Fed up of Poor FO's
 

Is anyone else concerned about the growing trend of poor quality FO's?

Some FO's are joining the Jetset with only 200 hrs total time and I feel in some cases that safety is compromised.

Poor quality FO's or poor quality HRs ?
 

Do u honnestly think experience only makes a good pilot ?

Then u must be reading a lot about safety u claim to worry about ... How many aircraft crashed after experienced captains made the fatal mistake ?

Human errors is behind most accidents regardless of experience. Airlines should pay attention to the personnality and the reliability of a person not necessarily its experience. Don't get me wrong, experience is necessary but it doesn't make u safer ... I'd rather work with a low houred FO who's doing what he's supposed to do (being a pilot) than with a 4000 houred FO thinking he knows it all.

Professionalism my friend ;)

This must be a wind up?

if not NgrWagon you must be a bona fide nob jockey:ok:

And there was me thinking it was concern for our financial well-being. Ho-hum. :}

What you pay (or not) is what you get!

For the last couple of years there might be a big amount of "good" FO's (what's "good" anway?) who simply could not afford to pay for their training, and on the other side, there might have been some with cash but no brain...

NB. I'm sure there is a huge number of poor CMD's as well, especially with regard to Human Resources.

Generally speaking, the younger (not dry behind the ears) pilot crowd truly does believe that experience in the particular flight deck crew position, makes no difference.
Sadly, they are truly mis-informed.
Yes, 300 hour First Officers can indeed do quite a remarkable job, and show a high level of proficiency, however, it takes both of the following, to make it work properly...

Proper line training,
The dedication of the younger pilot to follow directions.

If any of the aforementioned are missing, they ain't worth a damn, notwithstanding what they might think.

Fortunately, most airlines today are aware of the problems involved, and apply training standards accordingly.

IE: 'know it alls' are sent back for retraining in the sim...or dismissed.
As it should be, absolutely.

If FOs are inexperienced but able to handle the aircraft, teach them. They are still new to the job and, once they are capable in their FO duties, should be seen as UT Captains. Everyone in the left hand seat is capable of providing some experience to them.

If they are not capable of handling the aircraft report the fact back up the training chain.

If anyone feels that safety is being compromised, for whatever reason, it would be better if they approached their Chief Pilot rather than whinge on a forum.

Generally I don't think that total hours should be taken as a measure to judge the quality of FOs. Sure, there are some doing an excellent job, while others... -well you know what I mean.
In this case I totally agree with 411A: The key to success are
and
However, while flying for a different airline for a couple of months during 2005, I saw many poor quality CP (with lots of hours), only capable to fly the aircraft, but not having the slightest clue about A/C systems and performance basics.
With other words - poor airmen can be found in both cockpit seats - right and left.

By the way - something else I read concerning flight experience (FO and CPT) and found very interesting:

All my co-pilots are excellent. They keep me safe and buy me lots of beer - what else can a Captain wish for? Perhaps the problem is you - poor recollection of the time when you had confidence but no experience?

Thanks to all who consider low hour F/O's with proper attitude and personality worthy to fly large aircraft even at low hours.

And yes I know that I don't know. I can learn something every flight.

My 1 cent of experience after 1 1/2 years of Turboprop flying. Yes I support that experience makes a difference. Yes experience helps in the flight deck.

But how are we supposed to get experience when nobody would hire unexperienced F/O's? We can't.
It might be good practice to require more hours in commercial aviation than the MNM around 200 hours on SEP/MEP but then these hours should be accessible. But where to get them in times like these where you have to pay to fly or are just lucky to fly for free?

On the other hand what are these magical 1500 hours single pilot worth in a 737?
In my opinion? The same as a couple hundred hours flying on SEP and MEP. After some 250 hours in SEP's in most "normal" environments you have seen it. It may simply add nothing valuable to what you really need to know in JAR/FAR 125 ops. Does it help in other aspects? Yes sure as pointed out in "justathougt's" post on decision making and experience further down. Don't get me wrong. I have in mind the hours like sitting next to a student pilot in endless circuit trainings and not having seen a single major problem like icing combined with a boots failure in ones life.

