You wizened pilots

DrBenny

New Member
So then I started to wonder:

I just posted what the difference was at the 100 hour mark as compared to the 200 hour mark. C'mon weigh in--tell us, pilots, how your skills, knowledge, and intuition have developed at the following turning points:

1) 100 hours
2) 200 hours
3) 500 hours
4) 1000 hours
5) 5000 hours
6) 10,000 plus hours.

If you have a lot of hours, you MUST describe yourself at all six levels!
 
Probally biggest was passing the hundred hour mark. I am in he middle of 500 and 1000 and I'm pretty stable now. 280 was also a big point because I started CFI work.
 
Actually I wouldnt know. I keep making logbook entries but I havent totaled the pages in three months because after 350 hours it didnt seem to matter. One day i will sit down and do the totals and hope they add up to somebodys minimums...
 
100 hours - "I'm gettin the hang of this"
200 hours - "I'm not so bad ..."
300 hours - "Holy crap, I know just enough to kill myself! And, they let me have a commercial ticket?!"
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400 hours - not quite there yet.
 
At 100 hrs- I'm the man
at 200hrs - geez those last 100 went by slowly
at 500hrs- geez- I have to do this 2 or 3 more times to get hired by a cargo/regional outfit!
 
Looking back on it now is a lot different to how I felt when I was actually there.

100 hrs-- Didn't push myself, and knew I was still learning.

200 hrs-- Working on my instrument rating, realizing how much I didn't know.

500 hrs-- Judgement was getting a lot better, felt a lot more comfortable flying different types of airplanes, yet couldn't do the commercial maneuvers as well as I could at 300 hrs.

1000 hrs-- Instructing is going good, but not flying enough instrument stuff to stay proficient.

1500 hrs--- I will let you know next month, I am sitting on 1450 right now.
 
I'll say this. There are a lot of things I didn't think twice about doing in my first 500 hours that I either don't do now...or really try hard to avoid.

For example. In my first 500 hours I wouldn't think twice about flying over some really sparely populated areas in the Cascade Mtn range. I'd just always fly direct, without much consideration about what was below me. Now, if I have to fly over the mountains to Western WA, I'm sure to follow either I 90 or highway 2, both well traveled roads with some population along the way. If I go down...someone will find me.

In my first 500 hours, I didn't think twice about flying at night....even over the mountains. Now, I try really hard to fly within reach of a major freeway if I fly at night and would never fly at night in the mountains except if I was following I-90...and even then I'd be pretty nervous.
 
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