I Love flying. There is a lot more opportunity to fly on a turbo prop, than be stuck managing a jet. Those that go straight on to jets, considered by some to be lucky, really have missed out on a fantastic opportunity to do some real flying, in strong cross winds, into short runways, with non precision approaches, and limited ATC services outside controlled airspace, daily practise raw data hand flying skills, in icing conditions, during high frequency short sectors with quick turnarounds, most of which is frowned upon in jet companies. The experience and skills gained will stick with a pilot for theyre entire career and make them a better pilot. Yet big jet companies to answer questions about lack of experience, say training needs to be looked at, I say no, recruit turbo prop pilots and your pilot work force will have the skills, developed over years of flying that you cannot train in a small section of a sim detail. If I was in recruitment I would be mandating turboprop experience, good job for CTC I'm not. There have always been guys lucky enough to go straight onto jets, but now it seems even changing type is frowned upon, chief pilots are missing a trick. If I was recruiting, which I now feel strongly motivated to work towards, in a career company, I would consider experience on type irrelevant long term, that's something you'll get flying for a company for decades, which the current employees have. It's the experience you bring as a new entrant, that I can't teach and the company as a whole may be able to learn from that would be of interest to me. But hey the bean counters have won, I just count my lucky stars I've flown turbo props before jets, and so should my passengers. It's silly managing safe flight has less to do with type but how you approach a situation, isn't that what we are taught in command courses, and have to demonstrate during a command assessment? That's why command upgrade often involves change of type. If you are ready for command the type experience on type helps but is not necessary. In my opinion, It's crazy that turboprop experience is considered worthless. 500 hours on type is worthless, which could be 250 sectors and 150 landings, thanks to RV ILSs on to 3000m runways. Companies like Royal Brunei have the right idea, if they must select cadets they are sent to gain experience in a Regional turbo prop company first before making theyre way onto a heavy jet. I'd pick a 2000 hour turbo prop FO with 2000 sectors and 1000 landings onto 1200m runways in 40 knot gusting winds anytime. Shame I'm not in a position to do so, if and when I do, CTC watchout...
I do apologise, rant over, and thread drift over.