Originally Posted by Omnipilot

I've been away for awhile, but regarding all the comments about giving prop drivers "a chance" and so forth, let me address that this way:

I was primarily a single-engine piston CFI when I was hired by a major airline years ago and tossed into a 727 followed soon after by an MD80. That was do-able for the following reasons:

1. Major airline training consists of a lot of spoon-feeding and hand-holding.
2. Flying the Line at a Major airline is a lot of hand-holding.
3. Flying the Line at a Major airline is repetitive, cushy, and easy.
4. It takes 5 to 20 years to upgrade to Captain at a Major, so an inexperienced FO without any heavy jet time has a lot of time in the right seat to get the needed "seasoning."

At a carrier like Omni, with a soon-to-come seniority based upgrade, a new FO will be upgraded to the left seat within 12 months or so. That is not nearly enough time to get up to speed with worldwide "your on your own" operations with little support, where you are just thrown out to the planet and expected to "get-er-done" safely, on time, and legally while flying between two different countries you never heard of 12 hours before being assigned the trip. Only non-heavy pilots with similar worldwide experience, or else experienced heavy pilots (for whom the airplane itself is a non-issue so they can focus on the other crap) will be able to pull that off with a reasonable degree of success without first spending a few years in the right seat. And now nobody at Omni will be in the right seat for very long.