One thing that is not really directly addressed, but is probably part of the bigger picture, is that it's not the total hours always that reflect 100% of the pilots abilities (although it is the best benchmark we have at the moment). We aren't being hired just for our monkey/stick and rudder skills. We're being hired for our maturity in judgement and problem solving in a high stress, technically complex enviroment. I know low time pilots can fly well, but it's aviation maturity that is truely the heart of the issue.
The military puts 300 hr pilots in 40 million dollar F-18s and shoots them off of a ship at night loaded with bombs to go over enemy territory, then come back and land on a postage stamp. These pilots were chosen because they went through a training weeding out process that demonstrated their ability to function well in this environment before ever getting near an airplane. (I'm not a F18 guy). We don't have this selection process in civil aviation, so we rely on total flight hours and past flying jobs to show we've had some exposure to some stressfull experiences. The bridge programs bypass this. Some guys are sharp at 300 hrs, some aren't. It's a gamble that some of the regionals are willing to take to save money by not paying for higher time pilots. They are flooding the market with lower time pilots which makes it harder to negotiate wages. I hope this doesn't offend anyone... I just know that many low time guys will look back in a few years and realize how much they may have learned between 300 hrs and 1,300 hrs.
Last edited by cruiseclimb; 03-31-2007 at 06:49 AM.