On one hand, if you have a 250 hr wonder fresh out of the puppy mill who thinks they're entitled to a job at the majors within 5 years and is willing to do anything to make that happen, including flying 70 seat jets for an alter-ego carrier somewhere, that's definitely not a good thing for the profession.
Remember the days when the goal was to get 1200/200 just to get on with a regional? They should make these newbies go out and give about 800hr of dual to hone their flying skills. Keeping students from trying to kill you is a good way to develop experience and develop judgement skills.
After that they should have to go and beat around in a 402/Navajo single pilot, IFR, at night, in the rocks, shooting non-precision appproaches to minimums dodging cumulo-granite clouds while picking up a load of ice. Drop off the boxes and then beat the ice off the a/c with the butt of their flashlight (
not recommended or safe) just to be able to take off again to do it five more times that day before they get to go home. This brings about more experience, better descision making, better judgement and hope fully the right "sense of entitlement".
On the other hand, if someone fresh out of college/flight school is thinking "Geez, I paid 100k for rather specialized technical training and will now be operating a $40m piece of equipment with significant revenue generation capability while retaining a large amount of personal liability, I deserve more than they're paying!" - well, that sort of a "sense of entitlement" we need more of, it'd be good for all pilots.
Couldn't agree with you more!!
