hours equals experience
 

What do hours have to do with experience? I constantly here about how 1000hr plus pilots are better sutied for airline jobs than pilots with less than 1000 hrs. I was just curious who set the number at 1000? I mean do you mean to say that the pilot that has 998 hours is a lesser skilled pilot than the one tha thas 1000 hours? Is the pilot who flew straight and level in VFR for 1000 hours to the same location or the CFI who sat in the right seat and "wathced" someone else fly for 1000 hours is a better pilot than the guy who flew 500 hours in hard IMC in multi engine airplanes daily?


I constantly hear "get your time up, get your time up" Just because you have 2000 hours doesnt make you a better pilot than a guy that has 500. I think it depends on the kind of flying you do.

1000 hrs typically is the hr limit to get to a major ( 1000 TPIC ) I would only assume this would be what you are talking about, or 1000TT. Either way, it seems to be just a bragging point mostly as you said, 998 vs 1000 hrs means nothing if you plant one into the ground you're facing the same music :(

It depends on of you have 1000 hours, or 1 hour 1000 times.

I have a feeling that most people use 1000 hours as a general figure, not a cut off for experience. That is to say, the 1000 hour pilot is the same as the 998 hour pilot. Airlines just need to pick SOME hour (as opposed to 957 as the cut off).

You do bring up an interesting point though. While most people say a certain amount of CFIing is useful, after a certain point, how useful is it when you accumulate hours? I've heard people claim here that airlines prefer people who gained their hours by CFIing versus going for 100 dollar hamburgers. To me, the pilot who is flying cross country, in weather that could be IMC (assuming they have their instrument) under less than ideal conditions and flying "In the system" is more valuble than doing 500 hours of steep turns, turns around a point, lazy 8s and power off 180s in the right seat squaking "more right rudder!" The training environment is a bit contrived - generally only going on ideal conditions (more of less) and as a CFI, very little stick and rudder skills. It seems a lot of time building cross countries where go/no-go decisions are made, where hours of bordom can be followed by minutes of terror, and true ADM really tests the pilot. However, those are just my 2 cents and I AM in the most hated group here (Aviation degree, <1000 hour CFI, willing to be hired at any airline).

Your last line says it all. No one here on APC can really argue differently. It is true you want to get your hours up. <g>. Why? 2 primary business reasons: (1) A way to cull the crowd. (2) Meet insurance requirements.

Hours gives you the opportunity to gain experience. Philosophically, Reason you will find some HR depts may focus on one type of background, or others take a variety, etc. It meets their business needs. What they all share in common?: Hours set at some variable point to meet business needs.
Get the hours any safe way you can<bg>

snippercr,
No one 'hates' you <g>, we all have been in the tumbler, most of us here do want to mentor you to choose wisely though to better all of us. It is a 2 way street. We in the industry need to do a better job to help you get better choices.
Good luck to both of you.

Do you have a CFI? Because if you dont go get one and see how much "watching" you really do. If you do have a CFI and you are just "watching" then your not doing your job very well.

Being a CFI is more than just sitting in the right seat squawking "more right rudder". YOU are PIC through and through. If anything were to happen, who is going to get burned? Plus, if you add in the randomity factor of what a student might do or not do, it creates a similar situation to airline flying, where you must be aware of everything that is going on whether you are physically doing it or not.

It is a fact that 16-18 year olds get into more car crashes. Why? Certainly hormones and things are a factor, but experience is the factor as well.

I believe there is a benefit that is hard to quantify from having more experience. This probably goes deeper than you think. Having command over the whole environment is more than just being able to hold 45 degs +/- for a 360 turn.

Now that I have been driving my car for 11 years, its basically automatic. I've seen a lot of things and so the chances of experiencing something new are reduced. Flying is getting this way as I close in on 2,000 hours. There is no doubt that I could fly a visual approach in the RJ to a successful landing without a single instrument available to me. Even airspeed can be judged based on visual and aural queues, sink rate as compared to pitch attitude, etc. That only comes with some experience.

1,000 hours doesn't equal another 1,000 hours. Towing banners up and down the beach on Saturday is a far cry from zooming though the soup with a new instrument student. But that is what interviews are for!

"Just because you have 2000 hours doesnt make you a better pilot than a guy that has 500."

Actually, I think it does. Maybe not in all cases. But in general, the guy with 2000 hours has four times the "experience" of the guy with 500 hours. Does that experience make you a better pilot? I'd say how can it not.

