If you’re attracted to Tianjin Airlines for the potential to transition to another aircraft, be super careful with that. As of the writing of this book, in 4 years of operating with foreign pilots on property, only 3 have transitioned from the EMB145 to the EMB190, and those have been described to me as tenuous at best. Despite a ton of inquiry into the matter, nobody has transitioned to the 320 and in the last contract the 330 was removed from the language, so it looks like that potential is gone. Furthermore, regarding the EMB190 and 320, it looks like if you have a QAR situation or have pissed someone off, you aren’t going to be selected to transition from the plane you’re flying now. It’s really easy to piss people off here, and it’s super easy to get pissed off at the ridiculous shenanigans they pull on a regular basis. I don’t care how good you think you are, you’re going to have a situation eventually, the cards are stacked against you. So, there’s that. I’ve seen a ton of great pilots get hit.
Now, numerous pilots have passed the interview and started training under the promise that they’d fly a month or so in their current airplane and then transition. This is typical Chinese bullshit and the company slobs who offered the deal know it. They issued a fakey offer to get people to bite at what resulted in a seemingly more savory apple that was essentially fake. They don’t realize it makes them look really bad, undermines any trust anyone could have in what they say and pisses everyone off in general. The CAAC rules are quite clear in this regard: you must have at least 700 hours of experience flying in China before you can legally transition to a new airframe.
This fake transition offer is a similar situation to international jump-seating. International jump-seating is a farce since the CAAC rules state that if you are going to participate you personally have to be authorized at your company to operate internationally; in short, it was a false deal that pissed everyone off. Some of the guys have been patient with all of this, others simply walked off the job. In fact, one guy quit on the spot during a foreign pilot meeting and strolled off the property laughing. I don’t blame him.
Another twist in this transition training affair is that if you can officially verify your flight time through the FAA (a body which will not verify your hours as a general practice since it’s not in their mission statement) you can satisfy this prerequisite with the CAAC. One guy here was actually able to have a portion of his hours verified (he had millions of hours in the EMB145 and was apparently able to do so because he was a line check airman part of that time); still, he sits on the EMB145 waiting for transition. It’s also come to my attention that a class was offered to several of the EMB145 guys in June of 2013 but it was canceled without warning or explanation. They all actually traveled down to Sanya and went to the classroom before they were told no joy. One of the pilots in that
group was rumored to be quitting over it as of the writing of this paragraph.
The next issue to chew on here is the provisions in the contract for becoming an instructor. Forget about it. I was talking to one of the old-school guys here and he said they’ve been offering that since day 1 of bringing the foreigners on property. Several of the guys have tried to bite that carrot, but it gets snatched away at the last second. Besides it being a complete
Page | 176 error in judgment to think that a Chinese pilot at Tianjin Airlines would ever suffer a foreigner to have that status/power over him (let alone even consider the thought of foreigners moving up through the company ranks), the Beijing office will never allow it anyhow. This has been confirmed over and over again.
So, there you have it. Wanna transition to a bigger airplane? Wanna be an instructor? It’s tenuous at best and a lie at its very heart. Make sure you keep that in mind whenever the company offers you something too good to be true: it probably is. Don’t disrespect yourself by jumping for a carrot that you will never taste. And don’t trust River any farther than you could throw him; he is a lying sack of fecal matter fish food. And with your bad knee Ed, you shouldn’t be throwing anybody…
So, there we were in ground school for the 190. Swiss Aviation had long since been kicked off the property so we had a monkey teaching us in Chinese… Well, we naturally had some questions going along and asked a fair number of them without any good answer until the instructor got pissed off and said our questions were too hard, stop asking. Great, real great China.
Capt. Anon.
So, there I was in the sim doing the EMB145 to EMB190 transition. We were doing GPWS escape maneuvers during this particular lesson, and it was the FOs turn to go first. We launched and the instructor put us on a collision course with a mountain range. The FO sat there oblivious of the amber and red blobs of terrain marching down his MFD. “Ahem…” I muttered. The instructor leaned forward and asked the FO if he could continue flying straight. “Oh yes, yes! Yes, I can do that!” he emphasized. “Ahem!” I cleared my throat again, “Are you sure?” “Oh yes, I can go straight!” As I asked him if he was absolutely, positively sure we could keep going straight, I felt the instructors hand on my shoulder: I was tapped out. So I busied myself with my charts and syllabus as the terrain got closer and closer… seconds ripe with anticipation crept by until an urgent computerized voice broke the silence... “Terrain… Terrain,” the GPWS announced. There was nothing, not even a flinch from the FO. “Terrain... Terrain… PULL UP! PULL UP!” Still nothing from the FO: he was just sitting there. CRASH!!!! He looked over with a blank expression on his face wondering what had happened…
Capt. Anon.
Ed. note: Here is a nail that had been hammered down one too many times, now engaged as a candidate for flight crew at an airline job. Sad, inconceivable, brutal; you chose the adjective to describe it. Against the recommendations of the Swiss Aviation instructor and managers this student (eventually) PASSED his training and was online flying a couple of months later. Guess who was on his no-fly list?
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