[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by Don Ro

Paul, your take on this.
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I had the occasion to speak with B-52 pilots while in the AF...one told me about how stringent were the procedures, etc. Of course, I knew that.
Told me something about circuit breakers that were pulled in commercial airliners.
If the system was redundant, they'd fly anyway.
The military, not so.
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This, as I recall, anyway.

All commercial aircraft have a MEL, Minimum Equipment List. It defines the stuff that has to be working correctly for the airplane to dispatch with passengers. I can assure you that there are no critical aircraft systems left off of that list. Stuff that can be INOP are items like a passenger seatback display, coffee maker, seatbelt or armrest in an unoccupied seat, you get the idea. It's very stringent, not something they take lightly as it is part of the FAA/EASA certification basis.

Originally Posted by Seahawk

I would be very surprised if that were true. I know a lot of airline pilots that are aging out and none of them has related anything remotely like that - redundancy means the system is on the critical safety path. I'm not flying with ANY popped circuit breaker! Nor are they. They get to the accident first, btw.

My comment was more related to the devolution of pilots in the airliner food chain and how it has impacted great people coming in the door.

That topic is very lively among my commercial pilot friends, all of them senior Captains with big carriers.

Funny, I read an industry article about 30 minutes ago about the current and looming pilot shortage. The biggest issue they noted was the devaluation of airline pilot as a career from the standpoint of society. Today it's a position of limited prestige that requires expensive schooling often at the student's expense, years of toiling at a regional airline for little pay, and then years of working your way up at a major airline before it really pays off. The military is still a pipeline but they are also facing a shortage of pilots, and international carriers are throwing big money at American pilots to entice them overseas.

Originally Posted by Don Ro

I was of the understanding that "redundant" meant a back up system
What did/do I know?
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Any aircraft system critical to flight will have redundancies built in. Some are triple or quadruple redundant. Then they may have a backup system that also has redundancies. Then all of them are tested to failure and beyond to insure that they actually offer the safety and reliability required. One of many reasons that airplanes are so expensive.