in OMAN AIR you can be a Captain on B737 at age 22 and be Instructor by 500 hrs or less in Command, and the Instructor can failed 12 SAS B737 Captain or 20 out 27 candidate Captain, so it depend how high the training standard of the airline, and this is the highest standard, I think:ugh:

A few years back, I trained a 29 year-old Captain for the B744F, he had previous command time on the A300. I doubt that there are any under-30s currently, given the state of the industry, especially cargo.

Mr. Barron, in the past there have been a few threads about 'the youngest B747 skipper' and nobody seems to have an authoritative answer as most info is always based on rumours or 'a friend of a friend told me' and so the theme resurfaces from time to time, but by reading all posts it seems to me that around 27 - 29 years old would be the youngest.

http://www.pprune.org/south-asia-far...too-young.html

http://www.pprune.org/questions/2566...7-captain.html

I joined my current airline as Direct Entry Captain on B747-400ERF at age 35, I'm currently 37 (second youngest Captain in my outfit joined as DEC at 42) and whilst certainly not the youngest in the industry, it's fair to say that it isn't very common to see many B744 skippers below age 40, due mostly, in my opinion, to 'seniority' issues (especially at big companies).

I think you will find that young B747 Captains were exceptional cases that happened perhaps due to a great demand at the time (e.g. Start-up company, small company, rapid expansion/growth) and they proved to have -despite their young age- the flying and personal skills and ability required to be in command of a B747, but with legacy carriers -unless you join at a very young age- it will normally take any pilot a long time to climb through the ranks and fleets and eventually make it to B747 LHS below the age of 40.

Kind regards and best of luck with your research. =)

Forgot to add, never seen a Asian female cockpit crew on an Asian B744/B744F operator. My bad.

Female cockpit crews are a common sight on Western airlines, but not so in Asia. In fact, SQ doesn't have any female tech crew among it's tech crew staff strength. The same goes for some of the other Asian carriers.

I see what you mean. It is hard to tell anyone getting into the business that you can have expectations of being B744 captain in your 30's because so in so did, but it does bring some hope. Although it looks like very little hope compared to the past. Thanks again for your thoughts.

Captain 747-200/300 @ 29 moved to -400 @ 34, now 36

Dragonair(KA) had a female -400 captain

What is it with the 747 that gets everyone imagination going? Why doesn't anyone ask about the youngest A340-600 captain? Or the Youngest MD-11 captain? Or the youngest Netjets G5 captain? Or more to the point: the youngest A380 captain?

Is it because the 380 is so ugly?:ok:

No current captains on an FAA (USA) pilot certificate under the minimum age for the ATP of 23.

Plenty of mil guys flying jets such as the DC-10 as Captains (and I mean Aircraft Commander not Military rank) in their mid 20's

I don't know what the fuss is about. Got command of a VC-10 aged 27, command of DC-10 aged 29, current DC-10 training captain aged 31.

Doesn't mean I'm good though......just in a growth industry ;)

I agree with Penko here regarding "why" the 747.

If I remember my PPL books correctly from all those years ago, the PIC of a Cessna 152 has the same responsibility as the PIC of a 747.

The reason why the 747 catches the imagination is because of its size. Come on guys, lets all agree that whilst flying is flying, and a plane is a plane is a plane, even though sitting on a 744 for 10 hours plus is boring, the fact that you ARE a 744 Pilot/Captain is a pretty cool thing to be.

Which is why in large legacy carriers that operate 744s, there will always be a seniority "list" to get there. I know a SIA 773 SFO who was offered the A380 but decided against it. He is barely over 30. Could end up being Captain on the 773 in a few years. So surely it is "cooler"to be a 32 year old 773 Captain rather than a 37 year old 744 Captain??

Why doesn't the 773 Captain get any special praise?

Jim,

I got my command a year ago and I was 27 y.o.
eemmmm... it was on ATR's ;)

BA used to have quite a few 747 Captains in their thirties 20-25 years ago, probably still have in that age range. All depends if you start at the right time in the recruitment "cycle"