Just - why would renown companies consider setting up their training for the medium jets for ab-initio pilots to enter the line at 250+ hours? Why would they even think it better to hire low hour cadets from their own flight schools then hiring 2'000 hour SP's?
Does training and strict attitude testing make the difference?

Important to me is to make sure I learn. I try to be open minded all the time. Try not to make the same mistake more than twice. Listen and look what all the other pilots do (yes not just the CAPT next to me). And try to make decisions based on my experience, then cross-checking with my CAPT. I hope this sheds some light on my attitude to this job.

I will reconsider this post when passing 1'500 hours and maybe 5'000 hours.

The value of proper basic, type rating and line training? Invaluable.
And this is where we can really learn and where the dangers are if not properly done.

What is interesting is that as our company fly us Captains in the right seat quite a lot, we see our peers in a different light !

It is interesting to fly with guys who F/O's have - er - mentioned in passing should we say, then find out that the F/O's are completely correct, hey, I may be one myself !.

I guess I am old fashioned here, but I still believe that zero to hero training and then into the right seat of a jet is wrong. F/O's should do at least a year in a piston or turboprop environment, the workload is high, the flying is demanding, the turnrounds are quick, but above all it is fun flying. The pilots I fly with who have been this route say they wouldn't have miseed it for anything. Sadly some of the others say they would not have started if they thought they would have to fly turboprops before the shiny jets.

The business is changing, you can't self improve anymore, you have to pay top dollar for your licence, then probably more dollar for a type rating - where do the competent, keen but financially challenged pilots go ? The circle has turned and thanks to the CAA we are now back to the days of rich kids and ex Balloon Corps pilots. There are some exceptions, I fly with a few and their debts and determination are HUGE !

From where I sit, I am impressed with quality of F/O's that my company train and put online. But what has flying a jet got to do with it? These guys (and I'd suggest the majority of all pilots) will find a jet easier to fly than a turbo prop - probably because they are. The main difference appears to the be the miserable old git in the RHS who recons that because he had to fly a turboprop, everyone else should. In addition, because they guy is new, he is now going to have do some work because the experienced F/O's he normally flew with used to do it all.

Youve not seen anything yet! Just wait until this MPL comes out and they start putting guys with 70 hours TT (all on a sim) in the RHS of a jet:uhoh:

411A,

Your absolutely right with your observation. However, i have been a low timer myself and it strikes me how uncooperative some of the older (experienced) pilots can be. When you ask some of them a question about the operation of the aircraft hte only answer they can come up with is: "I am not being paid to do training so ask a training captain". Which is a really sad reply. Their experience is very valued by everybody so please make an effort to transfer your knowledge (experience) to the less experienced pilots.
And offcourse these are the people who complain the most about the fact of having 200 hours guys sitting in the right hand seat of a jet.

The real problem is that the expectations of new pilots has changed,through no fault of there own they can now get the ticket and then get a jet job,I wish it was so when I was 20 but then it ment 1000 hours instructing,1100 hours air taxi and then three years rhs turbo prop.

Pilots did do 200 hours to jet but this was company funded and from day one they were exposed to the company sops etc.

So here is the problem,how do I produce the required standard of fo in 30 to 40 line sectors?

I am open to ideas but the best I have come up with so far is to produce a pilot who knows and sticks to sops and knows where to look in the part A and B.

Now put that FO with a line capt who wants to delay flap or gear extension for any number of sound reasons not stated in the part A or B and you end up with a possible break down in CRM,i.e FO thinks the capt is a cowboy and does not know his sops, capt thinks the fo should go ****.

I guess none of this really helps you new guys ,but might help you to understand why you see posts like the one at the start of this thread

it works both ways old bean, i have flown with sub-standard captains, who for example, drift from the sop's and it turns into a gang ****. Now i am not to say which is the correct path up the ladder but i do feel that there should eb a natural progression rather than 200 hours and bang right seat medium jet. For the record i instructed for many years, loved it hated it but taught myself heaps that some young-uns like myself will never know, unfortunately i missed flying turbo-props so far and it is a huge regret i feel i have missed a part of aviation completely.

