sorry, one more point

To me, this is just more blame culture. Rather than taking responsibility to make myself a better, more experienced pilot, its easy to put the responsibility on the training department. I just graduated flight school. I'm entitled to a job. Now give me all the experience and knowledge needed to be a good captain during IOE.

That just doesn't make sense.

 

[quote=250 or point 65;652667Also, think about how many habits a person can pick up by watching someone. That Colgan captain had probably watch 100 captains talk up a storm on final approach, but should he have been doing that when shooting a night approach down to mins?[/quote]
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like, in his late blooming aviation career, he never had the oportunity to fly with anywhere near 100 different Captains.

 

"The last mile is the least traveled".

I am currently working on my CPA license - not particularly sure where it will fit into my life, but is a worthy pursuit during the airline downturn. The CPA exam rivals the difficulty of the bar exam. The review materials are almost 3,000 pages thick with some 8,000 practice questions. The exam itself is 14 hours long in total and only 40% of candidates pass each section the first time and only 10% of ALL candidates who take it pass all 4 parts on the first try. In addition to passing it, you've got to have 5 years (150 credit hours) of college, with stipulated upper level accounting classes, business law, etc, and you must have at least one year (full time) of experience attested to by a supervising CPA.

By the time you get to the end of that tunnel, you've left most of your competition in the dust.

There is truth to what you posted. As a guy who began flying at 16 years old and with 2,000 hours of time, several hundred dual given towards PPL, IA, and CPL candidates, I do take some offense at the idea that only university grads be eligible to fly for airlines. You don't need a degree to fly an airplane. However, setting the barrier to entry at something WAY UP THERE will cause most people to go away and leave only the diehards. With a smaller pool of applicants comes better pay, QOL, and everything else - not to mention safety.

This law is a step in the right direction it seems. I am hoping it gets passed.

 

A swing and a miss! Way to completely miss the point, Doug.

 

Ok, kinda out of context, what I was saying is the mindset of the flightcrew is a determining factor in experiance (which we all agree is a good thing). An FO with that mindset is going to gain valuable experiance even sitting right seat. I think that is great experiance. And I didnt say sitting there watching the Capt make decisions, I said " The FO being part of the process leading to the decision and when the FO comes into his own then the captain agreeing with the decision the FO makes, that is what builds good Captains for the future. It goes back to the mentoring thing.

 

Yeah, it was kinda out of context, but a neat little spin I think

However, you just reinforced my point. Playing PIC and being PIC are completely different. Yeah, you can learn a lot by "being part of the process" but you learn a lot more being the decision maker at the end of the process. Whether the FO came up with the plan or not...they did not make the decision to execute the plan.

 

This hits the nail on the head. Raising it to 1500 hours makes it far more likely that the entry-level airline pilot has had to make decisions in a professional flying environment where he had to balance the competing demands of customers, the boss, WX, MX, economics, etc. You will still have the occasional trust-fund baby who can afford to just buy 1500 hours but they will be few and far between. That kind of command decision making cannot be acquired from the right seat by the average 300 hour wonder (who has had no other life experience to speak of either).

 

Ok, and to a degree I can agree with with you are saying, but you can not discount that process either, My opinion is that a weak captain at 2000+ hours is the result of an FO that was flying 121 under weak captains. Mabye I just have a military type mindset when it comes to how I personaly define my duties as an FO in 121 flying.

 

Just found this on the web

"a training program that trains you specifically for the job of Airline First Officer and places you into a paid airline position without ever becoming a flight instructor!"


Then


"This accelerated program will have students attain their FAA Private Pilot Certificate, FAA Instrument Rating and FAA Commercial Multi-Engine Certificate in only 6 months, logging 250 hours of flight time. Price $35,995"

Here's your sign!

 

Ok, mabye this is where I miss the bus as far as my thinking a 500 hr pilot can, in the right circumstance, and with the right mentality, gain valuable experiance, in the right seat. Maybe it is a demographic thing, since I was almost 40 and had Military Leadership experiance in my bag of life experiances. I guess mabye there is some validity when the 500hr pilot is 21 when they entered, not knocking them, but you are right with the valuable life experiance argument.