However this has nothing to do with the number of hours a person has logged. I have heard a 5000 hour pilot teach this to a class. Why do people in this industry typically assess levels of intelligence by the number of hours people have flown.
pineappledaz,
I'm not trying to suggest that the more hours a person has makes them more intelligent by default. I too have seen 5000 and 10000 hour pilots make the same bone head mistakes that I was making at 500 hours. However, when you're talking about a brand new pilot at 250 hours teaching another brand new pilot, then yes, experience does count and a person with 5000 hours will often, not always, be able to deliver a better product.
The reason I singled out the military is they have a far more exhaustive selection process, so by the time a military pilot achieves 1,000 hours they are years ahead both in knowledge and experience of a 1,000 hour civilian pilot.
Also, keep things simple at the PPL level, but as soon as they mention a Commercial or higher, we shouldn't be keeping things simple. All that does is promote the idea that pilots are nothing more than over paid bus drivers and then we wonder why the accountants want to pay us less. We should know the theory, we should know the law, and we should know our airplanes.