Reply #63: You're not telling me anything I didn't already know either... [View All]

[bdab1973]

"And we both know it is a different kind of pilot that flies the commercial aircraft versus the F/A-18"

I'm trying to figure out what you mean by this...are you saying that military pilots aren't as well trained? That they take more risks? Not sure...

In any case, military pilots are BETTER trained than most commercial pilots. You'd be surprised to know that many of the pilots flying commuter airliners have only about 1,000 hours of experience, and that perhaps all but 100-200 hours of that is flying small single-engine Cessnas. Don't believe me? My best friend went that route...he had about 1000 hours of time, and most of it was flying light airplanes, and the other couple hundred hours were flying small twin engined airplanes like a Cessna 310, which isn't much bigger.

By the time a military pilot gets to train in an F/A-18, they've probably had their private pilot's license for some time...I personally had about 100 hours flying Cessnas. Then I got another 300 hours flying jet primary trainers and finally the T-1A. What's the T-1A? It's a Raytheon Beechjet 400A painted white with US Air Force painted on the side.

So I had more advanced jet time when I went to my first aircraft-specific qualification course than most commuter pilots have when they step aboard a CRJ airliner for the first time. Let's not forget the standards required of both paths...military training requires you to achieve specific high standards by certain points in the program, or you're out. In USAF training, you soloed with 15-20 hours under your belt....if you couldn't meet the standards to solo by then, you got kicked out. In the civilian training programs, you solo when they think you're ready, so long as you continue to put out the cash for flight training. While the average student solos a Cessna in 15-20 hours, I've seen some civilian students take over 100 hours of instruction before they were able to solo safely. They kept writing the checks, and the instructors kept instructing. Many of those guys go on to get airline jobs. I'm not saying ALL civilian trained airline pilots are like that (read the part where I said MOST solo within normal times), but there are some that get through because the civilian program isn't merit based, it's based on your ability to keep paying for the training.

You also need to understand that it's impossible to do certain types of training over water. I could go into detail, but it would likely take up too much of your time and you probably wouldn't read it anyways.