Originally Posted by
texaspilot76
I think the next guy had 1200 hours. Another guy had jet time in a C-5. They did fine, but the sharpest guy was actually the low time guy.
I am not saying my observations are 100% correct all of the time. I am just relaying my point of view from the class I was in. I am a GA guy, I have instructed, and I feel pretty good in a light airplane in IFR and VFR. This type of flying here is a whole different world. I have about a few hundred hours instructing, I don't think a few hundred more would have made any difference when it comes to learning to fly this jet. Two totally different worlds. I think the lower time guys might even have it a little easier since they haven't had the time to develop bad habits. Those of us that have done things a certain way for a long time have a harder time adapting to a dfifferent way.
The concern with low-time airline pilots has little do with the sim. Nobody (except mesa) is too worried about whether or not a low-timer can pass training. The sim is a big video game that is designed to teach you how to do instrument approaches and engine-out procedures. Since engine failures are exceedingly rare and you can go weeks or months without doing an instrument approach (depending on geography), the sim isn't particularly relevant to real airline flying.
Conducting regional operations in busy airspace or uncontrolled airports is where that 1500 hours of situational awareness and talking on the radio comes in handy...a CFI has an instinctive feel for what those bug-smashers are going to do (and how they're going to screw up). Example: I did a go-around once due to a GA airplane on base to the parallel on a hazy day. We had him on TCAS (TA) but tower assured as that he was turning final. When I heard someone ask "uh tower, what's the localizer freq for 27R?" I realized the guy didn't see his runway and was going through his final. Sure enough, he went blazing through the airspace I had just climbed out of.
Actually in defense of low-timers, SWA has done the same thing to me...twice.
