Cadet to Command in 5 years. I guess also that's 2015 rather than 1998.
Scary, and it doesn't matter who the employer is. Is there too much reliance on outside factors e.g technology, back up systems, SOP's, ATC +radar, more ILS's?Have these been allowed to substitute for real experience? I don't want to re-open a long debate about command upgrade experience, but one wonders how low it can go. If you can have a command on a turbo prop at 25 years old and 1500hrs, with all the quirks that type of operation involves, one wonders about the command requirements of jets in 20 years time. As the basic training is diluted and targeted towards MPL and simulator training and 'hoop jumping' it would not be a surprise to find that pilots can go from zero to airline hero via ZFT simulators and be base training with nothing more than 10hours Cessna and a few circuits. 1st solo and then the sim. You could take an F/O at 1500hrs (2 years line flying), put them on a 3 month intensive command ZFT sim course and churn out a 'captain'. Ouch! Beware of the future.