Any way it is my opnion that it is purely down to the natural ability of the person in question, some people are shown it once and they crack it straight away (me) and some people need to be shown multiple times (not me).

When i used to teach i found patience, honesty and understanding of the students ability was all that was required.

And therein lays the problem.

F/O's
 

It is not just the hours that count but the attitude of the individual. There are people around that have decided that they have made it and now know it all. These people refuse to accept information or learn more from their peers. I find them in both seats in a 2 crew airplane.

What really get's me is that flying with the same F/O over 10 or so sectors this particular individual does not learn from his/her mistakes and repeat them on every flight, even when promted. This is in the "I've made it, I am flying jet's and I know it all" Category.

I have flown with low time F/O's and with guys that have had thousands of hours on the airplane. There is nothing that can replace experience, there are things that cannot be though on a ATPL course in Oxford, regardless what a low time pilot might think.

Just my 10 cents worth before I go and fly with one of the better F/O's I have ever had the privilege to fly with.

JJ

Err401 you are a long long way off the mark my friend.
Experience makes a huge difference.
Most of the potential incidents can be avoided if you can see them coming, if you sense the holes starting to line up so to speak, and act a fraction more conservitively than you would otherwise.
If you have done 1500hrs of single pilot charter work in a light twin or similar you are going to bring an additional level of knowledge/wariness/ability (read experience) to the flight deck. You will also be more capable of making decisions, that might be hard for you to understand at 800 hrs but you are totally responsable for your decisions when single pilot and invariably you make mistakes that you will never forget because you had to wear the consequenses. Every now and then it is neccessary to query a captains decision and it is a lot easier to do if you are armed with that experience. (a good captain will make it easier by asking if you are happy with something first, and then you can say yes or no).
I believe that if you print off a copy of this thread and bring it out again when you have 5000hrs, you will cringe when you read your post. I hope you do, otherwise it suggests to me that your attitude needs re-aligning.

Am I the only one that thinks it's a little fishy that "NgrWagon" has only just registered, starting this thread was his first post (posing a controversial question), and hasn't posted since, or elaborated on his concerns??

Just,
Absolutely spot on my friend, when I think about how much I THOUGHT I knew at 100, 500, 1000hrs, I cringe as well. It as simple as this, you cant but an Old (experienced) head on young shoulders. Never mind all the grumbling and chest beating from a lot of these 250hr heros about how much they THINK they know, its how much WE know they DONT know (like we didnt know ;) )

you know it

I've read a lot of the comments on this thread and have to agree with most of what has been said. I take on board entirely, that there will be some FO's out there, in jet jobs, who lack experience.

With the state that the industry is in in this day and age, should there be any surprise? Airlines are no longer listening to a Chief Pilot. The bean counters control issues and if a low hours pilot is insureable, willing to pay for a type rating, then they're going to be hired.

I would hazard a guess that as long as aircraft are as automated as they are, and there is always a relatively sensible guy/girl in the left hand seat, then the bean counters are going to recruit numbers to fill spaces as cheaply as they possibly can.

The bean counters control things nowadays. They don't see "Pilots" or "experience". They see numbers in the shape of $ or £ or any other currency. They see people who have pieces of paper which say they can take an aircraft from A to B. And that forms the basis of the decisions made by the airlines.

It's all about money and nothing else.

You got it rightt 757.I think all pilots should gain pic experience (maybe 1500 hrs. or more) before moving into airliners. Flying light twins maybe cargo gives pilots experience that can't be bought. 250 hour pilots flying my family around won't happen.

oh dear....
 

Junkflyer, we are grown up aren't we!!
:rolleyes:

I might be stepping into the abyss here but to try and balance this up, i'm a 737 F/O with 600 hrs on type and roughly 900 tt.

There is no problem with low hours, but with poor quality low hours. The ability to pay for a typerating has allowed some people who would NEVER have been selected to do one, become rated on a jet aircraft. That's put them one step from being in the right place and the right time and bang, they're in the right hand seat of a jet.

