PP Fan - sorry, but to this chief pilot you're talking b*ll*cks.
"to say that a 350-hour pilot could find employment as a PIC in this industry is simply preposterous"
I could name you more than 20 right now, and probably half are on turbines. And what's the big deal about a twin anyway (up to say, AS 355 level)? It's just another engine, and you don't get the asymmetric problems you get in a fixed wing. If this idiot can haul missiles around a battlefield at 200 hours (in a turbine), then other people can move passengers around an oil patch. I know this - I would rather put a newbie in a 206 or even a 407 than a robbie (yeah, yeah, I know it has some good qualities, but a modern machine with a fadec can take a hell of a lot off the workload).
Despite what they tell you, most companies are insured for low-timers - they just don't want to spend money on training. Speaking personally, based on some of the activities I see around the fire circuit I would in many cases rather hire low-timers. They are certainly more careful - any bad habits they have are more often than not learned from people who should know better. A lot of high timers I know simply have a small amount of experience repeated several hundred times rather than a progressive learning curve.
I have flown with people who have 17,000 hours who I wouldn't trust on a bicycle, and people with 1000 whom I would trust with anything. Attitude and structured training are more important than just hours, and the sooner some parts of the industry and the idiot "consultants" that advise the customers otherwise realise this, the better off we will be.
Anyhow, the original post mentioned a boat - well, as with many things, it not the instrument but what you do with it that causes trouble, and mucking around offshore with rich people is not a job for someone who might have difficulty saying NO! (been there, done that)
Phil
Last edited by paco; 13th February 2004 at 21:52.