I'm sure we can all come up with examples of 500 hour guys that are a better sticks than 2000 hour guys. But I'd say it's not the norm and that the guy with more experience tends to be the better pilot, usually, most of the time.

It's like saying who's a better driver. The 17 year old who's been driving for a year or the 21 year old who's been driving four times as long. I know you can find safe 17 year old drivers and unsafe 21 year old drivers, but, I don't think you can get around the concept that the more experience one has at doing any task, the better he'll be at it.

There seems to be a general consensus that doing the same thing over and over, no matter what it is, eventually isn't very helpful in gaining experience (the 1 hour 1000 times comment is right on). I think something else that should be considered is the fact that perhaps a pilot with 1000+ hours has had the opportunity to do a number of different things. One could probably assume that the pilot who has a bunch of time didn't get ALL of it doing the same thing over and over, whether that's 100 dollar burgers, CFIing etc. Perhaps in one's time teaching they had the opportunity to do other flights. I know that when I was CFIing I did a lot of flights for people who owned their own planes and had ratings, but wanted to fly with someone (or wanted to go just one way)...once you get a good reputation chances like that come up. And I think the more time you get, the better the chances of that happening and the better chance of you doing something that might get you some useful experience!

RIGHT RUDDER, RIGHT RUDDER!:D

And which one is better?

USMCFLYR

I almost got into an airline with about 400 hours...now im just swimming in the pool with eagle....one thing I have to say, after getting another +550 hours of instructing, I feel a lot more comfortable with flying and more confident as well. Instructing isnt just watching, as an instructor, i feel like I learn everytime I teach someone, whether its instrument flying, or better yet, teach someone how to land.

As for the 1000 hours. Ill see when I reach 2000 hours of instructing and post back and see if it changed me as a pilot. I remember when i had 300 hours and felt like I was ready to take a C152 across the atlantic...now I probably wouldnt even think about it. But thats just me.

Hours are a poor way but unfortunately one of the only ways to try and measure experience. I know 20,000hr+ pilots who can't tell you much about airspaces and wouldn't feel comfortable flying into a class B airport yet have no problem flying 10 feet off the ground while going under power lines dusting fields. At the same time I know people with 500hrs of flight time that handle Class B and C airports like a champ.

Hours don't equal experience. Experience equals experience. Saying someone is better because they have more hours is just someone stroking their ego. It's all about what you've flown, where you were flying it, and what type of flying you were doing in it. Bush pilot vs mainline which is better? Just depends on the application of the pilot.

The variety of flying you do has a great deal to do with what we call experience. Neither 1000 hrs or 500 hours ifr give any pilot a great deal of experience. It just gives you enough time to move to the next level of flying to gain more experience. Doing the same flight over and over gives you very little and after a period of time you need to move onto something new.

You may be a better pilot at 500 than some other guy is at 1000, but you'd be hard pressed to convince me that you won't be a better pilot at 1000 hours than you are now.

As a CFI, your goal should be to avoid doing 800 hours of steep turns, stalls, and landings. That's exactly why you get your CFII and MEI and find students who need your skills. Instrument flying as an instructor is some of the best experience you can get until you get your first airline job.

Don't get hung up on the minimums.

Apply everywhere, if they don't accept your applications, try again later.

i agree, hours aren't everything

Airplanes are not like horses:They don't sense the experience of the rider.

And no one bestows great reverence on an older person who has been DRIVING A CAR, accident-free for many years (save for the odd insurance agent).

A certain number of flight hours, conducting a certain type of operation IS important. Flight Instructing for enough hours to become very skilled at it is important. So is flying enough to become a skilled aerial applicator or Part 135 Captain or seaplane pilot.

It take about 1000 hours in the FO seat of any of our airliners just to become proficient - in THAT SEAT!

1000 hours is barely enough flight time to get really proficient at any one thing.

I dunno but I felt pretty proficient on the -9 when i was done with OE... could just be my experience but i thought it was easy.

It's not you, it's the "9". I'm pretty confident that a monkey can fly a CRJ9 in 7 sim sessions.

As far as the original question, the thread starter is right. It' just that the airlines don't have the time and money to leave their recruitment to chance. We all hear of the 200 wonders that can fly like they have years of flying experience, and we've also heard of the 200 wonders that do holding patterns on the ILS. The airline needs a bar and 1000 is it. In my opinion it shouldn't be as high especially for RJs. Yes it's going to be painful for the CAs but all it takes is 1 or 2 months of coaching.

