Aa Mechanic Pay Vs Cpi

[767 mechanic]

I did not mean to open old wounds here, but when our own AMR Eagle AMT's come over to AA, they do not carry their Eagle seniority to AA. It would be extremely unfair to award TWA employees full seniority and not Eagle, right?

Also as Bob stated, rewarding TWA for capitulating to Uncle Carl, and hanging out the EAL fighters to dry for taking down Lorenzo would also be very wrong.

I know portable seniority will never happen, but its a nice thought. B)

[post="250477"][/post]​

Hackman........... I don't know if everybody misunderstood or if it was just me,but I thought you were talking about bringing your seniority with you from airline to airline as related to your years of experience and pay scale. This in my opinion is one of the great things about trade unions. They care about your trade and expect you to get paid for your experience and knowledge of your trade. They do not want you to get short changed by the company if you happen to work for a company that goes out of business and then you go to work for another company in the same line of business.

 

[Bob Owens]

mweiss,Feb 24 2005, 03:10 AM]
I'm sorry, did I say it was impossible, or did I say it was harder to do with the pilots?

My, my, you are getting excitable now arent you?

I didnt say "impossible", nor did I insinuate that you did. Maybe your reading comprehension is not quite what it should be either? In fact if you reread my post you will see that I used the same word as you-"harder". And then I gave a reason why.

In a comparative sense, yes...you don't exactly go from getting an IFR certification straight to the left seat of a 777. It takes a much larger time and money investment to become a pilot than to become an airline mechanic.

Does it? Larger time or longer time college boy? And what do you base that on? The fact is that you can become a liscenced pilot at the age of 16 and start working on your ratings from there. You cant become a liscenced mechanic until you are at least 18 years old.

That helps, but the fact is that regulations are much stricter for pilots than mechanics.

Yes, and thats partially because the pilots had strong unions that fought to put in those strict regulations, the unions representing the mechanics did the opposite.
Duty cycle is a perfect example, while pilots are limited to something like 10 hours in a 24 hour period, possibly less, I'll admit I'm not sure, mechanics are limited to two 48 hour periods of rest per month. So its legal for a mechanic to continue to work as long as he can pump enough caffine into his system to keep his eyes open. Due to the falling wages in this industry compliance has become a problem with many mechanics not getting the required rest, and there is no way for the FAA to monitor a mechanic who works for two different companies or one outside of aviation.

One could argue over the appropriateness of that fact, and that's what usually degrades into the "who's better, pilots or mechanics" argument; I'm not going there.

I will. Pilots are better because they have an organization that promotes the profession. Just about every pilot thats in a union belongs to one that negotiates for pilots only, so the organization promotes the profession. Mechanics are only now moving towards this and they are 60 years behind the pilots.

 

[mweiss]

My, my, you are getting excitable now arent you?

Not really.

Larger time or longer time college boy?

Hmmm...sounds like someone has an inferiority complex. :huh:

Perhaps you could read it as follows: "takes a much larger (time and money investment)"
"Time" and "money" are, in this instance, being used as a modifier for "investment." As such, "larger" is an adjective of "investment," not of "time."

And what do you base that on?

The number of years and dollars that one must spend from the time one begins to undertake the necessary training until one is sitting in that seat.

The fact is that you can become a liscenced pilot at the age of 16 and start working on your ratings from there. You cant become a liscenced mechanic until you are at least 18 years old.

Apples and oranges. Becoming a licensed pilot doesn't allow you to fly for an airline; you yourself noted that you start working on your ratings from there. Becoming a licensed mechanic means allows you to work on commercial aircraft.

Yes, and thats partially because the pilots had strong unions that fought to put in those strict regulations

And also in part because most of the airline fatalities have been attributed to pilot error, not mechanic error. People want to put the stricter regulations where there appears to be the greatest problem.

I will.

Knock yourself out.

 

[Bob Owens]

mweiss,Feb 24 2005, 03:21 PM]

Hmmm...sounds like someone has an inferiority complex. :huh:

Not at all, its just fun taking shots at arrogance.

Perhaps you could read it as follows: "takes a much larger (time and money investment)"
"Time" and "money" are, in this instance, being used as a modifier for "investment." As such, "larger" is an adjective of "investment," not of "time."

See what I mean? Why not just admit you should have worded it differently?

The number of years and dollars that one must spend from the time one begins to undertake the necessary training until one is sitting in that seat.

What seat? The right seat on a commuter or air taxi? All the rest is determined by contracts that the pilots put in.


Apples and oranges. Becoming a licensed pilot doesn't allow you to fly for an airline; you yourself noted that you start working on your ratings from there. Becoming a licensed mechanic means allows you to work on commercial aircraft.

No it allows you to work on any aircraft. There is no difference between the liscence to work on a Cesna 172 or a Boeing 777.

And also in part because most of the airline fatalities have been attributed to pilot error, not mechanic error. People want to put the stricter regulations where there appears to be the greatest problem.

I'm not sure that when it comes to the Airlines thats still the case. Maybe in civil aviation but not the airlines.In fact most of the recent air accidents that I can think of were due to catastrophic mechanical failures, AA587, the one down south where the mechanics didnt rig the flight controls correctly, Alaskas MD-80 where the drive for the horizontal stab failed, Swiss Air where faulty wiring in the MD-11 caused a fire, TWA where something ignited vapors in the fuel tank, these were all mechanical.

 

[mweiss]

Why not just admit you should have worded it differently?

Because I meant it exactly as I wrote it. Wording it the way you suggested would have changed the meaning.