I personally would blame the flight schools for selling the dream to anyone with enough money. The fact is, flying a jet airliner is not like driving a bus and not everyone can do it. :eek:

Some of you are obviously hankering after a time gone by here. With the amount of pilots currently required by the industry, the routes to a jet job that the majority of you are advocating are not capable of producing sufficient guys. I suspect there may also a be a bit of jealousy. Whatever you might say about wanting to fly a cargo turboprop around at night, if someone had offered you a well paid jet job at the same time you would have leapt at it. If you continue to say otherwise you're only fooling yourself. :*

Low houred pilots have never been an issue in the past. I'd even suspect that some of the posters on here could well have been BA cadets. Why have they never had a problem? Same goes for the RAF. They employ young guys who,with no flying experience, go tearing around the countryside after a couple of hundred hours training. It's all about selection, and there's still a reason that BA, BMI etc put low houred guys through that arduous process. It works! 411A hit the nail on the head with comments about the professionalism of F/O's and good training being a must, something I believe the majority of airlines are implementing corectly. The training department in my airline is excellent.

As for the experience side of it I fail to see, and no one will convince me otherwise, that a thousand hours flying SINGLE PILOT in a light twin can in any way prepare you both flying-wise and experience-wise for flying a MULTI-PILOT jet. It's completely different flying, and only connected by the fact you leave the ground to do your job. This applies 10-fold if you're flying a Scarebus.

It sounds to me like some of you have issues with F/O's in your own company. Why not approach your Chief Pilot about it rather than bemoaning the fact on a public forum, and tarring all of us with the same brush. No doubt some journalist out there is loving this!!

Kak Klaxon,

I'm afraid that the fault there is solely the Captain's old boy. SOP's exist to stop one guy of the 2 thinking he knows best and doing things off his/her own back. If you weren't aware it's called multi-crew and CRM. Notice that there seem to be a lot fewer human-error induced accidents and incidents (and thankfully deaths) nowadays than, say, 20 years ago. It's not a coincidence!!! :*

Topslide6,
I agree with a lot of what you have said. You sound like a switched on chap and I am sure you are very good at your job.
I do disagree with what you say about experience though.

""As for the experience side of it I fail to see, and no one will convince me otherwise, that a thousand hours flying SINGLE PILOT in a light twin can in any way prepare you both flying-wise and experience-wise for flying a MULTI-PILOT jet. It's completely different flying, and only connected by the fact you leave the ground to do your job. This applies 10-fold if you're flying a Scarebus.""

Flying a light twin for a thousand hours single pilot makes you learn things that you don't learn sitting in the right seat. It will definately be hard for you to see that because you haven't done it but notice that the only people saying it doesn't teach you valuble things are the people that haven't done it and are therefore not well qualified to comment.
Command time teaches you things that you can't learn anywhere else or any other way. Single pilot time can also result in bad habits being reinforced over a long time too, there are negative sides to it but if you can adapt well to a multi-crew CRM environment then you will constantly find yourself using this experience day to day.
Saying the two jobs are only connected by the fact that you leave the ground is interesting, maybe for your job this is true, maybe your captains job has more in common with the Single pilot Multi IFR chaps than it does with yours.:)

justathought....

I guess you're right in what you're saying, and I am only basing my comments on having flown the Seneca during the IR. I think you would need to bear in mind, however, that you would be one in a million ito be offered a job flying a light twin on your own commercially straight out of flight school. The current IR in no way prepares you to do that job.

Surely though the single pilot stuff is just honing your instrument flying skills. Yes, if something goes wrong then it's down to you and only you to sort it out. With that you would obviously learn a great deal but I still can't see how flying a Navajo has any great impact on your ability to fly a 737.

I sincerely hope not as that means neither of us are doing our jobs correctly!!! :ok:

What's more useful experience: 1000 hrs multi-pilot jet or 1000 hrs single-pilot light twin? I know which F/O I'd rather have flying my family around. I've been taught by some of these 250 hr F/Os who have then go on to become TRIs/TREs and almost without exception they have been excellent.

