Senior Seminar in Aviation

According to the FAA’s press release (2013), the new rules require a first officer to have an ATP certificate, requiring 1,500 hours of total time. Prior to the rules being enacted, only 250 hours were required, with no ATP certificate requirement. In addition, first officers must now have a type rating for the aircraft they with to fly, whether a passenger or cargo operation. A requirement for 1,000 hours total time as first officer was put in place for those pilots wanting to upgrade to Captain; there was no such requirement prior. The ATP certificate now requires enhanced training, with a new training program and at least 50 hours of multi-engine time. What now allows one to partially bypass the 1,500-hour rule is the new restricted ATP (rATP). This rATP allows for one to fly for a passenger or cargo operation with less than 1,500 hours, depending on qualifications such as type of college degree in the field and prior military flight experience. There is also an age requirement of...

The Germanwings flight was to go from Barcelona, Spain to Dusseldorf, Germany with 150 people on board. The aircraft, an Airbus A320, was cruising at 38,000 feet. Approximately 30 minutes into the flight the captain had left the cockpit and the selected altitude was then changed from 38,000 feet to 100 feet by the first officer, who dove the aircraft into the Earth 11 minutes later (What happened in, 2017). First Officer Andrea Lubitz did have a history of mental illness and when prosecutors went to his home post-accident, there "were several doctors’ notes stating that he was too ill to work, including on the day of the crash; one of the notes had been torn up" (Eddy, Bilefsky, & Clark, 2015). It doesn't appear that he had any particular issues prior to the accident, other than several medical evaluations and hospital visits. Another incident where the pilot's mental condition was a factor was the SilkAir Flight 185 accident. A Boeing 737 aircraft was scheduled...

1.     The pilot shortage is clearly real and I have experienced it occurring all around me. With an expansion in routes and an increase in passengers every year, yet only a limited number of qualified candidates, there comes a greater need for pilots in the industry. According to the Boeing Pilot Outlook ("Boeing: 2017 Pilot", n.d.), there will be a need for 117,000 additional pilots in the next twenty years, and that's just for North America. Looking at the global demand for pilots, we see an outlook of 637,000 additional pilots needed. If we need 117,000 pilots within the span of 20 years, that comes out to an average of almost 6,000 pilots needed per year. However, according to the FAA (2016), from 2007 to 2016 there was an average increase of less than 1,400 new ATP certificated pilots per year for the United States, with some years actually displaying a decrease. Considering the United States makes up a large portion of North America's need for pilots, it'...

Background My true interest in aviation began after I had gotten Flight Simulator X (FSX) for PC. I had always been interested in flying and had been allowed into many cockpits because I wanted to know what everything did and to see the complexity. The fact that the job requires so much knowledge, expertise, professionalism, and the ability to remain calm in stressful situation displays a career with high prestige among the population. People look up to pilots because of the challenging nature of the act of flying. My personality has always had me like being the one who is responsible for others and I fit the stereotypical pilot profile so I don't have to change who I am to fit into the job. Continuing on with the FSX simulator, over the years I had added on various devices to my setup, including a yoke, powerful gaming computer parts, multiple monitors, a head tracking device, and extremely realistic payware aircraft and weather generation. I got so involved with it that I had j...