Any civilian pilot who thinks that their overall training equals a military trained pilot is kidding themselves. How many civies have been to an altitude chamber, had aerobatic training, started flying swept wing jets with less than 100 hours under their belt. Please there is no comparison.

Still does not mean that military pilots are better. But they sure are trained better.

By the way I am 100 percent civilian trained.

I'm civilian trained. I've been to the altitude chamber 3 times, I've had aerobatic training, and I wouldn't say flying a swept wing jet with low time has any benefit over 1000 hours of dual given with a transition to turbo props, then jets. Either you get it, or you don't. Let's all stop arguing about who is better, and try to make ourselves better.

Of course the military provides better training - it costs what, upwards of $1M to train each military pilot? Contrast that with the civilian route, where you can go from zero time to CFI-AIM with a Citation or 737 type rating for less than $100k.

However, not everybody can be a military pilot, even if that is their career goal and their actions reflect their motivation to achieve it. There are many circumstances beyond one's control that can prevent somebody from getting those wings; just ask me about my ocular hypertension :mad:

QFT. Although I am a private pilot my self, it really hurts to watch these guys talk on the news.

The genius misspelled "Concorde"

Interesting thread. Pilots come in all shapes and sizes (look around at the airport) and skill levels, both military and civilian trained. I will say when I get on a mainline flight I don't wonder if the Captain is giving some 300 hour FO on the job training. I do however, now have to worry if the Captain is going senile, thanks age 65 law!

:):) Scoop - striving to be average!

Since when is Ron Jeremy an aviation expert :eek:

Scoop,I think you found the why of this tragedy,the Capt. was senile not incompetent. Give it a rest.

No doubt it was next to impossible to recover from, but I believe one needs to address how they got into that unusual attitude. Now please don't jump on me because I'm not armchair QBing here, I just think that when CA Renslow said "Yeah, that's a lot, I mean the most ice I've seen on the wings in a while." THAT should have been a red flag.

God Bless the crew & pax of Colgan 3407.

I'm the one walking on water there Herc! You're Ex military/Aviation expert is the one claiming guys like yourself walk on water with you military training! Like, I said the guys who have the problems at SWA most of time are the military guys. Their not use to flying in a civilian enviroment and most are not good stick and rudder guys. For this so called expert to say this Captain was not a very good pilot because he was civilian trained is BS! Did this guy screw up, it looks that way, does that make him any less of pilot because he came up through the civilian ranks no! And just for the record all the accidents that have happened at SWA over the past few years, the over run in Burbank, the over run in Chicago, and the going off the runway in Amarillo, Texas, all three aircraft had captains that were ex-airforce. Funny, how we have not seen any experts give testimony to that.