Slightly wrong, SOP's are there to allow 2 people to operate within the framework of the companies accepted operating procedures. There is also a paragraph which will say that if pilots wish to operate away from the SOP's they should do so after briefing.

Now, if this Captain has a wealth of experience and can see a situation developing, there may be several occasions when profiles, configuration, patterns may be changed to improve economy or safety or for expeditious reasons.

I agree that things should not be done without consultation, but the problems I have heard of relate to F/O's who want chapter, verse and the printers' name before 'allowing' the Captain to continue. This is usually because the F/O has not got the basic experience to fall back on, either on type, or in commercial aviation generally.

Being an expert at both CRM and flying the aeroplane, I do not come across this situation ever :ok:

javelin,

You're absolutley correct. But then I think that's part of what being a good F/O is about...knowing that the guy in the left seat is more experienced and that you can learn an awful lot from them but having the confidence in your own ability and knowledge to question him/her when they do something you're not happy with. As long as you both brief each other corectly then it's not an issue. It works the other way around as well...i've flown with Captain's who have got high on a descent profile for example, and have not seen the situation developing and have needed a bit of prompting...but that's EXACTLY why there are two of us and the old gradient is more shallow, to prevent the cockups of the past.

What I was trying to get accross (and admittedly failed miserably :O ) is that the SOP's are there to protect you both from the cowboy, left or right seat, who believes they know it all and just gets on with it without letting the other guy know what they're upto.

A perceived lack of experience shouldn't mean that you are a 'poor FO'. It's to do with our professionalism and willingness to learn and improve! :ok:

Hey topslide,
I think the 250hrs and into a jet route would be the best way to learn basic IFR flying skills because there is lots of advice and handy hints sitting right beside you.
What you learn SP MEIFR is a sense of when things are starting to stack up in the wrong direction, and what your own personal limits are and you also become better at making command decisions and being happy with the consequence of those decisions. I know that all sounds a bit hairy fairy but I believe it to be fairly accurate. It's not just in an emergency that you learn things, it's every time you make a decision and it doesn't work out how you want. Another thin is that the performance of light twins is pretty painful so you have to think a lot about performance.
Anyway, the most important thing is the persons attitude and willingness to learn and change their ideas if someone comes up with a good reason to.Often it ca be hard to change an idea you've put stock in for years, but if it's right it's right. Have a good day:)

Im an FO and i fly with some captains whose ability to fly an A/C fall well below the mark.Their ability to add up hours in the tech log is bad.

So its not all FOs who are bad!

Hey NgrWagon,

Exactly how are low hour guys meant to gain more experience? We're already spending up to 60k on getting a CPL/IR etc. What else would you like us to do? If you want to buy me an A320 for example, and say have me fly that for 1500 hours that's grand. However i'd best have someone experienced sat beside me to show me the ropes, lets say a training captain. Tell you what lets put some pax in the back to cover the fuel costs etc and hey we might even make enough to have a pint at the end of the day!

Get bent

I'm all for SOPs but worried about the interpretation of it, a few years ago after being offered a short notice intersection departure (loosing around 500’ of a 12,000’ rwy) in an A330 at light weight, both knowing a NW747 was on short final, I(PNF) suggested TOGA in my best CRM and was surprised when he said “no” get a new RTOW which resulted in a late/low go around. Now I was a low hour F/O and agree experience counts for more every time I get it, and I put that down as more experience for me even though TOGA would have resulted in a non event (from previous experience).

Now the other day flying in the worst body clock time, I cocked it up well and good, now in a 747 classic working out my decent point I decided to multiply my height by 2 instead of 3 so sailed some 30+ miles past my descent point, and caught it passing my first “round” numbers, FL300, at which point the Captain started laughing and telling me how he’d done the exact same thing years ago as an F/O with another laughing Captain. It all worked out fine and was a lot of fun barrelling in at .86/360kts (SOPs .85/300kts) with the boards to regain the profile all the while talking about how some Captains wouldn't allow an operation like that intentionally.

