jrwit

Serious question: What's your ideal number? i.e. What do you think is a reasonable amount of multi time to fly a jet?

ThreeStripe

Honestly, the turboprop guys are the ones that need the multi time more. I am typed on three jets, but the most difficult v1 cuts I did were in the BE 1900.

PilotCrusader

It has less to do with 2 engines and more to do with speed and complexity.

I flew with plenty 250 hour wonders and low time multi guys. Some were really good. For the most part though, Low total time and low multi time guys hang on to the tail of the aircraft a lot longer and are a nuisance rather than a help on the flight deck.

jrwit

Fair enough. But you didn't answer the question. How much time do you personally think is a good amount before coming into this job?

jrwit

I feel ya. There may or not be some individuals who have to wait til after sims for their oral. They scurrrrr me.

billyho

Spoken like a true idiot. I've flown with many 25 hour multi guys and many of them were just as good as 400 hour multi guys.

billyho

LOL, I guess you don't know the requirements of a Comm/Mult Rating.

ShyGuy

Leave Envoy for Endeavor? Why not just go to PSA, Compass, TSA?

Da40Pilot

Haha! Do you think for a single second that people should go spend $250/hour to go build additional multi time so that in return they can be paid $24/hour if they don't have to?

It's obvious that a first year F/O is going to have a steep learning curve, but, everyone has to start somewhere - they passed their multi engine commercial checkride and went and built a couple of dozen hours - let the airline who's paying you poverty wages take the brunt for your lack of hours and allow you to build them on property with Cappy in the left seat.

FaceBiten

Really during someone's multi add on, and MEI if they go that route, they do a bunch of simulated engine failures for the rating then don't practice any/much more. If they go build time somehow in a multi, unless they are instructing, they are then just flying with two fans spinning...hardly helping multi-engine skills, where the critical "skill" exists only in an engine failure. So are you saying flying a baron around for 200 additional hours, with both engines spinning, will make someone a better (ME) pilot, better prepared for an airline job? I don't buy it. Not when initial sims are 30-40 hours of primarily engine failures, plus recurrent doing the same thing. If you can't successfully respond to an engine failure at that point, you probably shouldn't (and won't be for long) in this profession.

So by your argument, the only way to become safe enough to fly a multi is to instruct in a multi for hundreds of hours. Where are the students going to come from where you can build that much multi time? Point is, you gotta start somewhere, and being an MEI waiting for enough multi students to get a decent amount of multi can be extremely difficult, if not impossible for many.

Clearly insurance underwriters are accepting the "risk" of having low multi time guys flying 76 seat jets. In some cases, insurance companies are taking the risk with fighter guys who have nothing but single engine/centerline thrust time transitioning to jets that hold substantially more than 76 people. Military trained or not, they haven't done anything that requires significant rudder input and severely degraded flight characteristics other than sims for V1 cuts/engine failures before they start flying pax around. Please tell me how unsafe that is.

You still haven't answered the question of "what's the magic number?" When did you become safe enough to operate a jet? How many hours do I need before I am ok to fly a jet? I'm going to quit and go rent a baron at $400 an hour until you think I'm safe enough. How did you build your multi time to bypass the "dangerous" pilot zone? You must be that guy who was born with 3000 hours and 1000 of multi, all at night in ice, flipping through the winter ops flip cards you made for your company while teaching your captain a few things you've picked up in your 10 years as an FO and keeping him in check.

Since you will probably tl;dr this, here's something you can chew on. Clearly the FAA, airlines, and insurance companies don't agree with you.