It depends on the student you are training. yes, I am aCFI and most of the folks I train areworking on their commercial or getting an aircraft checkout in our club. I have one student but after lesson 2 its mostly hands off flying for me. I direct and monitor the student. I am not actually manipulating the controls. Plus I just got a airline job so I am not instructing as much anymore

Yet another XJkid flamebait post...Mods some infractions or banning is in order:mad:

man why can't i say that i felt confident when i was done with OE... isn't that the whole purpose of OE? why are you hatin'?

if we all stayed on topic instead of making personal attacks there would be less random tangents.

I have 5000 hours and am learning every day. Am I a better pilot than I was at 4000? Yeah.

Some folks 'get it' sooner than others and that's great. But in general more hours means you've seen more and know what to do in a given situation and what your personal limits are. And your airplane's limits and how it behaves in certain circumstances.

More hours doesn't mean better pilot in the 'stick and rudder' sense, but it usually means better judgement simply because the high time pilot will have seen more things than the low time pilot.

What's the -9? I don't get it? Who are you?

it's the short name for a CL-600-2D24... i'm right seat on it at Mesaba (XJ).

I think it's interesting all this talk about the 1000 hr mark. In the military, you are eligible for Aircraft Commander at 1000 TT. The guys that fly some of the fighters have only about 250 TT before taking their first flight in the jet. Some planes (the A-10 for example) don't have 2-seat models, so the first time a new student steps in one, it is a solo. Again, flight hours is not the same as experience.

Yes thanks. It's just a plane. Not near as nice as the mainline aircraft it tries to be. I can't stand getting nomenclature incorrect. Also, I don't have a backpack, or an ipod, don't spike my hair, (can't afford backbacks, ipods, or hair gel), and figured out how to wear my epaulets. I'm just giving him a hard time on that last stuff, because it's definitely not a majority of people who do that stuff. But seriously, get the nomenclature right.

The milatary has very low requirements, why , because the tax payer buys a new airplane if one gets crashed. Additional the training profile is totally different

Your completely right. This guy should be tossed out of APC for his opinion that IOE was not that hard. Why don't we just make it so everyone's opinion should have to be run by you, and if you don't agree they should be kicked off APC. How about if you don't think it is a real question or you think it is just flame bait why don't you just sit back and NOT COMMENT ON IT. YES its that easy.
Side note XJkid stop eggin everyone on. I have read alot of your posts and your just askin for this type of crap.

Generally, 1000 hours would be better.

It is a saying that I once heard from an old, wise pilot. Having "1 hour 1000 times" implies that no experience was gained during that 1000 hours, or that no learning took place.

"A good pilot is always learning."

A few things I haven't seen discussed on this thread.

1 The insurance companies are very good at assessing their level of risk exposure and approriate compensation for those risks. As pilots that may not have ever had to pay for the insurance on an airplane, many folks may not be aware that the folks with less than 1,000 hours pay a much higher rate then those above. Does this mean a person with 998 hours is more likely to have an accident than a person with 1,002 hours... no, not specifically. The insurance companies have taken the accident and claims paid in comparison to flight hours and determined the magic numbers are 100, 500 & 1000. The highest accident/incident claim/loss comes with the 100 hour pilot, the second most claim prone is the less than 500 hour pilot, and the least accident/incident prone was the over 1,000 hour pilot. The exact formula they use is a mystery to me, but that is how they have chosen to price their premiums for aircraft owners.

2 A review of the anual Nall Report, available free on AOPA online, will support the insurance industries claims of the 100, 500 & 1,000 hour breakdowns.

3 While nobody is saying that endlessly droning around in a 150 around the local practice area is a good experience as 1/3 the time practicing and flying IFR... what people are failing to acknowledge is the fact that the longer you spend time in airplanes, the greater the opportunity to have had something go wrong inflight, requiring you the pilot, to make very important decisions.
Many people experience their first emergency and leave flying all together.... most airline pilots have experienced several emergencies, or critical situations, BEFORE they ever stepped foot into a part 121 airline flightdeck...
An informal conversation with a few of your company check airman who do IOE will undoubtedly reveal many of the newer lower time pilots who have "frozen up" when a master caution or master warning tripped... it isn't anythig against them, they just have never been in an airplane when things went rapidly south. Comming from a college or bridge program with state of the art equipment that you have flown for 250-400 hours without ever having so much as a hiccup doesn't afford a novice pilot the opportunity to have dealt with a critical event.... if you fly long enough, everybody will get their chance... most have had the chance when they were only risking their own life... now we do it with passengers.

just a slightly different take on the subject.

