Originally Posted by
belliott
Not to start an argument but UND does run their kids through a CRJ specific ground school and basically half of a CRJ type rating (including profiles and emergencies) the only reason they do not recieve a type is that the sim is not full motion. I am not saying that this qualifies people with low times to be regional pilots but.... basically they have already have gone through the same ground school that pinnacle has. Therefore one would anticipate that a UND grad would be more likely to pass training than someone who has had zero CRJ experience.
Sidenote: JetU has finalized a contract with UND to put their students through ground school... apparently they find UND's standards for completion high enough to justify this move.
Again, this is not to insinuate that these low time pilots should be at pinnacle but they do have previous experience with the knowledge required to pass ground school and IOE.
The CRJ ground school and sim course do definitely help when you head off to the regional airlines. I ended up flying the ERJ and I still found it helpful. And yes, the reason airlines will hire UND grads with such low time is because they have proven they can make it through an airline-style training program. ASA, Horizon, ACA and others do/have done the same thing for a long time. A proven track is why. I will second another poster by saying that I don't think 280 hours qualifies one to go blasting off in a jet with 50 paying passengers behind them. You may have the knowledge (anyone can learn an electrical system or how a pack works) and the stick and rudder skills but there is just NO WAY you can have the level of experience necessary to make the decisions you will come across flying in the 121 world. Just a lot of aeronautical immaturity there, I don't care how old you are. I started instructing at about 280-300 hours and there is a LOT of learning and growing up you will do as you build that PIC time, even if it is in a warrior or arrow or cessna.
Don't know much about the JetU program but UND has a long history of contract training with various entities. There have been long-term contracts where we were training pilots for China Airlines, ARAMCO, Cirrus and a few others as well as smaller contracts. The latest company that I know of who is sending applicants to UND for training is ANA in Japan. So UND doing outside contract training is nothing new.