ETA: screwed up hed. “…if you’ve never flown it but have trained on another.”
When you get your first accreditation, or whatever they call it, to operate a 747 or F-16, you can make that baby sing.
I presume learning the weapons systems and flight mechanics (and feel, whatever) of each airplane is an intensive and difficult skill. But how much training on x will let you be able to fly y enough not to kill yourself?
And how much more will be at least recognizable across similar class platforms? (Of course, by saying “similar class” I am merely begging the question.)
I wonder if pilots have the nightmare similar to “I’m on stage with a flute. Now what?,” but with airplanes. [Nightmar of non-flute musicians, of course.]
The physical flying bit isn’t all that hard. Put me in another type and I’d be lost trying to start it, I’d probably be a bit lost with the flight management computer, and I wouldn’t know what speeds to fly for various flap settings, but I’d be confident that I could take-off and land without killing anybody. Something that helps a bit is that approach speeds aren’t all that different between airliner types and one of the hardest things to adapt to when first flying a passenger jet is the extra speed, so once you’re used to initial approach speeds of around 160-200 knots and final approach speeds of 100-130 knots it’s not such a big adjustment moving between types.
Someone moving from one late model Boeing to another, or an Airbus to another Airbus would find a lot that is familiar.
Anyone rated to fly a jet aircraft is a competent pilot who is well aware of what it takes to stay ahead of the aircraft. At that skill level, i bet there would be little trouble transitioning between aircraft.
There is no way they would even consider sitting in the other plane without a manual and the checklists plus whatever logs are involved. But that’s pretty much standard for most pilots in any airplane.
Well, I’m coming from the position that the type I fly has no similarities with anything else (because it doesn’t, sometimes it doesn’t even have much in common with itself).
Yes it’s simple enough to start an engine; fuel pumps on, start master on, start select to the engine to be started, push the start button, select the thrust lever to idle when the N2 gets to 10%, monitor the temperatures, when the engine is stable turn the engine anti-ice off, repeat for the remaining engines from “start select”. That’s an Avro RJ though and it seems simple to me because I’ve done it so many times, but I have no idea what it would be for an A320. That is also assuming the aeroplane is ready to go, there’s a heap more to do from a “cold ship”.
The background process is the same, you need a power supply, ignition, engine rotation, and fuel. That is true for any aircraft engine, but how you actually achieve that can differ greatly between types and the checklists contained in the flight deck are abbreviated, they assume you already know what you are doing. The starting checklist for the RJ doesn’t tell you how to start the engines, it only checks that you haven’t missed a few gotchas. Nothing in the start sequence I listed above is contained in the starting checklist, instead it checks you have the brake pressure up, the hydraulics off, the beacon on, the transponder on, and the APU air supply off. It gives no hints at all on starting the engine. You’d have to delve into the operating manual to find the starting procedure.
That said, the Airbus family, particularly the A320, are supposed to have been designed for third world country pilots to fly so the procedure should be simpler, but is it? And, more importantly, is it intuitive? I don’t know.
When it comes to air flowing over wings and poling an aeroplane around the sky I have no doubts about being able to fly different types, when it comes to operating the systems though that’s different matter.
Both Pete Conrad and Jim Lovell were stationed at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland before they became astronauts. Pax River is to the Navy what Edwards AFB is to the Air Force. Conrad and Lovell were friends in the Test Pilot school and as line test pilots. Conrad gave Lovell the nickname “Shakey” after Lovell asked, while sitting in a new plane for the first time, “Okay, what button do I push to make it fly?”
Richard, thanks for your long replie(s), (And everyone else, too).
Planes must have one hell of a big glove box.
ital added
This is unsettling, as stated here. Obviously, 1st and 2nd world pilots also can use simpler and more intuitive systems. I can’t put my finger on it, but something seems off.
I’ve never seen the word “poling” before, ever. I got this image of a happy pilot swinging by invisible ribbons around a maypole. (heads for dictionary)
Both the Mythbuster boys successfully landed a simulator 747 (one that the airlines use for training) on their first attempts. They had a qualified pilot “talking hem down” over a radio, to simulate a passenger taking over from disabled crew and being advised by someone experience over the radio.
That question–as written in my stupid self-written hed–comes up as SD threads periodically.
I’ m more interested here in the skills of pilots themselves and the specialization of technology. I suggested “take off and land” or, more broadly, “not kill yourself” as a minimum.
The basic idea stems from the same place, of course–“my God, our last F15 pilot is down. Eddie, you fly an F16, take over!”