.02

between this post and what he has written under his name i think we know who the guy with the upside down epaulettes you all have been talking about seeing in the hubs...:rolleyes:

If you even have to ask the question, you need some more hours...

It is well known by anyone in aviation that there is a great deal to be learned in the first 1000 hours. This is commonly known by anyone who's been around a bit, it is well known by the insurance companies, and can be demonstrated statistically (check out AOPA if you want deets).

Obviously that's not a precise number that fits every case, but a 300 hour pilot has accumulated essentially all of his experience under adult supervision...kind of like a teenager with a learner's permit. There are many, many things to be learned between 300 and 1000 hours...

- Get your Complacency bubble popped. This might even take longer.
- Learn about mother nature's fickleness.
- Deal with an emergency or two.
- Acquire better comms skills.
- Hopefulyy acquire some IMC...this is a biggy.
- Learn how to balance regulatory, safety, employer, and customer demands. Esay to do as a student when you ARE the customer...not so easy when the boss (and your credit card) really wants to bill some hours.
- As a CFI, learn some leadership and command skills.


IIRC, the statistics show a big statistical risk reduction between PPL and 1000, then a gradual improvement up to around 5000 or so. After that it's pretty level. This does not account for different aircraft types. Also ATP's are statistically much safer than PPL or COMM pilots...the COMM and ATP checkrides are pretty similar, I wonder if it has anything to do with the 1500 hours? :rolleyes:

Bottom line, insurance requirements don't lie. They are not in business to turn away every possible customer...on the contrary, they want to sign up as many customers as they can, but without undue risk. They know what they are doing.

And the problem with low-time regionals FO's is that 121 is VERY safe and mostly free of excitement. You are not likely to ever get scared in the right seat of an RJ because not much happens and you have a babysitter if it does. But eventually you will upgrade...If something hits the fan I would prefer that the captain already knows how to deal with scary situations.

When i hit 1000 hours I saw how little knowledge/experience I had at 500 hours. When I hit 2000 hours I also saw how little experience I had compared to 1000. When I hit 5000 hours I saw how much more knowledge/experience I had than when I had 2000. When I hit 8000 hours I saw how little I knew at 5000. etc...

Actually - if you have no other flight experience the fighter guys will be flying a jet for the first time somewhere around 60-80 hrs. Now they will have somewhere around 160-180 hrs before getting into their assigned 'fleet' aircraft. The numbers reflected are approximate and reflect USN/USMC jet aircraft.

USMCFLYR

I find this interesting since it seems to me that most civilian pilots would say that the most challenging times are the takeoffs, terminal area operations (approaches) and landings.

Let's take 100 hours of that time as an example. If I am flying 1 hour flights then I operate in that environment 100 times and I personally am hand flying my aircraft for a majority of that 1 hour. If I am flying 6 hr legs (most of which are flown on the autopilot) then I am operating in that same environment only 16 times. I guess it is a different way of looking at the value of that 1000 hrs we were originally talking about. My flying does NOTHING to prepare me for mainline flying - something that I worry about all the time; but I'm pretty sure that I can successfully be retrained :D

USMCFLYR

I figured that insurance requirements played into the 1000 hr mark in some important matters. In the military the magic numbers are 500 and 1500 hrs TT for the most accident prone pilots. The numbers you mentioned seem to cover only a small part of flight experience. Do they not mention mishap rates of pilots above 1000TT?

USMCFLYR

I was actually talking about the assigned aircraft. My apologies for not making that clear. My knowledge of USN/USMC flight times is limited. Everything I spoke of was in reference to USAF.

Military flying is a whole different animal, with it's own, seperate set of statistics.

Here are the civilian stats: http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/06nall.pdf

Military flyers are carefully screened before they begin training...then the training forces an even higher standard on them. If you can't hack it within the alloted time, you get washed fast...daddy can't buy you some more training. Can't really compare a winged guy hitting the fleet with a civilian fresh out of the puppy-mill.

Major airlines will hire a 1200 hour fighter guy.

A 1200 hour civilian is lucky to get a regional interview (2006-2007 was an abberation)