Originally Posted by
hoss
About 20 years ago you needed about 5000 hours to get an interview with a regional..
20 years ago, you got into Qantas or Ansett straight out of GA with under 2000 hours, in many cases straight out of a Cessna from Kununurra. I know plenty of pilots who did a season and went straight to Qantas. You were either the right stuff, or you were not.
If if you didn’t get picked up - it was a long slog through GA and into the regionals. If you stuck at it. The best you could hope for was link or hazos. Impulse etc. If you were pretty special, you may have got a look in at National Jet on the 146. They were very picky. Meaning a de orbit burn or two. Mostly you had to pay to progress. If you were lucky to make it that far. There were gigs overseas in dark corners and far flung places offering an airline version of GA. Renewable every 5 years or so with a new contract. After you managed the deorbit burns in Australia or managed to pay a lot of money for a type rating.
The worlds changed, flying is more affordable and there’s more of it. So the opportunities came with it.
I have no problem with a well trained 200 hour pilot in the right seat. You can’t tell the difference between them and a ex regional pilot after a few years. They may just be a little smarter due to the stricter vetting they went through to get there. It’s a different job flying a jet, especially a long haul one. It’s about knowing a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff.
No disrespect to Captain Sherms old boy, but I believe they had a ‘little’ retention problem in the RAF back then. If you ticked the box, you flew it. If you came back, well done young chap. Now go out again. I couldn’t have done it.
I loved my GA time. However, it did absolutely nothing for my airline flying. Well except it gave me a magic number to progress to the next level and some battle stories to tell. They’re that far embellished these days it’s hard to tell exactly what went on back then. I think maybe I just got better. In the stories anyway.
Being on both sides of the fence, I can say the only ones who care deeply about cadets, are the ones who are not cadets, and the ones who have to do their airline conversion.
If I had my time again I would have done a Cadetship in a heart beat and have been 1,000,000 dollars better off financially.