Originally Posted by
CAVOK84
That's correct, the Colgan FO was around 1500 hours I believe and the captain had over 4000. It is just odd to me that many people on these forums who were hired with over 1000 hours of total time seem to think they are in a different league than a 400 hour pilot. Unless you were military trained or got into a high performance or challenging aircraft it just simply isn't true. You may be able to short field land a cessna a bit better than the 400 hour pilot but that doens't mean jack.
I agree that we need a standard, but the main reason why I want that is so we reduce the supply of pilots and wages increase. From a safety aspect, I think requiring everyone to have an ATP is a good start and a good law. It won't completely fix the issue but will help weed out some of the guys who would otherwise slip through the cracks.
The problem with the logic in my opinion, is that hours are not a good way to show ability or true experience. That is the reason you have 1500 hour KC-10 captains in the military.
I am not in total disagreement with you but if hours don't measure experience, what does? It makes sense to me that someone with 3000 hours has more experience than someone with 1200 hours. Regardless of the skills one has as a pilot, in general, at 5000 hours someone has more experience and is more likely to better handle the major problems one might encounter in an airliner when compared to someone with 2000 hours. On an individual basis I would hope that someone is a better pilot at 6000 hours compared to when that person had 2000 hours (and I think in general this is probably true).
In regards to the Colgan crash, one has to wonder if this accident would of happened if they were HIRED with more than 300 hours. If these pilots had instructed until they had 1000 hours and did stall after stall with students would they have correctly recovered out of the stall? It is a possibility. They skipped out on the FOI Law of Exercise by not getting to practice basic maneuvers.