Originally Posted by
UltraFan
Yeah, those 50-year-old puddle-jumpers... who the hell do they think they are with their meagre 10k hours! Pfft... amateurs!
However... Let's do some math. A pilot is legally allowed to fly (depending on the country) anywhere between 70 and 90 hours a month. Let's take 80 as an average
(because otherwise I'll need a calculator). Even if the pilots gets no vacation or sick leave, 20,000 hours would take 20+ years of legal-limit flying. Some countries limit the minimum age of commercial pilots to 21 or even 23 years old. Therefore, your experienced-title-worthy age doesn't come until at least 40, likely 45. Would you want to call 40+ years old captains with 10-15 years of flying under their belts
INexperienced? Or are you just having one of those grass-was-greener-in-my-day moments?
PS And OH, YES, you called yourself experienced! Many, many years later you may have realized that you probably hadn't been, but back then... LIKE HELL YOU DIDN'T!!!
Maybe we use the English language differently on this side of the pond. Where did I call myself "experienced" as an airline pilot with 6,000 hrs TT? When I had that little experience? You might have but I certainly didn't.
This has come up with coworkers and we discussed this privately when a report called a 12,000 hr pilot 'highly experienced.' None of my peers thought that was highly experienced. It might be semantics but we disagree on what experienced, or highly experienced, means. Does a person who only flies into one city get to call himself highly experienced? What about the guy who has limited experience on a lot of aircraft? Does he get to claim 'experienced', or 'highly experienced', when his experience in his new position is relatively limited (500 hrs? 1000 hrs?)?