RJ's STILL Kicking Butt and Taking Names...

[3WE]

We bust spars with fan blades on A-380s

We burn batteries in 787's

We do 30,000 ft extended stalls in Airbusses.

We do student pilot nosewheel porpoise landings in MD-11's

We fly 777's and 737's and Airbusses into the ground.

Yet, Regional Jets...operated by overworked, underpaid, low time, puppy-mill trained, pilots and sporting flat screen TV's, moving maps, and a lot of automation (maybe not autothrottles) continue with their very excellent safety records.

We four one oh'd one and deliberately stalled it (and cooked the engines) and we went stupid on an unusual intersection of two runways on a pre-dawn takeoff, but aside from that, they're nearly spotless- and the crashes I listed are over 6 years old!

I'm guessing there's a few less RJ's flying these days, and-right or wrong- we've got newer bigger ones now pushing what DC-9's used to do...

But, this sure warrants some discussion about what's so special with these little planes that our junior pilots seem to bend them so rarely?

Of course, we DO have a bad time with them on the ramp- the big planes appear to be quite jealous bullies.

[Gabriel]

Good points. It would be good to listen what BB and Snyder think about this.

[TeeVee]

just a thought...young, puppy-mill trained, low time, overworked, underpaid pilots grew up WITH automation. they are more accustomed to thinking in line WITH automation. no offense to the more experienced pilots, but they are generally older and grew up without a computer, smartphone etc. it's a different way of thinking.

also, and i'm no expert, the rat jets have less automation and require you to be a bit more attentive. asiana and turkish would NEVER have happened in a rat jet precisely because there is no autothrottle. it may turn out that this latest UPS tragedy is as a result of something similar.

how many cessna 172's have crashed because the pilot was relying on the aircraft to adjust the throttles?

[3WE]

just a thought...young, puppy-mill trained, low time, overworked, underpaid pilots grew up WITH automation. they are more accustomed to thinking in line WITH automation. no offense to the more experienced pilots, but they are generally older and grew up without a computer, smartphone etc. it's a different way of thinking.

Ironically- when I'm reading your rants (valid rants) about corporte culture and safety suffering, I think "to hell with legacy airlines, extreme cost cutting is the whole point of regional airlines"

Stat's do generally frown on Regional turboprop service, but yeah, something with the mini-jets, and perhaps it's the "right level" of technology.