 3y ago

>I have mixed feelings about unions overall. If you enjoy your weekends and are equally grateful kids don't work 12 hour days, and someone didn't die at work today, perhaps you could get off the fence.

StreetChief 3y ago
"this union is absolutely required for preventing death" and "i'm on the fence about unions" are two wild takes to see together. Why the triangle shirtwaist factory fire isn't enough to encourage people to like unions, I'll never know: > Because the doors to the stairwells and exits were locked[1][8] – a common practice at the time to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks and to reduce theft[9] – many of the workers could not escape from the burning building and jumped from the high windows. link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fi...