laurie
Apologies for not getting involved earlier, this was due to spending two nights practicing for 2 crew ops into TFS and CFU!
Ivan
You are right, I had terrible trouble letting the captain play with any of the buttons and switches from day one, with my two heads (acquired whilst single crew flying) one was saying "crm, crm, crm" and the other screaming "leave it alone IT'S ALL MINE!!"
Airlines employ PEOPLE. Simple as that. They have certain minimum requirements (like a licence, medical, maybe some experience etc) that act as a filter to get the numbers down to a managable figure for interview, then what they are really after is assessing your character to see if you are suitable for their operation. Most airlines these days seem to want a mix (or demograph ) where you don't employ everybody exactly the same, that way they are more likely to get on better together, makes for more intersting cockpit conversation too! This demograph is a fluid thing which adjusts with time as the requirements need redressing to keep the balance, for instance, in the past airline 'x' may have had a huge recruitment where they took all their F/O's under the age of 25. This will lead to a 'bulge' in the demograph of pilots in a certain age bracket, which may lead to problems later on (all wanting command at the same sort of time and not enough being available, all retiring around the same time etc etc). The demographic requirements will change due to this i.e. possibly recruit more low hours pilots who won't be ready for command for a number of years if you already have too many F/O's chomping at the bit. It all depends on the projections for pilot recruitment. Ideally, get the mix right and then recruit a mixture, young and older, high flyer/ reliable plodder etc etc. Unfortunately current market trends seem to be so short termist that the above may be harder to achieve than it would appear.
So, Ivan, history proves you wrong in so much that just about all air taxi pilots go on to airline jobs (apart from the 'hard core' who have no interest in airline careers) and as for airlines not valueing your single crew experience I think you will find it to be the complete opposite, especially as most of your single crew experience will be in a 2 engined aircraft with variable pitch props AND retractable gear (wow!) and we all know just how hard it is to get those twin hours up and why we all want so many of them.
If you could please state from what experience you have gleaned your views about 'corporate flying culture' being so different from 'airline flying' Ivan I would be interested to hear because as far as I can see it's all down to the individual character and nothing to do with which type of flying 'mould' you've been set in. Just because a guy may have spent several years in an airline it doesn't mean that he can't order the catering, file his own flight plans and generally muck in with the corporate crews. In fact, if he's had air taxi experience he would probably slot in quite nicely!
It is no harder to train an ex-single crew guy in two crew ops than it is a low hour guy, if anything I would suggest it is easier in general due to the higher level of experience allowing more 'thinking time' to be utilised in areas other than hand flying.
As regards current and future experience level requirements for air taxi pilots I must say I have been out of the loop for a couple of years, but I certainly know it was a concern for my old employer. JAR requires 700hrs min, in reality that's the sort of figure they were requiring pre-JAR as insurance costs were so high for less experienced pilots. The problem was the self improver route ceasing which was traditionally where their pilots came from. Is it possible to do an integrated course, finish with circa 200hrs then add an FI(R) rating and instruct up to 700hrs? If it is I can see the biggest problem being that it has to be an integrated course and the associated costs being prohibitive to many.
As has been pointed out by others, once an FI gets 700hrs he is then into the realms of airline employment (obviously not in the current market), but when things change for the better that same person, unless driven to fly single crew, is more likely to be pushing for an airline job. It's all a big cycle, it's in the future that the air taxi operators may find it difficult to find suitable pilots.
As for the shortage of pilots in the future, well, all the captains I've spoken to about this say that this has been the case for as long as they can remember, it's always been 'just round the corner' but never really materialised. It certainly won't be for a few years yet, but if the forecasts for airline travel growth are to be believed then there cannot fail to be a shortage unless something is done.
Again, good luck to all you Wannabes.
PP