> I'm pretty sure all major airlines require a ton of hours on smaller planes... That used to be true, and may be right now, but the trend is towards airlines

> I'm pretty sure all major airlines require a ton of hours on smaller planes... That used to be true, and may be right now, but the trend is towards airlines accepting simulator time in lieu. The trouble with that is that simulators are subject to the same problem as any other complex input device: if you haven't foreseen the problem beforehand, you don't program the simulator to model it, and the pilot isn't trained to handle it. Experience can help that simulator time can't. The recent high-pressure turbine blade failure on Qantas is a case in point where the pilots were overwhelmed with page after page of error faults, 145 of them if I remember correctly. If they hadn't been very fortunate to have two other senior captains in the cockpit with them, they would have had a great deal of trouble dealing with the information flow. Personally, as a light aircraft pilot myself, I would not be comfortable with young airline pilots with only simulator experience. At least one of them needs to have a few thousand hours of hands-on-stick experience.