Originally Posted by
BURflyer
It's undeniable that flying a prop gets you the quickest upgrade and gives you some credibility in that you have good flying experience especially with no autopilot and GPS. However from what I saw the CAs at my previous airline weren't having any luck with the better majors/legacies out there citing not enough experience on jet/advanced airplanes. The only guys that made it to top tier airlines like CAL had a few thousand of pic and were instructors. I guess in the last few years there has been a rise in regional jet CAs applying though it has been tougher market for prop guys.
I personally know people at CAL that had only a few hundred hours of jet time and whatever the PIC time mins were/are (not in a jet mind you...or turbine...just PIC time) get hired.
One would think that a guy flying the Mighty Beech with 500 hours of PIC had WAY more experience that someone with 500 hours of jet FO time... But then again, life isn't fair.
Some of those CAL people won't see jet PIC time till it is in a 737...but I digress.
The guys I flew with at XJT back when we had the Beech always liked hand flying. Old habits die hard...