Or the rifleman told “man that M2.” (Which I also don’t know how well he could…but I’ve seen it in a movie., I think.)
IMO It’s pretty much as **Richard Pearse **already said, at least for airliners.
I’ve flown the 727, 757, and 767. I’ve ridden in the cockpit of the 707 and 737. I’ve been inside the cockpit of various parked or shut down or simulated 747s, 777s, and 787s, but have never ridden in their cockpits nor watched a crew prepare to fly one.
With a few minutes puzzling I could get any of them started even if it was totally dead / cold when I got there. And fly it adequately on a sunny day to get around the traffic pattern or even from familiar city A to familiar city B with some help and indulgence from ATC. It wouldn’t be pretty or professional; in fact it’d probably look a bit like that airshow act with the supposedly-drunken pilot in a Piper Cub. But I wouldn’t be in fear of my life nor the folks below me. The landing touchdown would suck, but I’ve probably already made worse.
IOW, they’re really all variations on a theme. The tech progresses, and the older airplanes would be harder just because I’m used to all the newfangled stuff making life easier.
OTOH, I’d be much less confident I could do the same thing in an Airbus. It’s different enough that there might be traps I don’t know about. Likewise Richard’s Avros / BAEs. Those are definitely different. If somebody else started those I’d be OK to fly it around the traffic pattern but there’d be a few junctures of sucked-in breath followed by “Well, here goes nothing. I *hope *this works like I think it does.” Which it probably will.
I’d be far more worried about a pilot who’d gone from lightplanes to Airbus without ever passing through Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, or similar aircraft. An Airbus-only pilot trying a non-fly-by-wire big jet alone for the first time without training has a tough row to hoe.
Conversely, all Airbus are designed to be operated almost identically. An A320 pilot will feel pretty much immediately at home in an A380. Which is decidedly not true for Boeings.
As to fighters: There’s a lot less family resemblance since until recently there were many manufacturers and lots of years & tech progress between any two by the same company. And the latest ones are so cosmic it’d be hard for somebody even with my now 30 years out of date F-16A experience to make heads nor tails of the instruments and systems.
But for similar levels of tech and a current pilot it wouldn’t be too bad. e.g. A current F-15C pilot could eventually figure out how to start an F-16C or F/A-18C or Panavia Tornadoe. And fly it around the pattern OK. But there’s no way in hell they could fight with it. That’s waay too deep in the machine-specific details of weapons control.
They could do unarmed dogfighting: i.e. zooming about the sky here and there, but to no actual effect. And compared to somebody who knew the aircraft they’d be a sitting duck in that simulated combat. The real edge in fighting comes from knowing how to exploit the special 10% of the envelope uniquely suited to your type. A newbie wouldn’t have that.
I recall in the Olde Dayes sitting in captured Soviet equipment and thinking that there’s no way in hell I could start or fly this thing cold. If somebody else started it I might get it off the ground, but I’d be ejecting rather than landing. Assuming I could figure out how to even do that. It was so foreign it was more like alien.
Which gave me a heightened appreciation for just how alien truly alien (non-human) tech might be, even if it was within a century or so of progress versus our current practice. But that’s another thread.
This is really the whole story. The machines are complicated enough that operating the *machine *is complex and idiosyncratic.
Once off the ground, a jet is a jet is a jet. Some are faster, others are slower. Some more maneuverable. But the basics are universal. Throw some weather or failures into the mix and the basics maybe won’t take you far enough to survive. But on a nice sunny day in a nice quiet traffic pattern all will be well … enough.
Which leads, naturally, to this (type of) questions:
You, LSLGuy civilian: don’t you want to fly more types of aircraft (become “certified”), to make more friends, money, and influence people? What are the generic career path|impetus|time-difficulty/time-cost decisions that all pilots (like all professionals) must sometimes encounter?
and
You, LSLGuy, employee of the U.S. Government: Can you be told (does anyone), “although expensively trained and accredited on this one jet, you’re being wasted/are a waste at F16s. Start learning this F15. You’ll be with us for a while, and we can wait.”
Question for the pilots here. How easy is it, typically, for a pilot to cross-certify in a different commercial jet type without any particular sponsorship? E.g. if you are a 737 pilot with an airline that pretty much just flies 737’s, but you (for some reason) want to get certified to fly an Airbus A320, can you just call up a local airport or flight school and start lessons, schedule exams, or whatever, or would you generally need to first get hired by an airline that needed an Airbus A320 pilot?
A typical career path in the airlines is to start working at one company and stay there for life, barring bankruptcies and mergers. The seniority system makes mid-career changes to other employers very undesirable; you start over at the bottom of the dog pile & the pay scale. Almost nobody does that voluntarily.
