.87 Ultra Neanderthal 🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲

Before I upgraded to captain on the 737, I literally flew with about 300 different captains over 9 years. Many had 20 years as a captain on the 737, totaling 14,000 hours in type. I came to this major airline with 19 years as a regional airline captain, where I also was a check airman on two of the four types I flew there. I was a new FO at the major airline with 20,000 hours. I looked forward to learning something so I chose the International division where we fly the mountains of Central and northern South America. Now I’ve got about 29,000 hours and have been a captain on the 737 for over four years. The regional and the major airlines had exceptional training that created strong captains. And when I started with the regional, half my captains in the 19 seat Jetstream were Eastern Air Lines captains that lost their jobs from the strike. For a 24 year old new hire, that survived the Wild West of the Lear and Falcon 20 flying, I finally was getting the intense mentoring only found at the airlines. I’ve been in the airlines for 36 years and instill what I can to my FOs, none of which are rookies overall. I say all this because nothing in civilian aviation can touch what we do at the airlines in terms of the safety mission. And I’m only critical of former military pilots on one point. Mission hacking. It doesn’t make civilian flying safer but does the opposite. We had a crash in 2000 that immediately was seen for what it was: The captain was determined to land at the intended destination in spite of a thin line of severe weather passing over the airport. He landed long and fast, in a strong, gusting crosswind. He had to use max reverse on tail-mounted engines, but that doesn’t work with strong crosswinds because directional control is weak. So he came out of reverse to regain the centerline, went off the end of the runway and got himself and several passengers killed. Our training center immediately posts signs all over the facility saying “there is no mission”, that the only job is a safe landing somewhere. That crash shook this airline to its core because at that time, the airline was 93% former military and it was seen that certain aspects of the military mindset don’t transfer safely to civilian flying. Every former military copilot I fly with gets to listen to me tell that story of that crash. I’m not exaggerating when I say that it shook the airline to the core. Our union’s safety committee puts out emails about a safety topic. The email ends often with the quote “there is no mission”. 26 years later, those that were around when that crash happened are still rattled by it. Today, because of mergers, the airline is now, I’m guessing, 50/50 military and civilian. Each brings great talent and experience to the cockpit. As a civilian pilot, I’m sincerely in awe of what the military pilots did in the military, especially the Navy carrier pilots. I’m literally in awe and love to learn from them. On the flipside, when I meet a new copilot that was a regional pilot, I tell him or her to saw no more. I know exactly what they bring to the table as I was one of them. Their expertise is airline flying and they are exceptional aviators. Now contrast all this with the Learjet crash. Well intended pilots that got in over their heads, flying passengers that don’t have a clue that they paid top dollar for less safety, just to save time by flying directly from their hometown to their destination. It’s devastating, but incidents and accidents at this tier of aviation are more common than most people realize.