Sorry to change the direction of this post. I didn't mean to. I was remembering when I was a new captain on a 737 being handed a brand new FO that obviously had never flown in the Flight Levels before because he told ATC we were climbing to 23,000 ft instead of FL230. He couldn't copy the clearance so I had to. To make matters worse the autopilot was inop when we were dispatched. Returning to LAS at FL350 we had a PD to 240 clearance and at 100 miles seemed to have no interest in starting a descent so asked him when he was going to start down. He said his buddy, the check airman neighbor that got him hired told him how to do it. I said OK, just don't embarass ourselves by having to do a 360. It was 10:00 PM so figured we would have light traffic. On a 10 mile final at 10,000 ft and 340 knots I asked him which way he would like to do his 360?
I think airliners have two pilot seats because it takes two competent seasoned pilots to do the job right. Also we don't hire 1500 hr C152 pilots to fly our airliners. The above example slid through the cracks with the help of his buddy.
1500 hours on a C172 won't help with transitioning to a jet. Neither will a captain who lets you be at 10.000 feet on a 10 miles final, and who makes you feel embarassed. What does help is knowing what it is like to be new on a jet, and helping and teaching patiently while at the same time making him feel comfortable and showing how teamwork works. My experience is that the best pilots are able to teach new pilots how to fly a complex plane by showing them and guiding them in a calm manner while at the same time running a smooth and faultless operation.
BTW, I got to fly the RJ-85 with some 300 hours light aircraft experience, but the transition from there to the MD-11 was bigger in my opinion, and I had 2000 hours at that time, of wich some 1700 on a jet in busy airline operations.