The big exception to the above is that the relationship between the RJ-flying “express” airlines and the major airlines is akin to minor league baseball versus the MLB. Most minor leaguers aspire to the majors, and most RJ pilots will quit their RJ company to take a job with the majors if/when it becomes available. Yes, they abandon all seniority and start over at the bottom of the major dog pile, but its a nicer-enough pile even at the bottom to make it worthwhile.
At least up to a point. A pilot with 15 years at the RJs will probably stay put; a pilot with 5 will leave; and a pilot with 10 has an agonizing decision to make. One hopes his/her crystal ball is clear that fateful day.
Within any one company (major or even some express) you’ll work from the smallest towards the largest aircraft as a copilot = First Officer = FO, then start over again on the smallest aircraft as a Captain. Bigger airplanes pay proportionally more, as does Captain over FO. And international pays a few percent extra over domestic. And more years with the company produces annual longevity-based pay increases up through 12 or 15 years or so. Seniority rules all promotions.
There’s often some seniority overlap between FOs on the biggest aircraft and Captains on the smallest. The smallest aircraft tend to have the hardest working life and the biggest aircraft are easiest, provided you don’t mind working overnight graveyard shift. So for a senior FO on the big boys, moving “up” to Captain on a small jet means a raise for the extra rank, a pay cut for the smaller aircraft, and a reduction in quality of life. The pay changes net to more money as a small jet Captain, but not enough extra money to offset the negative QOL factors for many pilots.
In my 26+ years I’ve gone through 8 seat+aircraft combos and probably have 2 or maaaybe 3 more before I’m done. Some of those transitions were / will be occasioned by me becoming more senior. Others were / will be occasioned by the company getting rid of the old aircraft type I’d been flying, so the move was / will be more or less lateral.
Conversely at a place like Southwest, there’s only two jobs and hence at most one transition per career: 737 FO to 737 Captain.
None of these 10-ish transitions I’ll make in my career costs me anything other than sweat in a sim and nights spent studying the books. The airline pays for all the schooling at their school. The airline tends to limit your ability to collect the whole set by voluntarily changing aircraft willy nilly. After a school the policy here is I can’t volunteer to a different airplane for 2 years. Or rather, I’m free to volunteer but they won’t honor my request, seniority be damned. Most carriers have similar policies.
Conversely, folks in the corporate bizjet world have a lot less career stability. It’s typical to change employers every couple of years. Those guys tend to accumulate qualifications in many different brands & sizes. Although they also often get typecast onto one brand or flavor and need to buy themselves the training on a different brand to break that mold.
For somebody who’s already an experienced jet pilot buying training on a different bizjet type generally costs about $10K and takes most of a month. If they’re between jobs odds are they’ll be buying the new school on their own nickel. Sometimes State unemployment services benefits under the “job retraining” category can be used to offset some or all of the cost. But not more than once in one state. The good news is corporate guys also move household every couple years to be wherever the new job is. Which may get you new state retraining benefits in the new state when that new job ends in 2 years. All in all, it’s a tough life; tougher than I’d want.
If their employer is getting a new aircraft type and likes them enough to keep them employed the company will usually pay for the schooling. In the alternative buying a new airplane is often management’s excuse to clean house and replace most or all of the pilots with ones already skilled in the new type. Sucks to be you.
Particularly in times past when airline pilots were statutorily required to retire at age 60 a decent fraction of them went out and bought themselves a bizjet qualification and hired on at some corporate place as a part-timer for a few years. Now that the statutory age (in the US at least) is 65, that’s less popular.
In the military one is definitely typecast from the beginning as either fighter or heavy (or helo). During pilot training there’s a quality cut and you get shunted all but indelibly into one track or the other.
After that you tend to stay on one aircraft type unless that type is retired.
The normal career progression is a flying job for 2 to 3+ years, then a job as an instructor either teaching new pilots to fly or teaching transition into your aircraft type. Once done instructing you usually go back to operational flying on your type again (or get out and join the airlines or National Guard or Reserve).
After that third tour if still affiliated with the military at that point you’re nearing Major / Lt. Cmdr / O-4 and going forward your career will be a alternating mix of flying jobs and non-flying staff = office @ HQ jobs.
The golden boys who end up as Generals usually get the gravy jobs all along the way and will have flown a couple different operational types. The dead-enders destined to retire as dead-end mid-level staff officers at some dead-end mid-level HQ in the Midwest may have flown nothing for the last 10 years and only one type before that.
