Who would you rather fly with...
 

Who would you guys rather fly with a 1200 hour pilot with 40 multi or a 400 hour pilot with 200 multi? Just wondering which is more important to the airlines when they are hiring.

I think every guy or gal is different...... depends on what the 1200 hours is in I suppose. And what type of flying it was.

Hell it all depends on training and the person, when I flew C-130's 99% of the co-pilots upgraded to the left seat with 800 in type and 1000 TT......they come out of UPT with 200 hours more or less.....

Personally I would prefer they all have 1000 hours or more, but that just isnt the reality we have today. Things change.

1200 hour guy any day

whichever one I get along better with....

Playing the percentages the 1200 guy cause he's likely seen more(wx,mx,etc). As to the airline part of your question, I don't think they care these days...just looking for a warm body in most cases.

The one with smallest EGO, uses their common sense when flying and try not to kill me.

If they need people they will hire any Tom, Dick and Harry.

Just about every Airline in England has the MCC Course -Multi Crew Co-operation Course - Where they take low times guys and train them to become amazing gear monkey, and it has not failed yet.

When I was at my flight school, you could not be an MEI if you did not have 500 hours of flight time because of insurance. Now, you are welcome to fly a jet with that amount of time. But HEY, Times has changed. Britney Spears now has kids!!!!!!

Seconded. Flight time is a very poor indicator of quality of airmanship, amount of ego, or knowledge...all it means is more time in an airplane. Is it quality time though? The question "do you have 1500 hours or one hour 1500 times?" is a good one when it comes to background and experience.

Does the 400 hour pilot have a CFI and at least 100 dual given? Lots of time in the IFR system? Sharp on instruments? How did they get their multi-time, instructing or splitting it?

Does the 1200hr pilot have a bunch of 152 pattern work? Do they have much time in the IFR system doing cross-countries? Are they sharp in instruments? Would they be proficient in a multi?

1200 hour guy regardless of experience had because even if it is 1200 hours of patrolling a highway or working the pattern in a 152 it is 800 more hours of oppurtunity to use decision making skills and encounter problems that others may have not seen.

Multi is not a designator of pilot skill

Agree, 100%

How could a 400 hours pilot have a lot of time in the IFR system? At 400 hours, a pilot is just being to learn the system. The only multi time they probably have is time they've bought since most places won't insure an instructor with that low of time.

1200 hours as a VFR only CFI doing touch and goes for all private pilots, vs a 400 hr pilot that has 200 hrs flying as an SIC on a turbine aircraft can't be compared. A 400 hr UPT candidate is more likely to have a wider variety of experience than a 1200 hr part 91 "podunk" candidate.
While the CFI might have had more opportunity to experience the "unknown", the 400 hr pilot is probably more likely to succeed in a high altitude environment with less supervision.

At the end of the day, 1200 hrs or 400 hrs, they both pass the same checkrides and I'm still the captain. As such, I still anticipate a need (as well as a desire) to mentor/oversee any new first officer. Likewise, I'm not going to shut down an opportunity to learn from another crewmember and utilize the best of their own experiences- regardless of how many hours or the type of experience they may have.

Best response so far............

Do the airlines really look at where your time came from or do they just look at how much you have? Just about all of mine is as a CFI doing both touch and goes and also lots of instrument work. My only problem is I'm short on the multi because I haven't had very many multi engine students.

Great response. Captains like you are the best out there because you do offer tips/advice and answer questions. Flying with the guys who are quiet all the time, aren't standard, and seem to know little about the airplane, SOP'S and the rules is not a whole lot of fun.

I think they absolutely look at where your time comes from.

Exactly...

An airline is going to favor a 100ME hour MEI who taught engine cuts on takeoff, after liftoff, and full feather shutdowns..over a 100ME hour pilot, who went to florida, rented a plane and did lackadaisical VFR cross countries from Ocala to JAX to the keys for 3 weeks. Not saying that block time is always like that, but let's be real.

It's not how many hours a pilot flys a twin with both engines running, it's how well he flys a twin with only one engine running! (ie. single engine multi)

How about a 100 ME hour pilot flying around building time vs a 50 ME hour MEI?

50 hour mei, hands down, I did that route and I can say I was a new 22 hour MEI, I SUCKED at it. My first students where Chinese, they sucked too, pretty scary at times. At 50, I felt good, 100 I could relax and at 150 I started having fun.

You're exactly right but pilots fly planes with both engines running into the ground all the time. That's why I'd take the more experienced guy. Sure experienced pilots get into accidents too, but the 400 hour guy is more dangerous than someone with 1200 hours.

Not necessarily true by any stretch of the imagination.

not necessarily but more likely

Well, they do say that your first 1000 hours are statistically the most dangerous. But Josh is right on- as usual, I'll agree with him 100%.

It all depends on the pilot. The 400 hour pilot is probably safer if they have a CFI/CFII/MEI, compared to a 1,200 hour pilot who does not have those ratings. Flight time does is not a linear relationship with accident rate. More advanced ratings/certificates are a better (overall) indicator of safety and expertise.

