Flying Cheap: The Regional Airlines

The pilot shortage that people have been talking about for years is a real thing and will affect the industry in one way or another in the future. We may never know whether or not this shortage is caused by the mandatory retirement age making a lot of major airline pilots retire, or young aviators choosing not to pursue the life of an airline pilot due to a cost deficit with regard to training cost vs regional airline pay. At the same time it is almost irrelevant, the pilot shortage does exist and I personally believe both arguments have truth to them regarding why we have a lack of pilots in America (The U.S Pilot shortage is real). The airline industry is pinnacle for the society that many of us enjoy living, transporting over half the worlds population each year, it is a necessity of our everyday lives. Without air transportation our world would be an un-conceivably different place.

The regional airlines either are concerned or should be concerned for the year future with regard to available pilots that they have to hire. The regionals right now are willing to hire almost anyone, from my personal experience I am not even close to the ATP minimums that the FAA requires pilots to have before they can fly for a scheduled airline yet I already have airline recruiters calling me and keeping tabs on me for the future when I am ready. The reason that the regional industry has gotten to be this way (willing to hire almost anyone) is simple. The raising cost of flight training with a degree attached is estimated to be about $120,000 when its all said and done which in itself is enough to drive away a lot of potential future aviators from the industry, not to mention the upcoming plethora of retiring pilots from the majors. This shortage caused by these two factors is what has drove the regionals to become so desperate. Overseas a lot of major airlines such as Lufthansa and British Airways have airline pathway programs established where they pay for a majority of flight training costs for flight students so long as they pledge an oath to that airline and sign a contract where the carrier gets its use out of the candidate. This system sounds skeptical due to the fact that these pilots are signing multiple year contracts where they are locked in, but in the grand scheme of things this might not be all that bad. These pilots who go through this system with these carriers will eventually be flying the heavy metal they want to be flying at a mighty generous pay scale. I personally think that this method of reimbursement from the airlines could work in the U.S

Professionalism can be defined as taking utmost pride in yourself and in your work and portraying it to the world. I think we can all agree that professionalism was not present in the corporate culture at Colgan Air prior to the crash such as, asking pilots to fly even though they were fatigued and the lack of management positions to adequately manage the rapid growth of the company. The most shocking fact that I gathered from the documentary was that management at Colgan not only disregarded pilots concern for fatigue but furthermore encouraged it with promises of incentives if they would just get the job done. I think that it goes without saying that first year pay and the compensation structure of regional airlines is definitely a contributing factor and demonstrates a lack of professionalism across the board (Salah, Oussama). It is obvious that there is a correlation between pay/rest and regional airline incidents/accidents, by comparison you very rarely see these type of slips occurring from within the major airlines. The corporate culture at these regional airlines is doomed to fail from the moment that the contracts are signed by their bigger major airline brothers. After the contracts are signed the airline whose sole purpose is to make money off a small margin must mitigate this by offering low pay and a pre condition for bad management decisions to be made. It is my goal to be a professional with regard not only to my aviation career but also everything that I do. I plan on doing this by removing myself from situations in which my professionalism factor could be compromised such as working for airlines that are notorious for cutting corners to finish the mission. Another possible way to excel with professionalism would be to join airline organizations such as AOPA and help reform the industry positively which will reflect upon your career extremely positively.


Salah, Oussama. "Opinion: The Pilot Shortage Myth, Maybe Not." The Pilot Shortage Myth, Maybe Not. 14 Sept. 2014. Web. 11 Oct. 2015. <http://aviationweek.com/ideaxchange/opinion-pilot-shortage-myth-maybe-not>.

"The Coming U.S. Pilot Shortage Is Real." The Coming U.S. Pilot Shortage Is Real. 16 Feb. 2015. Web. 11 Oct. 2015. <http://aviationweek.com/commercial-aviation/coming-us-pilot-shortage-real>.

