....yes!

Sometimes planning decides that a class of 20 will be split between different aircraft. In that case, HR leads us to believe there is some scientific method to selecting who gets the jet and who gets the Saab. In reality, I have seen every combination you can imagine. When we were spooling up the first few classes of CRJ pilots back in summer/fall of 2005, it was a mix. We had CFI's whose most complex airplane was a Seminole go to the jet, and we had 135 Hawker captains with 2000 hours jet PIC going to the jet. We had CFI's going to the saab, and 121 pilots from PSA and Piedmont going to the Saab.

In my opinion, I think they draw names out of a hat for assigning aircraft in split classes. During interviews they used to toss out that fact that they like the lesser experienced pilots in the most automated airplane and the more experience pilots in the Saab. The Saab sees some tough flying; in the weather, backwoods airports with no ILS, coyotes and badgers on the runway, in the ice, in the turbulence...plus it is not nearly as sophisticated up front as the Avro was or the CRJs will be. It is sometimes tough to put a lessor experienced pilot into that airplane and give them a flaps 15 auto-coarsen failure on a missed from a night circling manuever.

In the jet, it is autopilot on at 500 feet, and you are a computer programmer for the rest of the checkride essentially.

Don't stress trying to profile yourself into one airplane or the other. Typically, you will end up being dissapointed. I can tell you that if you get in the pool and get a class right away, you will get the jet. We are fixin' to be overstuffed on the Saab soon. This last vacancy shows 100+ furloughs recalled to SF3 F/O. Not all of them will come back, but you can see that the Saab is pretty well covered for the short term.