9780991975808

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Say, you drive up to a hangar and walk up to the first fellow you meet with a "Mornin'. I'm looking for a flying job; where would I find the owner?" If that fellow happens to be the proprietor of the Air Service, he will most likely reply with something like: "How much time you got?" Before he even asks your name or introduces himself or even looks at you he wants to know what experience you have. Your answer will then determine if he wants to talk to you. Examples such as this are almost classic precisely because experience in the business of flying is paramount. While a pilot's job application might be rejected for several reasons, his experience will determine whether or not his application will be considered at all. Therefore it is safe to say, experience is generally(79) supreme for pilots and Air Carriers alike. So the next question is why? Why is experience so important in flying?

To answer that question we must look at what experience means to both the pilot and the Air Carrier. It is obvious that cognitive experiences such studying and practicing skills supply decisions with considerations that can be reasoned out. Just as important—and in the face of uncertainty, more important—are subconscious experiences. They supply information that cannot be reasoned out. In Chapters 6 and 7, experience was described as a collection of mental images of people, objects, places, times, circumstances, situations, events and their interrelations(80). Specific to flying, these images are of passengers, crews, airplanes, airports, operating environments, weather conditions, close calls, flight operations, etc. Both the pilot and the Air Carriers believe, the more a pilot has flown, the higher his experience stockpile. At this stage it does not much matter how well he performed while gaining experience. The fact that he is there, looking for a job, means he had survived his experiences to date. Therefore, in so far as his accomplishments are concerned, he must be doing something right. What matters is how much and, as discussed earlier, what specific type of experience he has. What both the pilot and the prospective employer look for in experience, is an adequate supply of information needed to make timely line decisions—and, of course, the skills to implement those decisions. Experience, as stated earlier, breeds such intuitive products as insight, judgment and ideas, and also warnings and recognition, all of which might be needed in decisionmaking. Therefore, once the pilot has mastered decisionmaking, experience to both the pilot and the Air Carrier means decision quality.

We can now answer the question, why is experience important in flying? It is important because a pilot's decisions will determine the fate of his flight. Poor decisions derived from vague judgments due to limited experience increase risk. Conversely, good decisions, derived from precise judgments based on a wealth of experience, reduce risk. Since risk in flying is measured in terms of human life (and other considerations), and since risk is (approximately) inversely proportional to experience, flying experience is a measure of risk to life. This is the bottom line; this is what pilot experience is all about.

______________
(79) Some airlines recruit college students to train and contract as pilots. Also, filling mandatory quotas might push that requirement to the top.
(80) The list is not meant to be exhaustive.

(G.N. Fehér, Beyond Stick-and-Rudder, Hawkesbury, 2013, p. 184-185)

snippercr

USMCFLYR

It is well known that the *risk* factors increase and decrease with different levels of experience (hours) as a pilot progresses through their career.

N9373M

Experience is what you get when you're looking for something else

9780991975808

Thank you for your observations, snippercr.

There are number of ways to gain experience. Some are costlier than others but the value of the experience gained is set by its usefulness to an employer. Experience can be direct or indirect, general or specific, internal or external, high-grade or low-grade, expensive or free, etc. Unfortunately, there's just not enough space here to elaborate.

I don't understand the basis of your question, how do I “quantify SUFFICIENT or APPROPRIATE experience and for WHAT PURPOSE?” I don't. That's the prospective employer's job. I simply stated that what matters to him is how much and what specific type of experience a pilot has, which he will then compare with his expectations or minimums, whatever that might be.

I can accept that my supposition, risk is inversely proportional to experience, might be the “most naive, simplistic and most likely useless statement” to some. I can only hope, it's thought-provoking and valuable to others. It certainly is to insurers - among others – who routinely rely on the relationship between these two factors to assess risks.

I don't see how the AF447 example might relate to your opinion. Pilot experience is not a guarantee flights won't be lost. It's a factor in calculating the odds they won't be (lost). AF presumably looked at facts, calculated risks, made some judgment calls, accepted the odds, and in this case, lost. It's that simple.