turbine airplanes and type ratings

[ShawnC]

The bottom line of my point was that you can't just walk in and get a type rating in two weeks off the street...

It turns out that you can. A while back Riddle in cooperation with Delta sent some of its instructors to get types, they were mixed in the with a Delta upgrade class (something like that I don't have the exact details, if anyone does correct me). They found that our CFI's, which most were less than 1,000hrs, had the same pass fail rate as the rest of the upgrade class.

 

[abenaki]

Look, I'm not arguing about the time it takes to get a type.....everyone knows that it's a 10 day to 4 or more week process depending upon the aircraft......

BUT, the bottom line is that no company is going to let you lose as a captain just because you have a type rating. Those Riddle guys may have had the piece of paper in their pockets but there was no way they'd see the left seat of whatever aircraft that they were typed in before they had experience commensurate with the position. That takes years to achieve and it certainly amounts to more than just hours in a logbook. There is a tremendous amount of learning needed before being cut lose as a captain.

It's a building process, just like any other profession.

 

[cvsfly]

Most reputable training facilities like FSI and Simuflite will ask for a miminum amout of experience before you take their type rating course. Especially nowadays, a pilot with 40 hours tries to sign up for a type is going to get asked alot of questions on why. No insurance company in the world would insure you. But then again, money has been known to talk.

 

[501261]

As much as I hate to say it Avbug's right! A type rating is only worth as much as you put into it. Anybody can go out and buy a type. $4000 gets you a Citation type, a 747 type for $9900. FS and SF "train to proficiency" meaning pay them $11,000 for a Citation type and they will train you till you get it right!

The real value of a type is not the rating itself. The Delta pilot that just earned his 777 type or the corporate pilot that just earned his GV type is now "worth" considerably more than s/he was before the type. This is not because s/he is any better pilot; it's more of a reward for the professionalism and time it took to get them to this point.

In short we sometimes wrongly measure our professionalism by number of type ratings. I earned my five type ratings, but it is not the measure of my professionalism. Case and point look at some of the idiots out there with your types. For me it is much more pronounced since I have Citation and Lear types.

 

[Archer]

Wow...got to watch out for those sparks flying about


It seems there are mixed opinions on how difficult it is to get typed. There is an agreement on the time it takes days to a couple of weeks though.

Not knowing anything about type ratings and what is involved...as a student pilot, I can immediately say type ratings are not something that a 150 hour SEL Instrument Pilot can get (or make use of if he/she does get it).

When I go out to the airport and watch the active, sometimes I see a Beech Jet 400A at the end of the runway ready for take-off. I hear this loud noise associated with turbojets, see the little jet accelerate and take-off in no time, with a steep climb, a huge roar, and it is gone in a matter of 15 seconds or so. Then afterwards, I see a Piper Warrior taxi into position and take-off...fighting to get the positive rate of climb...making the disctinc noise of a single piston...and staying in my view for a good minute or so...

Now...it is hard to believe that flying those two planes has anything in common...and that the Beech Jet pilot simply had 2 extra weeks of training than that Warrior (student pilot most probably)...

I was just wondering if I would ever one day fly anything that had a turbojet engine on it...that's why I was curious to know about type ratings...

Especially since by the time the Eclipse 500 will reach full production...and perhaps drop in price from it's current 856,000 or so bucks...I was hoping to one day buy one of them...and fly it myself in the distant future...

Archer