Slowhand wrote:

curveball wrote:

Slowhand wrote:I like turtles!

Snappers?????

Whatever it takes, dude!

JFLNYC wrote:OTOH working for the Trump administration is not exactly enhancing anyone's resume.

WASHINGTON (AP) — An influential industry committee recommended Thursday that the Federal Aviation Administration eliminate or scale back dozens of safety rules, including one on airline pilot qualifications.

The FAA's Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee said the recommendations are a response to an effort by the agency to comply with President Donald Trump's directives to cut government regulations. The committee approved a report containing the recommendations by a vote of 14 to 4 with one abstention.

Pilots unions and safety groups oppose the recommendation on pilot qualifications, saying it would undermine safety. Regional airlines have been trying to roll back the pilot qualifications rule since it was adopted by the FAA in response to a sweeping aviation safety law passed by Congress after the last fatal crash of a U.S. passenger airliner.

Lawmakers said at the time that they were concerned about reports in the wake of the crash of Colgan Flight 3407 in February 2009 near Buffalo, New York, that some rapidly growing regional airlines were hiring first officers with far less experience than pilots at major airlines. All 49 people on board and a man on the ground were killed after the captain responded incorrectly to safety systems, causing the plane to stall.

After the crash, lawmakers increased the minimum number of flight hours first officers must have in order to obtain a license to fly commercial passenger airliners to 1,500 hours, the same as captains, leading to more experienced first officers.

Before that, airlines were allowed to hire first officers with as few as 250 hours of flying experience. Some airlines would move first officers into a captain's seat as soon as they had the minimum 1,500 hours of flying experience.

The report recommends permitting pilots with less than 1,500 hours to qualify for an "air transport" license if they receive academic training from their airline.

After the 2009 Colgan Air crash that killed 50 outside of Buffalo, new rules on pilot training were put in place. New pilots are required to have 1,500 hours of flight time before they can earn their air transport pilots license.

That's another 1,250 hours pilots must accumulate after getting their commercial certification.

Supporters of the rule say it has been a success and there hasn't been a U.S. commercial airline fatality since the Colgan crash.

However, critics contend the rule is a huge barrier to new pilots who would seek to start at regional airlines and also point out that both pilots on the Colgan flight had more than 1,500 hours of flight time.