Originally Posted by pilotwifey

1. Does an extra few hundred hours instructing in a cessna really help prepare you to be in the right hand seat of a jet? A low-hour pilot goes through the same IOE and the same FO training as a 1000 hour pilot.
2. Since when was being confident and self-assured a bad thing? There are cocky high-time pilots (just check out some of the posts on this thread) and cocky low-time pilots, this has to do more with a pilot's personality rather than his actual flying experience.
3. Most pilots who attend PFTs are flight instructors, and they usually become flight instructors sooner than those who train in other ways. Just because a pilot trains at a PFT doesn' mean they don't flight instruct. They also get paid for being a flight instructor, and often at a higher rate and are able to flight instruct more often.
4. This is ridiculous! Plenty of pilots who fly at PFTs don't have alot of money and take out loans, just as there are many rich folks who train at FBOs or other places. Whether or not someone has money is completely irrelevant to what kind of pilot they wil be.
5. Obviously, working as a flight instructor for an extra 500 hours does not give you a "higher level of maturity" as evidenced by the posts on this thread. Maturity is not gained solely through being a flight instructor for extended periods of time. This again is a generalization, and it is ridiculous to claim that low time instructors are necessarily immature.
6. Look at the boards- there are just as many rants and expletives made by high time pilots. AGain- a generalization.
7. Why shouldn't a pilot pay for a type rating? People across the nation in may different walks of life make investments in their careers and educations. Lawyers often pay tens of thousands of dollars for LLMs in specific areas of law, Professors pay for additional masters degree that are "unnecessary" but may open doors, employees pay for unnecessary degrees that may help in job protection. Why is it so ridiculous for a pilot to make the same kind of investment? Airlines know that pilots with type ratings are traininable and are more likely to hire them.

Is an extra 500 or 600 hours training in a single engine aircraft really so valuable that it means the difference between a good pilot and a bad pilot? Many of the high time pilots have accused low time pilots of being in it only for the money and degrading the profession, but that is silly. Someone plannign their life and career must make decisions on how they can make the best of their career. If given the opportunity to get into a profession that is based PURELY on seniority a year or two earlier, then why would they pass that up? I do not see how this degrades the profession in any way. Putting more pilots in the pool means employers have more to choose from, can be more selective which results in better pilots. Obviously, employers do not see low hour as a hinderance. If they did, they would not hire low time pilots, the demand would decrease, and pilots would stop paying for type ratings. If you are going to knock low-time pilots, why don't you grumpy high-timers provide a little logic to back up what you are saying instead of drawing an arbitrary line in the sand. Is 800 okay? 900? 1000 tt? or should they fly for 10 years in a cessna before they are "ready" to be a "real pilot"?