Originally Posted by
Hugh Jarse
Leinlodge and FlyByNuts, I could not agree more.
I hate to say "I told you so" but I told you so. About two years ago two individuals I know, very competent individuals who with approximately 600 hrs TT each were hired by Regional operators. My worry at the time, due to the hiring frenzy and so called pilot shortage was that as soon as people of this ilk reach 1500 hours they are given command of a 450 knot jet flying into some of the busiest airspace (and groundspace) in the world. They are doing that in bad weather, having to worry about pax issues, mx issues, ATC issues, everything involved in a command position.
Even if you are O.K. with that, consider that now their newly vacated right seat will be filled with, you guessed it, another wet behind the ears 600 hour pilot. That, in my opinion, was and is a disaster looking for a place to happen, my fears tragically manifested themselves in Buffalo.
One of the individuals I mentioned earlier was furloughed after about a year with about 1300 hours TT so then had ~700 in the right seat of an RJ. He is a very, very competent pilot, studies hard and demands a full understanding of the aircraft he flies and the environment in which he operates. He has been fortunate enough to get a position flying as a captain on a King Air, notwithstanding in depth FlightSafety training he still has faced many and varied challenges in his new role due to inexperience. (J. if you read this you may want to comment).
The bottom line is there is NO substitute for time in the seat. It is like anything else, golf, skiing, shooting you just gotta do the miles, Embry Riddle or not you just gotta do the miles.
I think that I am the person being spoken about here. Thank you for the compliments
I feel very fortunate to have had the experiences that I have had on the (short) road to where I am now. I have had varied but limited experience in both the corporate and pt 121 arenas and feel that both have helped me immeasurably as a pilot. I do however, still have a lot to learn. As I said before, I am very fortunate to have been given many great opportunities.
Up until now I have relied on hard studies and attention to detail to get me where I have wanted to go. Unfortunately, I have found, in this industry that knowledge cannot be substituted for experience.
My recent command of a King Air has indeed come as a challenge. I have proved the above to myself. It is extremely easy to read a book about icing until you are told to take off into sh**ty weather with, in my case, 5 passengers depending on my knowledge, ability and EXPERIENCE alone. At that point I realized that I could know all the theory in the world but how many times have I put it into practice with people counting on ME? The answer was, not enough.
At that point I used all of my available resources and formulated a plan of action and the flight was conducted successfully without issue.
What did I learn from this? Well, building experience flying smaller aircraft commensurate with an experience level is necessary. Of course, to build experience, you have to actually do it somewhere. This somewhere should be a progression, not a jump straight into a RJ with a fresh commercial.
Conversely, I was at a regional and gained some absolutely invaluable experience there, with low time. That pt 121 time made me realize and see a huge number of things that I would have never considered or been able to see as a CFI or pt 135 freight dog. But again, should I really be seeing those things at the controls of a passenger jet? I think the obvious answer is no.
As I mentioned above, every flight I do now, still within my first 100hrs of turbine PIC is invaluable... Everyone should try it!
(I think much credit should be given to my initial instructor for any success I have had or may continue to have. Thank you Mr Jarse)