Fed up of Poor FO's

[On speed on profile]

Topslide6, your moaning really winds me up.

You say that you look forward to sitting in the L.H. seat some day.

You also say you have 900 TTand 600 737 time. That means less than a 1/3 of your time is P1. If I was to hazard a guess (and correct me if I am wrong) you probably have no more than 150 hours P1 of which most will be on a single engine type.

I have 1350 TT, near on 450 multi time and 1150 P1 flying in all sorts of weather. I have had diversions due to technical problems as well as divs due wx. All of these decisions I have had to make without the aid of the nice jolly captain sitting next to me. I also had to do this straight off the back of my MEIR with passengers in the back. This is minimal experience and I dont pretend otherwise.

My question to you is this..... Put yourself in the position of the passengers and or the Captains who you fly with? Lets say tomorrow, you have a bad day. Just after t/o, the jolly old captain who you have been relying on so much to teach you how to be a captain (and to pick up your mistakes) has a coronary. What are you going to do? How do you react. Have you ever had to make decisions by yourself (and face the consequense of making a bad one)? Is now the time you want to be learning that? You are just feeling comfortable being an F/O and now you are being forced to be a captain.

Good luck buddy.

Ask yourself one more question. Take your 600 hours 737 time, add my 1150 hours p1 and then ask your captain to drop dead. Would you rather be in that situation or would you rather it happened tomorrow or better still when you have just come off line with 200 hours TT. I know what I would prefer and I gaurantee the peeps in the back as well as the sick p1 think the same.

Before you start telling me its sour grapes because I am not flying a big shiny jet, its not. Dont get me wrong if I was offered the chance to fly one tomorrow, or back when I only had 200 hours, of course I would take it. Would I feel comfortable flying a big shiny jet with 200 hours knowing what I do after my time in 'GA'. Definately not.

You need to wise up fella. I hope you dont feel comfortable flying your 737 because if you do, it will soon bite you on the ass. You may think you are competent to fly that big shiny jet all on your own with weather and a captain moaning beside you, but you have only ever done it in the sim so how can you know for sure.

It seems to me, the only people here that are defending low houred f/o's are low houred f/o's and the ones that were low houred f/o's. Do you all honestly think that low houred guys are more safe than guys with 1000+ hours p1 experience, straight out of line training. Probably not day to day because of course you are all safe when someone else can watch out for your mistakes.

If you want my opinion on the thread topic. I think safety is compromised buy putting low houred f/o's into the RHS. Why, because when a low houred f/o is faced with the task of bringing down a large a/c on his own. He is not only being asked to fly the aircraft and operate the systems, he is being asked to be the commander as well and none of his mistakes will be being picked up by the incapacitated p1. ALL OF THIS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN AN EMERGENCY SITUATION just to add to the stress level. I am assuming here that a sick or dying captain is an EMERGENCY.

Topslide6, stop telling myself and my fellow colleagues that our single crew experience means squat. If low houred f/o's are so good at doing their job (BY THEMSELVES), why is there a requirement for single crew MEIR pilots (public transport) to have 700TT 100pic of which 40 must be MEP under IFR conditions? Or ATPLs to have at least 1500TT of which 500 must be multi crew? Do the CAA know something that we do not? They are banking on the fact that their P1's are monitoring successfully the junior f/o's mistakes, otherwise they would let you be a captain. I know I can do your job (and have been told as much by more than one 737 TRI) when I have done the type training but you sure as hell cant do mine (legally) as a 200TT f/o until you reach that experience level. You are only able to be a low houred f/o because of the faith the CAA has in your captain. Not because of the faith they have in your ability!

Just for the record, I would expect you with 600 hours on a 737 to be able to handle that type of emergency, so I am not putting you in the same category as the f/o's joinging the 'Jetset' with 200TT as stated in the first post. A fresh f/o ...... ?

I will finish by saying this. A low houred f/o cant possibly have experienced as much as a 1000 - 1500 hour mep or turbo ir pilot. FACT. Therefore their bag of experience is a lot smaller than the guy who starts on the big jet with exactly the same amount of luck. I know what position I would rather be in. I hear some of you about to say, pilot incapacitation is not that common..................