Originally Posted by
BushwickBill
I could not agree more. Dont forget:
Being a CFI is super important because it gives you the confidence to train students. I have flown with two captains who were not CFIs. They were always uncomfortable with letting me hand fly the aircraft. They usually flew all of the legs and they usually made me clean the aircraft. Needless to say if I ever run a flight department I would never hire someone who did not have a CFI and at least 100 hours of dual given.
Yes hand flying a CRJ (not that I would know) is more relevant to being an airline pilot than being a CFI. And I've got to ask how often are your captains letting you hand fly approaches? How do you think you will get all that time as an SIC hand flying a CRJ? You need to have a training captain who has the other 98% of flying dialed: Weather, Fuel, Rules W&B etc. Now your training captain also has to be cool with SIC hand flying the aircraft and you bet he needs to be able to recover from whatever the SIC can throw at him. This confidence comes from being a CFI! How short sighted can you be?
The very people you are counting on for you to get your precious hand flying time are former CFIs. If everyone skipped being a CFI then we would have a bunch of namby pamby pilots who flew the autopilot to minimums on every landing. Even if the SIC could be a good pilot they would never get the chance because the captain would not be confident enough to train an SIC.
I let ZERO time King Air pilots fly from the left seat of my King Air on part 91 legs. My copilots are getting valuable experience that they would never get with the former non CFI captains that I used to fly with as an SIC. I promised myself that as a captain I would never make someone capable just sit there while I espoused on my own delusions of grandeur. That promise comes from my confidence that I developed as a CFI in a 152. Yes a lowly 152 still the most important part of my aviation career. And if you think you can keep a King Air on the center line your first takeoff I'd like to see you try!
I understand what you are trying to say but let's not go overboard with this not hiring unless you have CFI experience. You can get excellent experience flying freight, charter or military flying without CFI experience. No doubt CFI is an excellent way to gain experience. I give you that. I think we can all agree that ATP and 1500 should be the minimum for part 121 flying.