Originally Posted by
Jabiman
That is an incorrect statement and is the line that the airlines are trying to push in an effort to justify their current course of action. Learning to fly a Cessna and then jumping into a jet is one way to ensure that said pilot has learnt little or no airmanship. This quality is impossible to train and only comes with experience but in an emergency situation can mean the difference between life and death.
Actually it has always been the case that GA is completely dissimilar to commercial operations.
Learning to fly in a Cessna and then continuing to...err...what? Oh I know, continue to fly a Cessna, single pilot, VFR, unregulated and uncomplicated has no bearing whatsoever on flying a heavy jet commercially except, up, down, left, right, faster, slower. Dealing with an emergency in a Cessna is akin to plonking it down in a field. Deaing with an emergency in an airliner is a highly complex, coordinated effort between several agencies, crew and passengers. GA experience is just useless.
You might like to know that when I was a 150 hour co-pilot on a heavy jet I actually prevented an experienced captain - with several thousand hours in GA and maybe a thousand hours in airliners - controlling the aircraft quite accurately into the middle of a mountain. Lack of SA, lack of CRM, unwillingness to follow SOPs, doing what he usually did in GA which was his own thing and had been ingrained into his operating attitude. Tell me, how much airmanship did this guy gain from his previous experience?
Several years later I was a captain flying with the same bloke who had been demoted (finally) because he couldn't and wouldn't operate as the company expected - although why he is still flying is beyond me. On one occasion, due to a slow vacating aircraft, we carried out a go around, about half way through the manouver, climbing well, gear coming up etc., the preceeding aircraft had vacated the runway and he suggested that I should over power the autothrottle disconnect the autopilot and land.
You would seriously prefer that man to be in charge of your flight? I ask because using your criteria you would choose him over a well trained, qualified and capable airline pilot with less hours.