An example of this is that the toal number of fatal accidents (from 1983-2000) attributed to 1,000 hour Private Pilots, is the same to that attributed to 500 hour IFR-Rated Private Pilots, these two groups have a somewhat equivalent level of safety. This is the main reason the FAA eliminated the time requirement for an IFR rating. Safer pilots tend to have more advanced ratings. That statisitc is from "The Killing Zone" by Paul A. Craig.

Here we go................Yankee Mystique

I think QOL of time has more to do with shear numbers...........

You're exactly right but the killing zone also shows that 1000 is safer than 400. We're talking about commercial pilots here. You're right about it that a 400 hour cfi is probably better than a 1200 vfr private pilot but a 1200 hour comm/cfi is safer than a 400 comm/cfi.

I usually try to stay away from these as I'm not entirely sure I can attest well enough to that question, being i'm not the sharpest tool in the shed.

However, when presented with this type of a question I always ask myself....wouldn't you rather have the guy who regardless of thier TT or ME time for that matter would perhaps be.... humble?... Dare I say get out of thier seat if only to drag one more gate checked bag down to the cargo loading guys just because it's a nice thing to do?

Somebody who when given a hold can subtract the reserve(+ALTN) fuel from the FOB and give you a rough estimate as to how many minutes of hold you have left in you without scrambling an FMS keyboard for that?...

Wouldn't you rather have the guy who would say heck I'm not sure, but I do believe it's this way or the other... and then give you the leeway to think and maybe even do what you think within given parameters (read safety margin) so you could actually learn in a good way and not by being yelled at with no reason and without even seeing the results of your decision? (FOs and CAs alike...)

Finally, I would rather fly with the one who can do all of the above and in the worst morning, a reduced rest morning after 5 legs the day before and before 4 long ones today could get into his seat, do his job quietly, in a humble way, be patient with me and then just then, smile and adore a beautiful sunrise on the horizon and be thankful we all have jobs and ones that we like.

Touche' Mr. Schone!

400 or 1200 hours? That would depend entirely on how well he or she flies the airplane, his willingness to learn and adapt to different situations and most importantly attitude. I think that Josh, Boiler and Schone made excellent points regarding this.

As has been mentioned before, the Europeans have been putting extremely low time pilots in the right seat for years and the aircraft aren't falling out of the sky (and I'm referring to Western Europe, not Eastern Europe, Central Asia, North Africa etc. who face an entirely different set of challenges...).

It is true that the training and selection process is different in Europe. The process of selection is more rigorous and the training is often airline orientated from day one. That being said, the most significant difference is that more Captains accept their role as a mentor so that the FO may become a more skilled and well rounded airline pilot and future captain.

Since lower time pilots are once again a reality here in the US, would it not make more sense for those in the left seat to adopt a more pragmatic attitude regardless of their personal feelings? If the person in the right seat is proficient, knowledgeable and willing to learn, why not help him become the more experienced well rounded pilot you would like sitting beside you?

As others have mentioned, times have changed and you can not really blame a pilot for taking an opportunity that was not available to those who came before him. To those who are so adamantly against the lower time pilots, can you honestly say that you would have turned down a job had it been offered to you when you were low time? That being said, I think the selection criteria should be stricter for lower time pilots. The candidate must have a certain level of maturity and life experience.

I agree with this but how do you put that on a resume? You don't find that out until you have an interview or get hired.

I've always wondered what you learn beyond 50hrs of multi? You learn to push and jiggle both power levers to get them in sync. I've always felt that maybe I'm missing something that everyone else must know. What do you think?

I don't think you learn much of anything new but you may experience some new stuff, maybe an engine failure or something like that.

Actually, in addition to the above, a good pilot is always learning. After only 50 hours in a twin or any plane for that matter, you are just beginning to learn.

Ahem, well, technically... that's not exactly accurate. KFed has the kids now...

Sorry, couldn't resist on that one. :D

On a serious note, after 1000 hours military, most of it in the Hornet, the most significant thing that I learned is that I don't know what I don't know.

Solo the T-34... I thought I was the man, then I selected jets... thought I was the man, solo'd T-2's and started flying some cool formations... thought I was the man, solo'd T-45's, started dropping bombs, doing some dogfighting, landed on an aircraft carrier...thought I was the man. Selected Hornets...thought I was the man. Dropped some bigger bombs, learned some cooler dogfighting tricks, did the carrier thing again...thought I was the man. Got to the fleet and got my ass handed to me several times and realized, no, no, no, I am NOT the man. And I will freely admit, when you get that glimpse of realization at just how much you don't know, its rather eye opening to say the least, even more so when you realize you don't even know what you don't know.

I agree with the answers above that fall in line with it matters not how many hours you have, but what you learned along the way in getting the hours you have.

How bad a parent do you have to be for Kevin Federline to win custody of the kids? It's mind-boggling!

Crap you're right...!! That's hilarious!

My problem with the 400 hour guy with high multi is that he's probably never set foot outside the academy. His lack of real world experience limits what he can bring to the cockpit.

There is something to be said for having more time and getting that time in a challenging environment where nobody is holding your hand or telling you what to do.

I'm not a big fan of pilot factories. In the end, both pilots could suck or both could bend over to give their best effort. Attitude is an important thing. And there is no substitute for experience.

Best answer. Cannot teach humble, but it can be learned.

With none.