Originally Posted by
Re-entry
Yes. If they are trained well. The simple notion that sitting in a seat for a certain amount of time qualifies someone as a captain is nonsense. Experience counts, but is not the defining factor. Knowledge, skills and attitude are the defining factors, and can be trained.
I respectfully disagree.
The aviation industry is far too complex these days and has become too much of an important part of the world infrastructure for us to marginalize it now with low safety standards
Training is clearly important, but training is also two dimentional. Training is necessary, but it's not real. Reality is sitting in the seat and learning how training models apply to real world situations when, in reality, 90 percent of what we negotiate in the day to day world is grey area decisions versus the black and white training concepts.
Military flying is so, so very structured compared to civilian opserations. 1500 hours and a heavy command is a reality in a structured, multi aircraft mission where the old timers really make the judgement calls flying along side the newbies - but in another aircraft. And the military mishap stats do not reflect what we must demand of passenger operations.
So, a 2000 hour pilot flying a Boeing or an Airbus as a Captain is probably - well, it is really, really pushing it in my opinion to the point of recklessness on the part of the carrier. A 4000 hour pilot might be OK, yet it would depend heavily on their learned judgement, maturity and attention to detail as it related to their airmanship - but I'd rather have a 4000 pilot who flew 600 hours a year so they had a good six years of overall industry exposure before I became his victim in the back of the bus!!