UAV's

UAV's fulfill a unique roll in todays society, from providing an ariel view of human targets in a military application to a $499 version sold at electronic stores available to anyone and everyone. In the civilian sector UAV's fill a more broad roll in society than the relatively specialized roll that they serve in the military. To list the job functions that a UAV can fulfill would be a long list, but a few of the things that they do is; help create 3D modeling, provide guided tours at MIT, parcel delivery service via Amazon, assists in the coordinating of flood efforts (Carroll, J). Currently there are no official regulations pertaining to UAV's but there is a proposal to enact regulations to control the Unmanned Ariel Systems in the future. If the NPRM (Notice of Proposed Rulemaking) did go into effect there would be a number of rules that would pertain to UAV's such as; UAV's must weigh less than 55lbs, they must remain within  a visual line of sight (VLOS),  they may not operate over any persons not involved in the operations,  maximum airspeed of 100 mph, maximum altitude of 500 AGL (must remain out of controlled airspace), requires a preflight inspections, and no person may operate a UAV while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. While the proposed rules are not set in stone yet the website (www.knowbeforeyoufly.org) has a set of rules that were proposed by the FAA for operators to follow in the meantime.

I personally believe the implementation of UAV's into the NAS is going to be a long process with a lot of skepticism initially then eventually it will be almost as normal seeing a UAV in the sky as it is an airplane. The only thing that I think will be different between the image of UAV's and airplanes initially and further down the road is that I do not believe that people will ever accept UAV's for what they are with their ability to travel low, slow and right outside your house or window. With regard to their potential to violate peoples privacy is what is either going to make or break the future of them. Initially there is going to be a lot of problems regarding letting UAV's out into our airspace with regard to safety, privacy, and perception. First off, the NPRM that the FAA is writing up regulates UAV's up to and including 55lbs. At that weight if something were to go wrong and one of the engines malfunction or a guidance computer stop working you essentially have a 55lb piece of mass that will fall from the sky and have more than enough capability to fall and kill an innocent bystander. We accept this feat with regard to hundred thousand pound airplanes because of a couple reasons. First of all we all like the fact that we can travel hundred or even thousands of miles in a fraction of the time in an airplane and for the most part they are a safe method of transportation. Secondly in the event that something does malfunction in the air there are capable pilots who can maneuver the aircraft in most instances to avoid causing harm to other non participating persons or property. These two stipulations are not feasible with regard to a UAV, even with redundant systems it just is not possible right now to say they are 100% safe and on top of that the public is not really benefiting much from them.

The military has by far been the pinnacle of UAV operators to date and has demonstrated how they can be a great help with regard to manipulating war strategy. Since the mid 1990's the military has been experimenting with UAV's in the battlefield and they have proved to be a viable source of information that in turn safes valuable military service members from undue harm. With regard to UAV's and evaluating whether or not their implementation has been sufficient or not I think is hard to say. The department of defense has agreed to supply the armed services with a $2.9 billion dollar budget for the years to come (Gettinger, D). That figure is obviously a lot, roughly 6% of the total military spending budget. The UAV's that help us wage the war on terror overseas has saved a countless number of american lives which I believe justifies their presence in our military.

While roaming the web for UAS jobs I was surprised at how many that I inadvertently came across. One of the more prestigious of unique job postings I found was from the Oregon Employment Department and was a job posting for an overseas based Field Service Rep/UAV Operator. The job involves being deployed overseas for months to years at a time and conducting top secret private government operations enhancing war efforts. The job posting requires a top secret security clearance among other things, such as a FAA airmen certificate, FAA medical/psych eval, prior UAV experience, and foreign language experience. The job posting can be found at (http://www.simplyhired.com/job/field-service-representative-uas-operator-3-job/oregon-employment-department/sansfqmig5?cid=guqappotzkvqltgaalefiuslfyakkbdb)


Carroll, J. (2013, December 6). The future is here: Five applications of UAV technology. Retrieved October 4, 2015, from http://www.vision-systems.com/articles/2013/12/the-future-is-here-five-applications-of-uav-technology.html

