Originally Posted by
MusicPilot
A 400 hour guy/gal is just as cape able as a 1000+ hour guy/gal at handling the 121 training environment. You're either a good pilot or have the potential to learn and apply or you're just not cut out for it. It's all about what type of pilot you are. There are plenty of low time pilots that fly 10x better than guys with 5k+. I say if you know you can handle fast paced, tons of systems info, and simulator environments then apply! What's the worst they could say, no or not respond?
Usually the pilots you find on here that discourage low timers from applying more than likely had problems themselves.
Lets see.
Flight School (College) through Commercial and CFI and maybe CFII, I don’t recall.
Ultra Lights for 3 months at 8,200’ MSL.
Border town in Texas, Bug Dropping, Flight Instructing, Night Freight into Mexico (No US laws broken) – single engine.
One day, $395, Multi Engine rating with L. E. Clark in Ponder, TX, PA-23, Apache.
Lots of PA-31 Navajo time in Mexico – Thank God nothing went seriously awry for a couple of hundred hours.
Pilot Services – single & multi.
Night Freight
into the US (poor judgement, learned from that, statute of limitations expired) – single and multi – single pilot.
Left in a hurry.
Night Freight (the politically correct kind with boxes) in a PA-31 (part 135) – single pilot. Again, thank God nothing went seriously awry for awhile.
King-Air -90 A, B and E, -200, Cheyenne II, Air Ambulance and Charter (part 135) – single pilot.
Lear 24 & 25 Air Ambulance and Charter (part 135) – Co-Pilot.
Lear 35 & G-100 world wide Charter (part 135) – Captain (DO and Chief Pilot).
Citation I, II, Hawker 400 fan, Westwind I (part 135) – Captain (Chief Pilot, Director of Training, Check Airman).
Part 121 job (737) at age 33 with 5 type ratings – First Officer for 5 months.
Upgrade to Captain.
Line and Sim Check Airman 3 months later (I did Captain OE for the guy one number junior to me) for 8 years.
Flight Training Manager for a year.
Back to Line Check Airman, for a year and a half I didn't fly with anyone that had more than 40 hours in their seat.
I also served as Training Committee Chair, Safety Committee Chair, Representation Chair, System Board Chair and on the E-Board throughout that time for our union.
Based on the above, I feel I’m qualified in making the statement,
A 400 hour pilot (let alone a 250 hour pilot) doesn’t remotely compare to a 3,000 to 5,000 hour pilot.
I must agree that the quality of flight time is very important. I rode support for a re-check (for their job) of a 12,000 hour FO that stalled the airplane on a V1 cut. When we hit the ground, the pilot turned to me and asked, "Why was it going down, I was pulling back?" That pilot had 95% of their time in a two pilot, hard ball, turbine twin but the majority of that time was day VMC.
I also had to fail a pilot that had been a 15+ year, 121, jet, Captain in the airplane (737) he'd been flying for probably as long as I had been in aviation. He had failed 2 upgrade rides and on his check for going back to FO, he initiated a RTO - from the right seat (Captain flying) - for an engine fire above V1 among other problems.
I was a 400 hour pilot and I remember how little I knew, my one advantage was that I didn’t believe I could be killed. I was a 1,000 pilot, still didn’t know a lot.
Now at 15,000+, I’m still learning and many of those lessons come from pilots with less time than I have.
A single pilot, hard ball, piston twin pilot with less than 1,500 hours has no business in an 121 jet operation. I’m sure that will be an unpopular statement, but, what the heck, it’s just my opinion….