Originally Posted by
de727ups
"Total time is meaningless."
"Experience is priceless"
So, which is it?
I disagree with you, which is no surprise, but I agree that planes aren't fall out of the sky in Europe. I'd say it's partly cause of the higher standards in ground training and a more rigorous selection process. That's why it works for the military. The Capts over there must have some pretty interesting "low time F/O" stories to tell as well.
The more experience/flight time the F/O brings to the table, the better. You can best learn by doing.
You are right. Those sound contradictory. But experience comes not only through thousands of hours. I have a buddy in Switzerland who has spent most of his career flying MD-11s. It is a lifestyle which undoubtedly has it's own challenges. But I know for a fact that he has twice as many hours as I have, but I have more approaches and landings than he has. By a large number. The flying I do averages about 1 landing per hour. I have about 4000 hours total time now. All but 260 of it in the airline environment.
Who has more experience? Since most of his hours are in cruise at FL350 I don't really think he is learning too much.
Anyway, captains here have low-time F/O stories to tell too. I could tell some of my own!
I was certainly no hero pilot at 260 hours, I can tell you that.
But who among us was?
But in Europe it is done a bit differently than in the US. It is very normal for a plane to be vectored to final to fly the ILS, even in CAVU weather. Not too hard for the 260 hour wonder to fly headings, altitudes and speeds with the autopilot and fly the last 2 minutes on the ILS by hand. It is the visual approaches which can screw someone up, and there are few done over there.
I am not here to say that any system is better than the other. But I don't have a problem with low-time pilots per se. The safety comes through judgement and training and of course, experience. But experience alone is not the only thing.
If there were a way to combine the best of the European system with the best of the US ways of doing things it would be very nice. I enjoy the challenges and rewards of both places.