]What seat? The right seat on a commuter or air taxi?

Yes.

No it allows you to work on any aircraft. There is no difference between the liscence to work on a Cesna 172 or a Boeing 777.

Exactly. It takes longer to legally fly people for hire than to legally fix the airplanes. It takes a larger investment of time and money.

I'm not sure that when it comes to the Airlines thats still the case.

It has been decreasing, true. If this trend continues, we can expect to see the regulations, which always lag, to change to address this. It's too early, though.

 

[eolesen]

mweiss,Feb 24 2005, 03:21 PM]
I'm not sure that when it comes to the Airlines thats still the case. Maybe in civil aviation but not the airlines.In fact most of the recent air accidents that I can think of were due to catastrophic mechanical failures, AA587, the one down south where the mechanics didnt rig the flight controls correctly, Alaskas MD-80 where the drive for the horizontal stab failed, Swiss Air where faulty wiring in the MD-11 caused a fire, TWA where something ignited vapors in the fuel tank, these were all mechanical.

[post="250942"][/post]​

There's a slight difference between a design flaw and something that a mechanic would otherwise discover on inspection. AA587 and SR111 were design flaws. The engineers take the heat on those, and there's no reasonable way that either flaw would have been discovered during an overhaul.

 

[Bob Owens]

There's a slight difference between a design flaw and something that a mechanic would otherwise discover on inspection. AA587 and SR111 were design flaws. The engineers take the heat on those, and there's no reasonable way that either flaw would have been discovered during an overhaul.

[post="251046"][/post]​

Maybe, but they certainly were not pilot error.

 

[Bob Owens]

mweiss,Feb 26 2005, 01:44 AM]

Exactly. It takes longer to legally fly people for hire than to legally fix the airplanes. It takes a larger investment of time and money.

So how much does it cost to get your ratings to fly an Air Taxi and how much would it cost? Lets go with the cheapest and the quickest.

It has been decreasing, true. If this trend continues, we can expect to see the regulations, which always lag, to change to address this. It's too early, though.

Too early in that there have not been enough deaths?

The fact is that when I was hired you had to have 5 years of heavy turbine experience, and at the time it was 12 years to top. So counting the 2 years in school we were looking at 19 years to top pay from initial investment.

 

[Bob Owens]

duplicate

 

[PRINCESS KIDAGAKASH]

I wouldn't blame the AA587 incident totally on a design flaw. You can snap the tail off any large jet using the rudder inputs and swings that were being used in that particular incident.

If you want to compare costs between becoming a pilot or mechanic, the costs of becoming a mechanic will and have always been higher. Most pilot's after getting a commercial ticket get paid while building up time to get an ATP, while a mechanic has to buy lots of expensive tools and equipment out of their own pockets for their entire career.

 

[eolesen]

I wouldn't blame the AA587 incident totally on a design flaw. You can snap the tail off any large jet using the rudder inputs and swings that were being used in that particular incident.

[post="251118"][/post]​

The pilot's training was fault in the NTSB's report, but it's still ultimately a design flaw -- had Airbus's design incorporated a limiter like you find on Boeings, it would have been next to impossible to have had those inputs on the rudder at that speed. I'll bet that the A320/30/40/80 fly-by-wire software also prohibits overloading the rudder at speed...

 

[PRINCESS KIDAGAKASH]

If this "flaw"(I call it a quirky pedal design) was so bad,why didn't the FAA ground all the A300's until a change was made? The NTSB found this quirk during the investigation of the crash and saw a potential for another accident. That's the only reason the NTSB recommended a design change. The co-pilot of 587 would have been in trouble that day no matter if he was flying a 767,777,or an A300.

FYI, the A300 has a rudder limiter as all heavy jets do. The NTSB found the limiter was working properly on AA587.

 

[eolesen]

If this "flaw"(I call it a quirky pedal design) was so bad,why didn't the FAA ground all the A300's until a change was made? The NTSB found this quirk during the investigation of the crash and saw a potential for another accident. That's the only reason the NTSB recommended a design change. The co-pilot of 587 would have been in trouble that day no matter if he was flying a 767,777,or an A300.

FYI, the A300 has a rudder limiter as all heavy jets do. The NTSB found the limiter was working properly on AA587.

[post="251150"][/post]​

The NTSB's recommendations seem to have a 50/50 chance of actually being acted on by the FAA....

Grounding would only occur if there were no way of handling the potential problem via other means. With Concorde, there was no way to work around the potential puncturing of the fuel tanks from debris. Grounded. With the A300, it is possible to issue a procedural bulletin to make people aware of rudder loading.

I'll disagree with you as to what would have happened with a 767 or 777. Perhaps the tail structure would have been damaged, but I don't think you'd have had a total separation with a Boeing, Lockheed or Douglas product. That's not a slam at Airbus, but I don't believe the other manufacturers use(d) an attachment point which is purely made up of composite.

 

[PRINCESS KIDAGAKASH]

The original A300 series used metal lugs on the vertical stabilizer attachment points. From what I have read about the composite tail that Airbus switched to on the A300-600, the composite verticle stab. is not only lighter,but is stronger than the metal vertical stabilizer it replaced. I saw an old early A300 at a "boneyard" that had the verticle stab. removed. It had the same six lug attachment setup as the A300-600 has.

 

[FWAAA]

Nevertheless, 587's vertical stabilizer failure was not the result of faulty maintenance - it was caused by some combination of design flaw/excess input. As Former ModerAAtor correctly pointed out, it was not something that the AMTs could have noticed/predicted/prevented.