So to my point, I’m afraid companies want strict SOPs to be followed rather than knowing/showing the performance of the A/C to get you back within SOPs whether intentionally or not.
I like to explore my envelope and love it when I fly with Captains who say go for your life, every mistake I make, I’ll either never make again or will know what to do.

Previouse experience asside I’d hate my current experience to be wholly within SOPs, so a good F/O may be the result of the Captains or company environment he’s been flying with/in.

An instrument rating in a Seneca is NOT representative of commercial SPIFR flying.

If you think experience flying SPIFR ops is so irrelevant to good flying skills, and 'jet airline flying' I bet my left nut that it would be infinitely easier to convert an 2500hr SPIFR pilot to a jet airliner, than a 900hr pilot who has gone straight from flight school into a RHS of an airliner to a SP Chieftain, Aerostar, KingAir or Metro.

The lessons that are learnt along the way, including 'DECISION MAKING' when you don't have anyone to 'hold your hand' are invaluable. Not to mention how to 'operate' commercially without all the trimmings of dispatchers, loadmasters etc,etc etc. That in turn gives you commercial experience to draw upon when operational situations that were never taught at flying college or are not in company ops manuals pop up. It's not all just about flying.

You get to learn 'from the ground up'. That is called a 'foundation'. Just like a house without a solid foundation, it all might come crashing down one day when 'good times go bad'.

If we are talking about a pilots' attitude, there are plenty of pilots with a shameful attitude - both experienced guys and inexperienced guys. A low time pilot with a good attitude only goes part of the way to make up for a distinct lack of experience, and is definitely more desirable than a low time guy with a poor attitude - but no match for an experienced guy with a good attitude.

It never fails to amaze me that the only people who denigrate flying experience are those that don't have much of it. I have no gripe with inexperienced pilots, we have all been there as we gain experience, learn and grow as aviators. But if some of the posts on this topic are anything to go by, it really is a case of not knowing enough to know what you don't know.

Jeez that sounded like a sermon..........

Very true! Before it was outlawed under JAR rules I did SPIFR straight after qualifying with 250hrs. I am sorry Topslide6, but you show a lack of an educated opinion when you say Well, here's what I learnt in my 750hrs SPIFR;

File your own flight plans (and I mean fill in the form!)
Produce your own PLOG (admittedly using company supplied software!)
Order your own fuel, catering, newspapers and stock up the aeroplane bar, make the coffee and fill up the snacks.
Meet and greet your passengers, brief them and arrange carriage of their luggage to the aircraft.
Load the luggage yourself.
Organise handling agent transport to bring the passengers out at the right time.
Do your own weight and balance loadsheet, techlog and assocaited flight paperwork.
Give the pax safety brief and demonstrate life jackets and emergency exit use.
Fly the aeroplane single crew (the good bit)
Gather weather and speak to agents and ATC (often working two radios at a time), often flying outside controlled airspace and needing to gain clearances to enter back in.
Deal with adverse weather, operational changes, inflight re-planning or re-routing, technical failures and limitations.
Once you arrived at destination, deal with passenger and baggage handling, documentation and fee paying etc etc etc.

Here are a few examples of flights I carried out;

1. C404 Edinburgh to Heathrow. First operational sector after training. TT 300hrs. 9 pax, weather good. Only cock-up? Not informing LHR that I would be doing about 120kts on final approach....

2. C310 over Glasgow doing a traffic report with a reporter and two pax (guests of the radio station). TT 450hrs. Engine fire followed by inflight shutdown at 1500ft over the city. Deal with the drills CORRECTLY (with no-one to confirm any recall items), calm down pax and negotiate with ATC to return with 1EO.

3. C310 Edinburgh to Oslo Gardemoen. TT 500hrs, routing via Aberdeen and then accross the North Sea in the middle of the night in a Scottish winter, below 10,000' with no weather radar and CBs all around. 70nm offshore, losing VHF contact with both sides, bouncing around in the CBs with hail smashing against the windscreen and picking up ice at a rate that the boots are just not coping with.

