Quality over quantity is VERY true. I've argued that before on here. I think this becomes more prevalent when you get up to the hours you compared though. It's hard to compare the quality of 250 hours coming through training to 1000 hours of doing anything else though. Like TD said, nobody is trying to be mean here. Someone else mentioned that we shouldn't dislike the guys getting hired with such loq time because we'd have done it. I don't dislike them, I just think they could've made a better decision for their career. Maybe I'm weird, but I wanted to fly some, instruct, hunt forest fires and do whatever else I could find to get some experience. That way, when I got to the regionals I would have a decent understanding of what I was doing and have at least seen--albeit maybe once or twice--some things like weather, turbulence, a few equipment malfunctions, etc..., scared the hell out of myself a few times, made decisions on my own without anyone there to rely on, and survive to tell the story. You gotta remember you're carrying people in the back.