WSPLT

I would imagine that there are a few folks who aren't really concerned about that. It seems these days an FO could get hired at the majors without much if any 121 PIC time, so I suppose one could take the E175 with no intention of ever upgrading before moving on. I don't know how likely that is, but it seems to be the way things are going.

That being said, I agree with you completely about the Q400. I'm certain that anyone upgrading into it from the E175 will be asking themselves, *** did I DO??? in very short order!

Purpleanga

Is there any hope of a LAX base? I know Alaska is based there. Also is the "preferential interview with Alaska" legit?

fishbait32

I've talked with a couple FO's for Horizon. They said you get the interview with Alaska but sit forever waiting for a class date as you see other pilots get a class date before you. Those pilots being from other regionals like Skywest, etc. I mean they need you to keep flying for Horizon so they'd probably rather have you wait and get the other pilots in first.

I was looking into Horizon, with that reason being a main attraction. But hearing about that and how easy it appears outside pilots getting hired, I'm looking into other regionals at this point.

PanRobert

Why? Is it a terrible airplane, dangerous? ??? Thought the DCH8 was supposed to be quite nice?

Jetspeed

This isn't the case anymore...

amcnd

I think its more the long days, 6 legs, very hands on aircraft, heavy procedures knowledge.. compared to the one button ERJ...

WhiteH2O

It's not a bad airplane. Like what amcnd said, you are going from a plane that nearly flies itself to a plane without autothrottles, handflown Cat III approaches, and more complex systems (having props and all). All these things add up during an already commonly overwhelming process of upgrading.

WSPLT

I don't think the Q400 is a terrible airplane, however it does seem to be a bit less reliable than RJs or ERJs.

It has a lot of quirky "features" that probably come from the efforts to keep it a common type rating with the early Dash aircraft. The flight guidance computer is a perfect example. The display for vertical & lateral nav modes shows them in the opposite order of the actual buttons. There are numerous situations where if you don't mash the ALT SEL select button, it will not capture anything and just drive the aircraft into the ground.

The FMSs don't talk to each other without our intervention, and have many of their own gotchas, like not sequencing to the missed approach unless they are on the NAV page.

One could write a book about the many "features" of the Q400, but suffice it to say it requires constant babysitting. There is no "set and forget" with this airplane. Things that do have an AUTO setting, are more often than not operated manually as the airplane doesn't do a very good job of it.

All of these sort of gotchas have resulted in a lot of additional procedures for the Q400 as workarounds, and Horizon seems to have gone a bit overboard with this in some cases.

Don't get me wrong, the Q400 is a very capable aircraft, and I think it is probably able to provide service to many airports that wouldn't otherwise be served with RJs. I think what people are getting at though is that if one was used to flying the ERJ, and that's all they knew as an FO, the learning curve would be VERY steep going into the left seat of the Q400. It is NOT a forgiving aircraft. It's certainly not impossible to fly, but I think one would benefit GREATLY from being able to learn its quirks and how to handle them before being dropped into the left seat and suddenly being tasked with things such as hand flying a CAT III ILS. Couple that with the fact that we fly into some pretty gnarly airports, and have some quite complex proprietary RNP approaches that thread the needle into canyons on curved legs below all the terrain. It's a recipe for trouble IMHO, especially if they are paired with a very new FO.

As said before, the schedules suck too.

snackysmores

Reminds me of AQP last year when they dropped us into a CAT III with an out of control engine fire and bad vectoring by ATC. On mine we also got an approach warning for seemingly no reason (solution? Mash the approach button on the AFCS panel until it kicks back in lol..) Without the knowledge of the gotchas and quirks I don't see how a new captain with zero time in type is gonna pass training. It's not impossible clearly, but the failure rate is going to get attention from the feds no doubt.

The Horizon Air Q400 program is heavily over-proceduralized (new word) and it makes the 6 leg days a nightmare. Consider the E175. The Before Start checklist has what..6-8 items? The Q400 has 32, and every time one crew messes up on the line they add a new one.

N19906

I remember the first time I sat in the jumpseat on one of our RJs, years ago. It was on a SEA - PDX shuttle, and all I could think was "What are they doing? They're not doing anything! They've just pressed three or four buttons, and the airplane is flying the route itself. Wow."
Quite a contrast to the mighty Q.
The airplane is a challenge, but it's fun when you've mastered it. For something with propellers, it's stinking quick and can do some interesting things. That said, show up with you're "A" game, or it will try to eat you.