Originally Posted by
Ollie Onion
not sure if this proves anything, I have been with Captains who I thought were out of their depth in particular situations and my last event where I had to take control from someone was an FO with over 6,000 hours including GA and Turboprop background when he completely mishandled a visual approach despite some guidance and intervention from me early on in the piece. The last trainee Captain I was with was excellent and the best trainee in the left seat I have ever had, he was an ex-cadet who joined 5 years ago with 200 hours. My conclusion after this is not a lot really, just that you can’t say more hours equals better, sure you can use total hours as a tool to sort potential candidates but appitude testing, personality and motivation are probably better indicators for who you should hire. There will be GA pilots who hands down are better that some cadets just as there are some cadets who even with 200 hours are hands down better operators than some ‘experienced’ ex-GA pilots.
Experience counts in all endeavours.
Particularly when the entity has the appropriate structures whereby the benefits of learning are captured. Learning cultures were once the benchmark.
It is a question open to debate whether modern airline management practice actually 'invests' in learning culture.
Whether a particular pilot is cadet, military of General Aviation is irrelevant, for the majority of time operations are benign. Hopefully that experience is accumulated such that in the vast majority of cases there is sufficient for when the operation is non-normal.
To paraphrase Captain Sullenberger "We make deposits into our experience bank. When we need to make the withdrawal we hope we have enough to cover it."
Where experience 'generally' matters is non-normal.
It is why the development of learning algorithms is being pursed with such vigour; experience does matter.