90 hours total real flight time + XXX amount of hours in the sim of course. That for me can give you a good pilot on a nice day, when everything goes after plan. However I am sceptical how they will be in a real life emergency.
I can't imagine in those 90 hours, they have many hours without an instructor, have few hours solo is not going to give you much experience with real life decision making
It is the "XXX" that you gloss over. The simulator time is nearly all simulated "airliner" time. It is time where the majority of training is focused on real world emergencies. Decision making is at the very bedrock of these syllabi. This is why graduates of these courses ascend such a steep learning curve and why the airlines are so keen to acquire them.
I have been doing this job for a very long time now. I have flown with cadets for a long time as well. Recently I spent 50 hours in a simulator alongside a 500
hour cadet pilot. I have to say I was extremely impressed with the attitude, aptitude, learning curve, and decision making ability that I witnessed from the other seat.
Contrast that with the "
it's everybody's fault but mine" whining, that is such a trademark of "one or two" people on this site.
The airline wants a high level of surety. What it doesn't want is captains (like me) complaining about the standard of the lady or gentleman sat in the other seat.
For me this life experience helps develop future decision making, and is a useful for the future.
Much more then some spoiled child who gets paid everything by mummy/daddy to attend overpriced integrated flight school, who produces the next machine part for an airline!
All the ones I know from P2F, funded it themselves, in other words they did not have somebody giving them the money to do it, but worked hard and decided this is how they wanted to use their own money.
What a blinkered viewpoint! "life experience"? I recently spoke to a cadet in his mid thirties who trained in accountancy. He had spent years in that role working in the UK and abroad and had saved all of the money he had paid out for his flight training. From the stories he told he seemed to have a lot of "life experience." Similarly I meet cadets who have had sureties and guarantees provided by parents or grandparents so that they can borrow the large sums of money they needed to complete their
ab-initio flight training. I am sure there are individuals that have been gifted the money as well, although why this correlates to them being "spoiled children" I am not sure.
Over the last Twenty plus years, the airline industry has had a metamorphosis from being a difficult entry career with a limited supply of eligible aspirants, to being a relatively easier career with a tidal wave of eligible aspirants. The changes have resulted in a massive oversupply of "
wannabes" Even if nothing else changed (and a lot has) that simple equation imbalance would drive both reward and opportunity levels through the floor. Indeed it has done, yet people still seem shocked by this, and believe that the world should facilitate their passage and then revert back to the realities of the last Three decades of the Twentieth century.
The stark reality is that most airlines survive in a "low cost" world. Passengers wont pay the fares they did in the Seventies and Eighties. Deregulation, free trade and competition, have revolutionized the landscape in many industries, but certainly in this one.
For an airline quality is cheap. Unlike the situation Twenty or Thirty years ago. You can still demand the best candidates from the best training backgrounds. You can demand they paid for every penny of their training. You can demand they pay or guarantee their type ratings and associated training costs. Even then, the crowds of qualified aspirants stretch over the hills and far away.
Is it unfair? Sure it is!
Is it expensive? You bet!
Is it high risk? For the applicant it certainly is!
Is it going to change anytime soon? Only if those crowds evaporate, and there is no sign of that happening!