So, essentially, you're paying JetU to teach you how to play a specific Sega game really well. Honestly, that's it. Once you're out of training, like it or not, your classmates that have real world experience are gonna be leaps and bounds ahead of you. Don't think for a minute that you've got it made once you pass the checkride. You've still got OE and year's worth of probation to go through. Not only are the check airmen you fly with on OE evaluating you, but periodically, the line CAs you fly with will be evaluating you, and THEY can be a LOT harsher. I've talked to a couple of guys that actually put "Shouldn't be behind the wheel of a car much less in an airplane" on some eval forms of probationary FOs. A lot of guys relax once they've gotten through OE (assuming they get THAT far) and wind up getting smacked by a heavy dose of reality.
JetU does one thing: it gets your ready for the training environment. It does NOTHING towards making you a valuable, qualified FO. If an engine goes out, a thrust reverser deploys or the stab trim runs away, I have no doubt they'd be all over it. If there's a passenger in the back having a heart attack in a thunderstorm, the CA looks at the guy and says "Well, what do you think?" my money's on a total freeze up.
Until you're been there and done it, expect to be a wanna-be and a know it all who has never been. It's just one of those things, and you won't understand it until you ARE sitting there with somebody dying in the back of your plane and you're faced with a decision to make. You can think about it all you want, but until your butt is in the seat thinking, "Ahh...if we mess this one up much we're gonna be in for a world of ####, and this was never a profile in the sim..." you're pretty much worthless.
Oh man, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that at 250 hours you were hot ####.
I don't mean to discount your experience, because it's good you've seen that stuff, but seriously man, I didn't realize you were such a great pilot.
You never really thought that my lack of very much public comment on this program has anything to do with not wanting to lose my job, have you?
I'd love to set you straight, but Don already has for the most part and if you'd like to know my thoughts on the program shoot me a PM.
You know, it's one of those situations where you really have to say, "Kid, until you've been there and seen the ####, you don't have a clue about what you're gonna do."
It's not that the 500 additional hours of traffic watch helps you, it's the two engine failures, 50 near mid air's and constant dealings with ATC that helps you.
Aviation is not as academic as engineering. You can't study it in the classroom and expect to go out and apply it. You've gotta get down in the #### and get slapped in the face a few times by it.
But now you could express your thoughts, as you are leaving, or have left said company. Remember, you too found a way as a low time pilot to get into a 135 operation. What makes your way any better then the SIC program? Would you recommend other low time pilots to build the hours the way you did?
Look, if someone wants to waste thousands of dollars on a program so you'll feel good going into training, there's nothing I can do to stop you. It's your money, waste it all you want. Personally, I'd rather have someone with more real world and less "Sega" experience in the seat next to me in a year or so.
I will say this. If I'm DHing in the back of one of our airplanes, and the CA shuffles off this mortal coil, I don't have a lot of confidence in JetU FOs up front. Now, if that happens and an engine flames out, I have no doubt they'd be able to handle the engine flame out.....
What's shuffle off a mortal coil?