Originally Posted by
rickair7777
This hits the nail on the head. Raising it to 1500 hours makes it far more likely that the entry-level airline pilot has had to make decisions in a professional flying environment where he had to balance the competing demands of customers, the boss, WX, MX, economics, etc. You will still have the occasional trust-fund baby who can afford to just buy 1500 hours but they will be few and far between. That kind of command decision making cannot be acquired from the right seat by the average 300 hour wonder (who has had no other life experience to speak of either).
Ok, mabye this is where I miss the bus as far as my thinking a 500 hr pilot can, in the right circumstance, and with the right mentality, gain valuable experiance, in the right seat. Maybe it is a demographic thing, since I was almost 40 and had Military Leadership experiance in my bag of life experiances. I guess mabye there is some validity when the 500hr pilot is 21 when they entered, not knocking them, but you are right with the valuable life experiance argument.