Has anyone had success with PICUS?

[goingnowherefast]

FO time always, at least since I started flying, counted for half of the total time required for the ATPL, ie; if I only had FO time I would need around 3000 hours to get the ATPL.

When I got mine, half of the 1500 had to be PIC, and SIC time only counted half, so, if getting the license based on SIC time you required 750 PIC and 1500 SIC. I didn't know anybody from my cadre that was stuck on the PIC time for the license, but a few were shy on night time after spending some years on floats. Most of them ultimately took a job doing bag runs to get the night and ifr requirements. But even those jobs were significantly different back then, most were in the navajo, and there was nobody sitting in the right seat.

I did know one person that was a few years older than me, went to AC strait out of selkirk (or it may have been the other college), then after a number of years right seat in the diesel 9, took an LOA to go fly floats for a season, get the required PIC so he could upgrade. At that time he needed 400 or so PIC in order to upgrade.

Yah, that sounds familiar, I had 1700 hours when it was signed off because I had 400 right seat, the rest was PIC.
I do see the benefit of PICUS if you had to gain double the TT, but at 1500 hours and a couple hundred “PIC”, you should not be in command of a 705 category aircraft but I will concede that PICUS is probably better than renting a C150.
My biggest problem is that they removed the FO time counting as half, seems like some airline lobbying effort paid off!

I'm going to disagree. SIC time should count at 100%. Back in the pre-CRM days, when the copilot was allowed to talk on the radio if they were really good at moving the flap lever. Sure, maybe then it might have made sense.

However, today in a much better CRM environment, FOs are encouraged to think and respectfully challenge captains when necessary. The experience is a lot more valuable than in the pre-CRM days. I argue that it's worth 100%.

What should be required is commercial, operational experience. No ATPL license until a pilot has flown 604 or 703/704/705.

[‘Bob’]

There’s a lot of difference between “commanding” a plane when you have someone more knowledgeable and experienced than you next to you.. vs being on your own. No lifelines. No call a friend.

Again, a Cessna 172 is going to instil that sense of self reliance on you and show the stakes are real a lot more than pretending to be captain.