actually, i've been flying professionally since 1979, with CAL since 1987. hard to believe it's 26 years now.

I may disagree with some stuff, I do agree with some other, but basically I learn a lot from most of the posts, so IMO, old, grumpy but EXPERIENCED PILOTS, should remain in this kind of forum, maybe weŽll get a better understanding of the business.

you must be one of those dumb-assed young pups i so love to rail against here...

I think Bill should stay. As a new comer to the forums and one of the "noobs" in the industry "who are destroying the profession" Bill loves to hate, I learn a lot from you old disgruntled guys (like how to keep from becoming old and disgruntled). I agree with Bill on some things (I may not know my head from my a$$ yet but I know enough to stay away from PFT and GoJets) and disagree on others, like I'm sure most people do. Which is why I come here. I would hate to come to a forum where everyone patted each other on the back and agreed with every thing each other said (sounds like some kind of wacko cult or political group).

I guess in the end, I wish you old guys who hate life flying jets would get out and make room for us youngins but I understand why you don't. Tough to make 6 figures as a greeter at Wal Mart, eh Bill? So I guess all I can do is learn as much as i can from you old farts till you either die or retire. So keep flinging that dung Bill!!!

I could care less what you do. I, however, am done with these forums. There are much better ways to get questions answered and not have to put up with the B.S. -Later

"Which part didn't you understand? the buh or the bye; buh-bye!"

hey, you may not have long to wait in my case. i'm reaching my gag limit. honestly, it's all about the benjamins now for me. i can retire early in about 16 months and that's about how long my lump-sum option is guaranteed to be available. of course, there always the quote from "casablanca": "of what value is that? you may recall what german guarantees have been worth in the past."

if you could, why don't you?

You should stay, it always makes for interesting reading between hub turns. But since we're all "expressing" our feelings, I don't agree with the min time post

First I'm not a 300 hr guy. I've paid more than my dues to get my 5000+ hrs. I did the civillian route, flying corporate and crappy gigs (mostly single pilot) to build my time. I've spent my time looking at the panel of the 727 as well.
Look at the guys flying in WWII. Most 300 hr guys were combat veterans. You think a 500 hr guy could be a capt in a B-29 today? I do agree with you that it's quality of time. A particular capt I flew with performed very poorly during a go-around, this guy had been a capt for 13 yrs with us and before that, a capt with the F-Tigers. But the massive amount of A/P flying degrades anyone's skills. One King Air I flew for little over a year had a bad A/P. The owner didn't want to replace it, so I got to hand-fly it for over 500 hrs. Maybe there should be more focus on skills compared to number of hours.

Just my .02 carry on and blue skies

Even though I am a low time guy applying to the regionals I agree with you guys completely when it comes to quality of training/experience. One of the reasons I came to UND and one of the reasons UND guys get hired with such low time (and survive training) is quality of training. Any putz can get his commercial certificate by flying around in clear blue skies in a C152 every Sunday morning and build 1500 hours doing that but has he learned anything? Just look at the training contracts we have had from around the world. Starting next year we will be training pilots for ANA. Last big contract I know of was for China Airlines. Currently we have a contract running with Aramco. Must be a reason they come here (anyone who says more sunny days a year=better training environment is fooling themselves). Now I understand landing a CRJ or a Beech 1900 or an EMB 120 full of people or cargo on an ice covered runway with a 15 knot crosswind at night is a lot different than landing a Seminole with a student on the brakes on an ice covered runway but it is still a good place to learn how to deal with less than ideal conditions. I know instructors back in California who have never seen ice on an airplane or think you can't fly in snow because it constitutes "known icing" (just because snow is frozen precipitation does not mean it will stick to your airplane). But here in North Dakota, we deal with ice, we deal with thunderstorms, all that stuff that increases that pucker factor. The only thing we dont have are mountains. Personally, I'd rather fly into some really bad weather with someone who has 800 hours and been there before than with someone who has 1500 hours and never seen the inside of a cloud. Anyone can push buttons on an autopilot, and with some basic flying knowledge, fly the airplane from A to B. But when your autopilot is MELd, an engine quits on you and you may or may not see the runway at mins on this ILS, thats when you need the skills that count.