Cuadra, A. (2014, June 20). How drones are controlled. Retrieved October 4, 2015, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national/drone-crashes/how-drones-work/

Field Service Representative / UAS Operator 3 - Oregon Employment Department | Bingen, WA. (n.d.). Retrieved October 4, 2015, from http://www.simplyhired.com/job/field-service-representative-uas-operator-3-job/oregon-employment-department/sansfqmig5?cid=guqappotzkvqltgaalefiuslfyakkbdb

Gettinger, D. (2015, February 4). Drones in the Defense Budget. Retrieved October 4, 2015, from http://dronecenter.bard.edu/drones-in-the-defense-budget/

Space Tourism

The idea of space tourism has been around for a while, the date that is most synonymous with space tourism would probably be April 28, 2001 when Dennis Tito became the first person to pay for space travel. The two companies who have been the leaders of innovation with regard to space tourism have been Virgin Galactic and XCOR Aerospace. Im sure the idea of space tourism has been around a lot longer than these two companies but the reason you most likely never heard of them is obvious, the amount of money and technical ability required is exponentially large. Most people could not imagine owning a cabin class airplane because of the amount of money necessary just for the airplane, not including maintenance, fuel, or a place to store it, we are talking about $200 million. Well any craft with a space prefix is going to be so much more many than that most people aren't crazy enough to even dream of such a feat, we are now talking a multi billion dollar endeavor.

As far as training required for the space traveler goes, it is pretty non existent. The regulations governing space tourism are found in 14 CFR Part 415 - 440 and they state that any space traveler must give written consent that they understand the risks involved with space flight and they give their consent to proceed with the flight (Federal Register). While the FAA recommends that a pre flight physical be preformed on the passenger there is no regulation that requires it. The flight crew regs are by far the most interesting, the FAA has mandated that the pilots be qualified as a pilot with the FAA and have a current medical within the last year. This is extremely surprising because the only stipulation the FAA has placed upon space flight is that a student or sport pilot cannot be at the controls of the vehicle, which qualifies a surprisingly large amount of people (Superville, D).In my opinion the regulations need to be quite a bit more restrictive, it seems as if its common sense that they would require anyone at the controls of a space vehicle to undergo specific intensive training on the physics of space flight which are very different from terrestrial flight.

The future of human space travel looks good in my opinion. While I do believe that it is going to be another 50 years before the average middle class working man can experience space, I do believe that maybe in the next 100 years it will be almost the same as commercial air travel. If you think back to the invention of the airplane that dates back almost 100 years, but was not until 50 years after that that it was considered a reliable means of transportation. The space shuttle has been around since the 1970's and we are approaching the 50 year mark. I am hesitant to put space travel on the same time frame as commercial aviation experienced because it is obviously a lot more involved but i think if we double those figures given the complexity of space travel it will be almost consistent with commercial air travel.

Like I said earlier, it is shocking to me that the requirements for flight crew be so minimal. While i'm sure that companies like Virgin Galactic would never dream of hiring a pilot with such a minimal amount of experience it still should be worth noting that if they didnt want to and their goal was to keep costs back they could hire a pilot with the same amount of experience or less than myself, which would be awesome and a dream come true for myself, it could spell a nightmare for the industry with regard to safety and experience (Superville, D). From my understanding, with regard to management of a space tourism operation the only stipulation is that the person or persons have the ability and knowledge to know how to operate a income based business (Levin, A). This regulation is somewhat shocking because you would think it would require more restrictions with regard to space tourism but it still is not as shocking to me as the fact that a private pilot legally could pilot a spacecraft.

