The sad reality is that the civil aviation training and "Experience building" system has proven to be flawed... 1500 hour pilots like that gal on Colgan 34xx that pulled the flaps during a stall recovery are all over the system and have in many cases never failed a check... truth be told (and I am a product of this system).. I've seen many a pilot get a pass when I'd have failed them.. I trust far more in the military weeding out system than I do the pilot farming system that is more motivated by costs and keeping "meat in the seat" in order to save money.. sorry, it's just how I personally feel.

What does 500hrs of MEL time do when both engines are running about 490 of it(the 10hrs being the time to get the rating). It really is a worthless requirement. 1500hrs I don't have a problem with. Realistically I wouldn't mind it being more like 1000, because I feel it's a happy medium between Quantity and Quality. If by 1000hrs someone hasn't figured it out, then they aren't going to.

BoilerUp, I love your post about getting with Purdue about "realistic" type of learning. I still say the best experience I ever had while there was the Be20 operations, that's what really opened my eyes. I don't see why they can't cut the 727-sim's into a smaller time-frame, but then again, I remember some of my Sim partners and they needed all the time they could get!!! Most of the Prof's last worked Professionally for Eastern Airlines, or Braniff. So how can they really be current in their field? I love them to death, and thought they did a great job, but I feel the curiculum needs a little update(and the Phenom Program isn't what I was looking for)

as a current student I will agree with you that the King Air time has been some of the most beneficial time. I went into Dulles and O'hare as well as some other airports in the mid west in them and there was nothing like your first flight with Grundman as captain going into Dulles during a morning Rush. It was on that flight I decided that I was not ready to be a RJ pilot with my expierence. I jsut sent a pretty solid lead(meaning they jsut need to get transport cost covered) on a 757 full motion sim to the department. Also the instructors have improved while the -200 instructors are still from the days of Braniff and Eastern we have two new instructors who were with ATA as capt on 727, 737NG, and 757. THey do the -100 and our new CRJ FTD. I do agree with you on the multi requirement. I haven't flown single multi since my checkride....unless you count the sim.

Excellent post! As a fellow Purdue AT grad, I'll second this thought. From what I've gathered talking to TQC (a while back now), the university as a whole is being a bit schizophrenic in that it has determined it's goal is to be a major research institution. All well and good, but that ignores what its charter was (and what it's done very well for a long time). There is a place for research, but there also needs to be a dedication to educating the "unwashed masses" (which I am a member of), and that is not always best accomplished with people whose names have M.S. or Ph.D in the title (no offense intended against TQC, who is one of my favorite people in the world and one of the finest teachers I've ever encountered).

From what I understand, I'm quite disappointed in the direction the university as a whole has chosen to take. As a microcosm of this, I'm not thrilled with the direction the AT department has elected to move recently.

All that said, I'm not intimate with the details, and may well be talking out of my ventral elimination port.