4. C310 Edinburgh to Newcastle. TT still minimal..... from phone call to airborne in less than 45 minutes to retrive a heart and lungs to take down to Heathrow for a transplant patient who would be on the operating table by the time I landed. Flying 'at the top of the greens', going in and out of controlled airspace all the way down to London, arriving at 08:30 in the morning and negotiating with Heathrow Director to get a RUNWAY CHANGE on to the opposite end of the active in order to save 25 minutes of taxying....

5. I could go on and bore you with even more details about the experience, decision making skills, character building, CRM, adaptability, customer service, negotiation skills, operating in crap weather, flying into difficult airfields, flight management, operational management and numerous other skills that I learnt or enhanced during my 750hrs of SPIFR, ALL of which have been the most valuable experiences since I became a jet pilot on two crew aircraft. From day one in the sim on a 757, paired up with a 250hr cadet the difference between us was evident (and that's not boasting, merely fact) and it has continued to be the basis of my success in two crew ops.

So, if , then you are not being open-minded enough to other viewpoints and experiences and, dare I say it, have not fully grasped a vital element of CRM.

There are many misconceptions in aviation, one being that SPIFR pilots 'have trouble' adapting to two crew operations. Crap. A mass generalisation, which like all mass generalisations has been proved and disproved many times over. CRM and two crew operations are all about the individuals and how they adapt to the situation they are in.

Not all 200hr wonderkids are crap, many are excellent. BUT, the experience they lack cannot be made up for with good two crew ops. They can only gain experience with time and input; the same as the single pilot guy, but when he enters the jet market he already has significantly more flying and decision making experience than the guy straight out of traing school, and that is always evident.....

PP

So if you feel safety is compromised, are you refusing to fly until a more qualified FO appears?

20-somethings solo in F-18s at 400 hours. It's not the time that's important, but the quality of the training.

the 100 hour pilot feels he has mastered the aircraft

the 1000 hour pilot feels he has yet to master the aircraft

the 10000 hour pilot KNOWS he will never master the aircraft

Snape, those 20 something, 400 hour F-18 pilots are monitering some very advanced autopilot systems.

Pilot Pete,

At the risk of getting shot down again...you are turning this into a single-pilot vs multi-pilot operation argument. I was merely trying to stand up to the ridiculous bashing that 250 hrs F/O's have taken in this thread. I also stand by what I said. There is not one thing you have listed there, apart from the bleeding obvious, that I and many (if not all) F/O's have to deal with on a daily basis. If you took that 250hr cadet you were paired with in the sim and put him back in the sim after he'd done 750hrs on line along with a fresh 250hr cadet, the same difference would be evident. I understand what you're saying as regards single pilot ops, and I was not criticising it, but this attitude that you cannot fly a jet unless you've flown single pilot or turboprops first is absurd. At the end of the day it's a mute point.

That says it all.

Trentino,

...forgive me. What kind of autoflight systems does a modern airliner have? Those 20-something's are on the whole highly trained, very switched on, and very capable pilots.

Jet_A_Knight

I assume you're referring to me with that comment. At no point in anything i've written on here have I said, directly or inferred, that that is my opinion. It's relevance to the ability to operate a commercial jet over someone who has not flown SPIFR is in question, however.

Many of these 250hr F/O's are doing their learning and gaining their experience from some excellent Captains and trainers while 'on the job' having already attained a high level of competency to operate the aircraft commercially. I still fundamently disagree with the notion that it is not possible to do that straight out of flight school (again raising the question of selection), and that is nothing to do with not listening to others and learning as much as we can from them. :mad:

Of course, the view from the left hand seat maybe very different.....

Slightly off thread so my apologies for the following:

Can anyone give me an idea of the length of time it would take for someone without any prior experience, for example joining the BA direct-entry cadetship, (or similar), to go from training day 1 to sitting in the right hand seat fully qualified? (Months as opposed to hours logged please).

Reason for question was discussion re. length of time to train a person with no prior experience to validate as an ATCO vs time to train similar person to FO qualification. 'Ball-park' figure would suffice.

Thanks for any help.

Rgds
T3