Originally Posted by
labbats
With these career fairs HR can fill the pool with qualified applicants and avoid the 300 hour wonders they were stuck with last year.
No offense to 300 hour pilots. We've all been there, we just didn't get to fly a jet full of people in every weather situation to airports big and small. While some people will tell you the military does it, I trained those guys and had nothing to teach them after 5 hours. The military finds the best prospects and goes from there. Civilians find the highest bidder.
I'm civilian from the ground up, never flew military. Either you're good pilot from the start or you're not. I firmly believe there is something to be gained by flying a single engine prop in and out of a pattern. When I commuted and a 300 hour guy was landing the crosswind technique just wasn't there. People crash into the ground, not the sky and crosswind technique isn't taught in a sim or a book.
I've heard stories of major IOE Ca's that have had to take controls away on IOE on the count of no flying skills, not just for regionals. It doesn't mean the 300 hour can't land a toy jet in a crosswind, it just means they've never had to land it before. While I agree that on paper 1000 hour is a whole lot better than 300 hours but in the real world it all has to do with the individual. I've seen many cases where low timers put high timers to shame, after all, this is the MS flight sim generation...