You know back to the whole would rather have the high time guy with no jet experience, or the low time with a TR....
Honestly, I'll tell you my experience. I graduated and then started Flight Instructing for 200 hours. After that, I got a job in India on a Challenger.
I found that after flight instructing those 200 hours, I learned more then I learned in any other aspect of my aviation career. I was forced to learn information, because if I didn't, other people would suffer. That change my mentality on flying, and I got very aggressive when it came to the books.
The fact of the matter is, that a lot of guys with CPL's and a type rating, really don't do that well in the airlines. Somebody mentioned earlier that there have been no problems look at all the guys on their shiny 73's and A320's. Well, i got news for you. A large amount of guys failed their LOFT, and are no longer with the airline. A LARGE percentage.
One thing to remember, is that going from barely being able to fly a Cessna 172, and passing a "type rating" course, doesn't make you really qualified. First, many people goto the worst flight schools in america, taught by instructors who are not that great. Second, the type rating courses are not hard...the almost never fail anybody, especially when they have less then 1500 hours and know they won't be in command. Plus, remember you are customers, so anybody that's paying will get passed...MOSTLY.
My transition to the Jet was pretty good, but it was a much smaller jet, and I had about 500 hours before i jumped on, about twice as much as most guys.
Now I'm sitting with about 900 TT and 350 Jet, and I know that I have 99% more of aviation to still learn. I have pretty good stick and rudder skills, as does anybody in the playstation/xbox era. However, it's about managing aircrafts, which comes with experience and maturity.
Finally, generalizing really doesn't do any good. To say that would you rather have a guy with 5 billion hours of 172 time falsified or not, or a guy with 250 hours and a type rating is pointless. You can have bad pilots and good pilots with different amount of hours. It's about how hard pilots study, the amount of common sense they have, how you carry yourself, and also to a large degree how many hours you have.
Oh yeah, I forgot to ask...does anybody have a clue what the insurance rates are on these Brand new A320's/B737's with 180 pax and a 250 desi in the right seat? I mean, I know alot of insurance companies in the US that won't even insure you if you have less then an ATPL in a jet, let alone a big honking one. Just curious, cause it has to be outrageous, unless the airlines are fudging the hours...which would disqualify the insurance claim. I don't want to incriminate anybody, but I believe that's what was going on when I was a 500-hour jet wonder.
KEEP THE BLUE SIDE UPPPPPP!
