Originally Posted by
Genghis the Engineer
M'self, I'd abolish all minimum hours for every licence tomorrow, and load everything onto the skills tests. FAA is closer to that than EASA / CAA, but equally the USA now mandates 1500hrs to get an airline job.
People with a lot of hours are entitled to feel proud of that, especially if we flew them with an attitude of learning. But we're all of us only as good as our last flight, and only as provably good as our last skill test or checkride. And since that is the case, the requirement for minimum hours for almost any test just seems totally absurd to me. A sign-off as ready for test / minimum course content covered, and a test pass, should be everything.
(This goes both ways, minimum hours requirements leave some people believing that they are entitled to complete in those hours. Well, maybe some people will, many won't - and this does raise false expectations.)
G
Fully agreed, Genghis!
I have always taken an adverse view of the aviation world's focus on hours, i.e. the amount of time you have spent doing something. Which other activity/profession does this, to this extent? Of much more relevance (one could say the only relevance) is one's competence - assessed by test.