This Episode Features A Presentation By John Dixon, Director of Pilot Recruitment for American Eagle (Part 5 Of A Series)

We've been hearing about it for years... a pilot shortage... a critical one, at that. For many in the aviation community, it sounded like good news... at least if you were on the bottom rungs of the pilot hiring ladder and working desperately to climb your way up. However; after engaging in discussions thorough the industry over the last year and in attending a particularly pointed (and very well-organized) presentation at the FAA Forecast Conference some months ago, ANN and Aero-TV are left with the troubling impression that aviation has a BIG problem on its hands.

The session devoted to discussing the Pilot Supply was, as indicated earlier, exceptionally produced and wholly on target. The session was presented by Moderator Peter J. Wolfe, Executive Director, Professional Aviation Board of Certification (PABC), and augmented by presentations delivered by Kit Darby, President, AIR, Inc, Captain Paul Rice, First Vice President, Air Line Pilots Association, International, Ron Levy, University Aviation Association, John Dixon, Director of Pilot Recruitment for American Eagle.

The fourth presentation was presented by John Dixon, Director of Pilot Recruitment for American Eagle. Dixon provided the viewpoint taken by a major company that is hiring pilots now... and will definitely do so in the future. Dixon noted that since 2005, American Eagle’s new hire mean flight times have gone from 1500 hours total flight time with 300 hours of multi-engine stick time to 1000 hours of total flight time, of which 100 must be multi-engine. During that time American Eagle has trained over 800 new-hires, and has made significant changes to its training program to ensure the safety and standards of its new-hire pilots. They have added an 11th simulator training session, included 4 observation flights to the curriculum, and increased Initial Operating Experience from 25 hours to 50 hours.

Dixon explained that these changes have prevented a degradation in new hire training performance or safety. In 2007 they began using pre-employment regional jet training programs to prepare new hire pilots as means continue to drop. He added that Regional jet training programs are designed to teach perspective First Officers advanced skills such as Crew Resource Management, Flight management and guidance systems, transport category aircraft systems, and high density airport operations. These programs are typically 3 to 8 weeks in duration and are offered by many college programs and flight training schools.

The typical AmEagle 3 week program is comprised of:

• 6 hours multi-engine airplane check
• 40 hours of ground school
• 32 hours in an advanced FTD / Simulator
• 14 flight briefing

Dixon tells ANN that graduates of these programs are superior in training performance to those without this training. He also stated that if pilot supply and demand continues to behave as it has for the last few years, advanced training programs will become more and more necessary.

So... are you getting the picture that there are items to be concerned about in terms of where our future pilots are coming from? You should be. The situation is troublesome, answers are few and aviation safety can only be negatively impacted if the situation is not dealt with. Not sure about that? Well... load up Part Five of our series on Understanding the Pilot Shortage and see if you don't agree that this is an issue that needs urgent attention.

Click Here To See the Aero-TV Special Series: Understanding The Pilot Shortage (Part 5)

E-I-C Note: This is the fifth in an extensive series on this topic... each of which is presented every Monday (barring special programming requirements for breaking news or special event coverage, like last week's NBAA event) until completed...

FMI: www.americaneaglecareers.com, www.faa.gov, www.aero-tv.net, www.youtube.com/aerotvnetwork, http://twitter.com/AeroNews