Originally Posted by Jet_A_Knight
An instrument rating in a Seneca is NOT representative of commercial SPIFR flying.
Very true! Before it was outlawed under JAR rules I did SPIFR straight after qualifying with 250hrs. I am sorry Topslide6, but you show a lack of an educated opinion when you say
As for the experience side of it I fail to see, and no one will convince me otherwise, that a thousand hours flying SINGLE PILOT in a light twin can in any way prepare you both flying-wise and experience-wise for flying a MULTI-PILOT jet. It's completely different flying, and only connected by the fact you leave the ground to do your job.
Well, here's what I learnt in my 750hrs SPIFR;
File your own flight plans (and I mean fill in the form!)
Produce your own PLOG (admittedly using company supplied software!)
Order your own fuel, catering, newspapers and stock up the aeroplane bar, make the coffee and fill up the snacks.
Meet and greet your passengers, brief them and arrange carriage of their luggage to the aircraft.
Load the luggage yourself.
Organise handling agent transport to bring the passengers out at the right time.
Do your own weight and balance loadsheet, techlog and assocaited flight paperwork.
Give the pax safety brief and demonstrate life jackets and emergency exit use.
Fly the aeroplane single crew (the good bit)
Gather weather and speak to agents and ATC (often working two radios at a time), often flying outside controlled airspace and needing to gain clearances to enter back in.
Deal with adverse weather, operational changes, inflight re-planning or re-routing, technical failures and limitations.
Once you arrived at destination, deal with passenger and baggage handling, documentation and fee paying etc etc etc.
Here are a few examples of flights I carried out;
1. C404 Edinburgh to Heathrow. First operational sector after training. TT 300hrs. 9 pax, weather good. Only cock-up? Not informing LHR that I would be doing about 120kts on final approach....
2. C310 over Glasgow doing a traffic report with a reporter and two pax (guests of the radio station). TT 450hrs. Engine fire followed by inflight shutdown at 1500ft over the city. Deal with the drills CORRECTLY (with no-one to confirm any recall items), calm down pax and negotiate with ATC to return with 1EO.
3. C310 Edinburgh to Oslo Gardemoen. TT 500hrs, routing via Aberdeen and then accross the North Sea in the middle of the night in a Scottish winter, below 10,000' with no weather radar and CBs all around. 70nm offshore, losing VHF contact with both sides, bouncing around in the CBs with hail smashing against the windscreen and picking up ice at a rate that the boots are just not coping with.
4. C310 Edinburgh to Newcastle. TT still minimal..... from phone call to airborne in less than 45 minutes to retrive a heart and lungs to take down to Heathrow for a transplant patient who would be on the operating table by the time I landed. Flying 'at the top of the greens', going in and out of controlled airspace all the way down to London, arriving at 08:30 in the morning and negotiating with Heathrow Director to get a RUNWAY CHANGE on to the opposite end of the active in order to save 25 minutes of taxying....
5. I could go on and bore you with even more details about the experience, decision making skills, character building, CRM, adaptability, customer service, negotiation skills, operating in crap weather, flying into difficult airfields, flight management, operational management and numerous other skills that I learnt or enhanced during my 750hrs of SPIFR, ALL of which have been the most valuable experiences since I became a jet pilot on two crew aircraft. From day one in the sim on a 757, paired up with a 250hr cadet the difference between us was evident (and that's not boasting, merely fact) and it has continued to be the basis of my success in two crew ops.
So, if
no one will convince me otherwise
, then you are not being open-minded enough to other viewpoints and experiences and, dare I say it, have not fully grasped a vital element of CRM.
There are many misconceptions in aviation, one being that SPIFR pilots 'have trouble' adapting to two crew operations. Crap. A mass generalisation, which like all mass generalisations has been proved and disproved many times over. CRM and two crew operations are all about the individuals and how they adapt to the situation they are in.
Not all 200hr wonderkids are crap, many are excellent. BUT, the experience they lack cannot be made up for with good two crew ops. They can only gain experience with time and input; the same as the single pilot guy, but when he enters the jet market he already has significantly more flying and decision making experience than the guy straight out of traing school, and that is always evident.....
PP