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!
That's not how it is in the 121 world. I think we are talking about two worlds with totally different levels of experience.
It is not right to compare a part 91 FBO SIC with a 121 First Officer.
Timebuilding is done outside of 121 operations before you join.
I was answering to someone saying 121 flying is easy and I ment that it depends on how you fly 121.
In my airline the Captains "let" (we dont see it that way) the First Officer handfly as much as he likes. In our airline CA and FOs are trained to the same level and many FOs perform much better or are more skilled than the Captains.
We handfly most climbouts to 18000 and most vissual approaches and even instrument approaches sometimes.
My airline never hired people with less than 1000 hours and 100 multi if no CRJ time. Exception down to 800 hours was made for very very few that had flown CRJ for other airlines.
Most of the FOs at my airline have several thousend hours.
Weather, Fuel, rules and all the setup for the flight can easely be done by any First Officer at our company.
121 is 2 crew enviroment. Both pilots are there to back each other and to be the watching and safety net for the other pilot.
Many of our FOs are former Captains in 135 or 121.
Personally I joined as an FO with over 1000 hours just in turbine time and much more TT.
First Officers are highly trained and respected in our airline and not looked upon like a novice or a pilot with limmited skills like in the PART 91 FBO world.
Our First officers are Captain in training and have to pass the same training than the Captain.
PCs are most of the time performed at the same time for a Captain and a First officer and during such both have to perform the same tasks and manuvers just from different seats.
I prefer to fly any day with a former 135 cargo IFR night guy with no CFI time than a 2000 hour CFI that have no icing or weather experience and very limmited hands on flying within those 2000 hours. CFI is great for AIM/FARs knowledge but not so great for getting flying experience..............