Quote:
Originally Posted by bvipilot
Some people might have a few things to say about this thread.
Just out of curiosity, how many hours do you have at this point?
You hit the nail on the head with the hours issue. Whether you get the minimum flight time to get hired by your preferred airline through flight instruction, the military, part 135 charter, or flying bank checks in the middle of the night doesn't matter. What I think matters is that you get QUALITY flight time and a VARIETY of experiences. Any job that you get flying should prepare you to make the jump into bigger, faster, more complex aircraft. Your college education and maturity level should prepare you for the challenging airline training programs. The rub is that with terribly low minimums at the regional airlines new hire FO's don't have to get that quality and varied experience. The first time they may fly an ILS down to minimums at a busy Class C or B airport in icing may be with 50 unwitting passengers on board. Paying for cheap 152 time flying back and forth between West Podunk and Podunk Falls in order to meet application minimums, however, won't prepare anyone for an airline job.
My boss was talking to me about his lithmus test for qualifying new pilots in command in our organization and I think it can be applied to determining if you are up to the challenge to being an airline pilot. 1) Be able to fly the aircraft (we've got BE20s) single pilot in normal, challening, and emergency situations and bring it home safely. 2) Be able to take control of the aircraft from the co-pilot when they put it into a dangerous situation and save the crew and aircraft from disaster. 3) Be able to teach and mentor young pilots and prepare them to become PICs.
Flying students around that have no idea how to fly and are trying to kill you every time you blink and eventually teaching them how to successfully pilot an aircraft without bending any metal accomplishes the three previous points.
Just because you may know nothing about flying an MD-90 or E-170 or DH8 doesn't mean that you can't jump into an airline with them and learn. That is why airlines have training programs.