USMCFLYR

I'm curious what it means to call someone a horrible pilot at 5,000 hrs and a pretty good pilot at 400 hrs.
It is easier to wrap my head around what would make a pilot "horrible" at 5,000 hrs - lack of SA, comm discipline, lack of specific opeartions, etc....

I'm not sure what makes a pretty good pilot at 400 hrs though. The pilot can hold an altitude and heading? He hasn't had the opportunity to make many decisions on his own for me to decide whether he had good SA or decision making skills yet.

USMCFLYR

3XLoser

I was going to commend the guy for choosing to keep his dignity rather than sell it for 20 Grand a year. If more people did that, we wouldn't need to have this discussion, but apparently we do, since the children of magenta will criticize someone for earning their way in. To criticize someone for trying to raise the bar tells me that the new legislation to raise entry requirements may not go far enough in trying to save us from ourselves.

I've flown with high time guys and low time guys. Everyone is an individual, except for the fact that when you don't know; you don't even know what you don't know, and that's why there are airplanes that I don't put my family on.

SrfNFly227

You're asking the wrong question. The correct question to ask is how many pilots involved in accidents had less than 1000 hours WHEN HIRED at the regionals???

USMCFLYR

But when does that statistic stop being of any value?
If a pilot had 10 years of flying P121 operations and 7,000 hrs experience when he was involved in a mishap - would it really matter if he had been hired 10 years ago with less than a 1,000 hrs? What about ALL that experience gained in the last 10 years of airline flying? Don't you think that matters more?

USMCFLYR

AirWillie

I had 196 hours total time with 50 hours of simulated multi engine time in a fresca... honestly what is the point of this thread? Total time has nothing to do with the quality of the pilot, the last several crashes prove that. The majority of pilots hired the last several years did not have an ATP.

Convairator

What I was getting at is that I dont like to play the numbers game. 5,000 hours certainly makes more experience than 400. Agree. Do i think its absurd that 21 year old pilots with 400 hours can work at a regional. Absolutley.

What I am stating is that tons of hours does not correlate to a good, qualified, experienced pilot. I have flown with multiple airline captains whom are rather careless, and safety is not a priority. Also flown with fantastic captains. I have flown with some FO's that are really good, safety conscious, and would trust a few of them over the Homer Simpson character sitting to the left of them.

Somebody who has 9,000 hours, with 7,000 of those hours dropping skydivers or towing gliders, then 500 turbine, is not necessarily a wonderful pilot due to their ever so thick logbook. that tis' all.

3XLoser

Dude, I hope you went to your professional standards committee to straighten out these individuals, because carelessness and lack of regard for safety are criminal.

KC10 FATboy

3500 Total time (all military)
1800 PIC heavy multi-engine
200 PIC Turbo-prop
4 type ratings
ATP
FE Written

At the time I was hired, I was very much the low time guy in my hiring pool.

Convairator

Just curious, are you counting your UPT training flight times (t-6, t-34) as turbo-prop pic? I was just trying to figure out if we can count that?