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Aviation History
1954
1954 - 0462.PDF
216 FLIGHT, 19 February 1954 ATTRACTING the AIRLINE PILOT The Question of Salary HAVING studied with interest the various views expressed in articles and letters in recent issues of Flight on this subject of recruiting airline pilots, I somewhat diffidently put forward my own ideas as a further basis for argument. To go back a long way, between the wars airline pilots were mosdy ex-R.F.C, or had served in the R.A.F. widi short-service commissions. A few started on their own, paying their own way, which may have cost £500; today it would be nearer £6,000. After the 1939-45 war all airlines were pleased to pick and choose from the large number of experienced and semi- experienced pilots coining out of the R.A.F. and, as a result, salaries were almost the same as pre-war, in spite of the fact that living costs were much higher. Very soon the R.A.F. decided that young pilots were needed for jets, and that the undisciplined war-time rabble should be replaced by a new generation of young disciplined pilots. The results took a couple of years to appear, and the percentage of casualties were as large as during war-time training. Belatedly, the R.A.F. tried to get the experienced pilots back, though with poor results until the level of Service pay and allowances became higher than civil salaries; then many pilots returned to the R.A.F., so depleting the civil pool. An air vice-marshal of Bomber Com mand stated mat the pilots of the new Canberra squadrons were between 27 and 37 years of age, had learned caution the hard way, and were thus safer for the flying of expensive jets. Without starting the old argument of civil versus Service pilots, one may remark that it is obvious that no individual or company could afford the cost of the training and experience gained at public expense in the R.A.F. It is also indisputable that a pilot has to learn by experience; no amount of right-hand-seat time will make a captain. To quote a squadron saying: "There are some old pilots, and some bold pilots, but no old bold pilots." In Transport Command near the end of the war were some pilots who, having obtained their wings, and having done two years on secondment to B.O.A.C., came back into the R.A.F. with 1,500 to 2,000 hours' R.H. seat time. Through no fault of their own they were useless and could not be recommended for captaincy. A man must have a lot of command time to become a good captain, and the most economical place to obtain it is in the Services. At present, an experienced pilot in the R.A.F. gets a higher salary, plus keep, etc., and is better off financially than a civil pilot; and until civil salaries are attractive enough he will stay in the Service even after a short-service commission, thus reducing the need for new recruits and training. If civil aviation offered a Service pilot (of say 28 years old, with 3,000 to 4,000 hours) a salary of £2,500 p.a., plus allowances, increasing to £5,000 p.a., there would be an incentive to take the trouble of getting civil licences. These figures are not exorbitant when American Air lines pay £4,000 to £7,000 p.a., and Sabena in the Congo have attracted captains from East Africa, South African and other air lines with guaranteed minima of £3,500 to £5,100 p.a. plus free housing and medical facilities. PRESTWICK DIRECTORSHIP C HIEF designer to Scottish Aviation, Ltd., since 1942, Mr. Robert Mclntyre has been elected to the company's Board. Born in Glasgow 53 years ago, he received his education at Dunedin, New Zealand, theil returned to this country to serve an apprenticeship as a naval architect with the Ayrshire Dockyard Co. at Irvine. This was in 1916, and later he went over from marine to aircraft engineering, joining Short Bros., at Rochester, on the design side. He was there for three years, then went to Hawkers, where in 1925 he was in charge of the experimental design office. He remained with the Kingston firm for 17 years, during which period he was associated with the design of such famous types as the Hurricane and Typhoon. In 1942 he returned to his native Scotland as chief designer to Scottish Aviation, whose Prestwick Pioneers are now in service with the R.A.F. in Malaya, and whose 16-passenger Twin Pioneer is scheduled to appear at Farnborough this year. r v W yi ; By W. M. ANDERSON THIS, the latest contribution to the controversy on the recruitment and training of airline pilots, is by an airline captain who has been flying charter services, mostly overseas, since the war. When in the R.A.F. he flew Blenheims and Bostons on over 100 operational sorties, did about 1,500 hours as an instructor on twins and multis, and later flew for two years with Transport Command. Here he concentrates mainly on the question of higher pay as an incentive to airline recruiting. Previous articles on the subject in the past six months appeared on July 3rd (I. L. S. McNicol), October 16th (David Brice), November 6th (John Bishop) and January 8th (David Meager). All this points to the fact that British airline pilots are among the worst-paid in die world, particularly when U.K. income tax is deducted; so why should a good Service pilot leave, and enter civil aviation, to be financially worse off? I can hear someone saying, "Where shall we get 1st officers from?" There are several answers to this, but the present-day method of employing young, inexperienced pilots of 20 to 23 years old, willing to spend about ten years in the right-hand seat as a navigator, is not the best one. Firstly, the experienced ex-R.A.F. pilot lured by a fat salary, should, if he is the right type, have no objection to doing at least a year in the R.H. seat, but also as a captain on probation; and, being older and more experienced, he should be a better navigator than the young trainee. He will also make a good captain; but at, say, 28, the thought of ten years' R.H. seat flying at a salary of £800 to £1,180, before he gets a command at 38, is too ludicrous to contemplate. Secondly, there will still be the few who learn die expensive way and will be available with die minimum hours and no experience. Thirdly—and something should have been done about this a long time ago—hundreds of navigators were discarded at die end of the war, and present-day navigators in the R.A.F. have no future outside die Service. My suggestion is that they should have the benefit of any money spent by the airlines, and given training up to commercial-licence standard. Many of them, being basically pure navigators, may never want to get into the L.H. seat as a captain, and this would help solve the second-pilot problems; also, the airlines would benefit by the great deal of navigational experience already paid for by the public. I am sure that, with the incentives of the necessary help and a good salary, there is here a great pool upon which civil aviation could draw at less expense than by the suggested training of boys. To sum up: (1) High salaries would attract good pilots from the R.A.F. as captains after acclimatization. (2) Decent salaries and help to obtain pilots' licences would lure good navigators to the R.H. seat. (3)These withdrawals from the R.A.F. would mean that new recruits would have to be trained, so making it necessary, probably, to re-open some of the closed schools. (4) This leaves the R.A.F. holding die baby; but, in turn, civil airlines can be used to augment Transport Command when required, thus saving the maintaining of duplicate fleets of large aircraft and the crews to man them. I Mr. Mclntyre. UPLANDS AND ROCKCLIFFE EXPANSION /CANADA'S Defence Department has spent about $20,000,000 V on new construction work in its programme of expansion and development of the Government-owned airports of Uplands and Rockcliffe in Ottawa. This vast programme will place the two fields among the forefront of any in North America. Payments on contracts at both places in the fiscal year 1952-3 alone came to around $5,000,000. At Uplands, up to last March, contracts for over $10,500,000 had been placed, whilst at Rock cliffe the figure was over $5,500,000. Further contracts have been placed more recently. At Uplands these contracts included a large cantilever hangar and workshops, construction of hard-surfaced runways and 214 housing units. The hangar and workshops are to cost $3,773,371; the runways $2,649,000 and the 214 housing units, for Air Force personnel, $1,880,656. Development seems unlikely to stop here; the intention is to continue to expand facilities, with a new administration building and waiting rooms. The idea, apparentiy, is that Uplands should become not only an alternative trans- atiantic landing-ground for Dorval Airport, Montreal, but also a leading military and defence-research airfield. Rockcliffe is not being extended in size, but the facilities have been improved a great deal in the last year or two. There the largest contract was one of more than $2,000,000 for the con struction of 300 housing units for R.C.A.F. families; another was of $1,797,000 for an Air Material Command building.
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