Federal Register. (2006, December 15). Retrieved September 29, 2015, from http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2006-12-15/pdf/E6-21193.pdf

Levin, A. (2014, November 16). Space tourism industry may soon face federal regulation - The Boston Globe. Retrieved September 29, 2015, from https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2014/11/16/space-tourism-industry-may-soon-face-federal-regulation/AAoFHJAeg9ll0EPlJBCESI/story.html

Superville, D. (2005, December 30). Gov't issues proposed space tourism rules. Associated Press. Retrieved from http://www.space.com/1904-gov-issues-proposed-space-tourism-rules.html

Pilots and Depression

Prior to the Germanwings accident, many people had known of Copilot Lubitz depression and some, such as his girlfriend had even spoken up about it. The spotlight of the investigation is not so much on the fact that Lubitz smashed the aircraft into the side of a mountain but on the airline or airlines in general for not spotting this depression and implementing safeguards. The pilots mental illness was documented and he was at the time taking injections to diminish the effects of depression. Lubitz had given hints at his mental illness starting from the time of his initial training. A very odd behavior for a training pilot would be to take a leave of absence midterm, exactly what the pilot did, someone in the flight department theoretically should have seen it.

In addition to the Germanwings accident, Japan Airlines Flight 350 was also found to be attributed to a pilot mental illness condition. The Japan Airlines captain forced the engine controls of his DC-8 into reverse over a bay where the plane eventually crashed resulting in 24 deaths. The pilot was never found guilty however due to reasons of insanity. This brings up multiple questions for me, primarily however though, if this pilot was able to avoid prosecution due to insanity he must have shown signs of his mental illness prior to the incident.

Currently to operate an aircraft at the airline level,  it requires that the pilot undergo a medical evaluation every 6 or 12 months depending on age. A mental evaluation is part of the medical however most pilots will attest that there is really no mental health check in place. The inspection is complected typically by the doctor being able to hold a normal conversation with the pilot. I believe that there is a need for reform to avoid another potentially catastrophic disaster. The medical examiners should be required to engage a pilot through a psychiatric method to evaluate their mental state, rather than being able to check a box based on whatever the particular examiner feels is necessary enough.

It is worth noting that if airline pilot mental illness was more accepted and pilots felt as if they could condition their problem with a treatment, that could spell disaster for the FAA and american air carriers. The liberal approach in allowing pilots to work as a professional pilot with known mental illness problems is just a problem waiting to happen, there are restrictions on who or who cannot qualify for a pilots license for this very reason. If a pilot with a mental problem was allowed to fly on a condition that he treats his illness in a sense to me that is similar to just putting a band aid on the  problem and not actually fixing it, a potential ticking time-bomb.


Abend, L. (2015, April 25). Germanwings co-pilot -- an accident waiting to happen? - CNN.com. Retrieved September 18, 2015.

Almendrala, A. (2015, March 27). U.S. Pilots Expose Major Holes In Mental Health Screening Process. Retrieved September 18, 2015.

Seiji Katagiri | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers. (n.d.). Retrieved September 18, 2015, from http://murderpedia.org/male.K/k/katagiri-seiji.htm

Personal Introduction

I got started in aviation as a little kid, my parents used to take me down one of the service drives by Detroit Metro to watch planes land from the time I could walk and talk I was hooked. I am a Aviation Flight Technology major expecting to graduate in the winter of 2015 pending the fact that I can enroll in a art class to fulfill my general education requirement. My future plans are to flight instruct at Eagle Flight Center until reaching the FAA minimum requirements for a 121 carrier then ideally I would like to work for the regional airline that is offering the best incentives at the time. After building flight hours at a regional airline I would like to work for a major airline, such as Southwest or Delta then down the road if space tourism takes off like I hope it will I would like to somehow venture my way into commercial space operations as a pilot, that is really my long term end goal. I would like to have a chance to talk with a aerobatic pilot and possibly a military pilot in effort to pick their brain and compare their career progression and how they would have done things differently. The fact that first year pay at a regional airline is so disproportional to the amount of student loan debt that most pilots accrue over their time in school and while training I believe is a topic for huge debate and would really like to look over this further.