Best zero time to regional route

[dollacrackho]

If you're flying now take 2 weeks off and don't fly at all. At the end of those 2 weeks take your davey clarks drop kick them in the nearest lake and quit flying altogether. If you haven't started flying yet take 2 weeks to think about it then go get a degree in zit popping and go to the airport on your off days and laugh and point at the losers in their fancy pilot uniforms that were dumb enough to pick this as a career.

 

[Indy319FA]

Get a college degree in something besides aviation that you can feed yourself with when this business takes a crapper. Go military if you can. If you can't go buy an older 152 or 172 and fly the crap out of it till you get to 1500. If you do the math you'll be better off than spending 150,000 to a quarter mill at one of these college level aviation programs.

Or go to one of these programs, go crazy in debt, and commit financial suicide. Its your choice.

 

[Bringupthebird]

If you enjoy flying, don't do it as your only career---but you can make it one of your jobs. Diversify your work & income. Dont become dependant. It will save you a lot of heartache later.

Lousy advice and quite impractical. Flying consumes too much of your life to develop anything else worthwhile. You can have an expensive hobby that you think is a side business, but you'll end up hiring too many people to look after the business when you are away and they will invariably rip you off because they can. You end up dependent on them as much as you would your primary job.

Choose flying if you (and anyone you plan to spend your life with) are OK with making the rest of the interests in your life a distant second. Your career will never "owe you" anything, because it cannot and will not ever pay you back. A great landing has to be worth more to you than watching a child in a school play. You'll tuck your flight kit in behind you seat more times than you'll tuck your little ones in bed. Eating Thanksgiving dinner at the gas station across from the hotel in Atlanta or texting "Merry Christmas" before you push back for a 30 hour overnight in Guadalajara will have to be okay with the family because you chose that for you and for them. And after the water cannons stop on your last flight, don't let the fact that those same kids aren't all that interested in calling the man they never really got to know. Maybe they'll text you a "Merry Christmas".

 

[Bringupthebird]

Get a college degree in something besides aviation that you can feed yourself with when this business takes a crapper. Go military if you can. If you can't go buy an older 152 or 172 and fly the crap out of it till you get to 1500. If you do the math you'll be better off than spending 150,000 to a quarter mill at one of these college level aviation programs.

Or go to one of these programs, go crazy in debt, and commit financial suicide. Its your choice.

1500 hrs @ $65/hr (what it costs just to run an old 172) is $97500. Lunch a motor and you're into it for another 20 grand. Not to mention that you have to come up with the $30K to buy the thing and then may not be able to sell it afterwards. And you have no multi time.

Or get your ratings ASAP and then comb the airports (you may have to do some searching) for the busiest operators (charter, cargo or corporate all flying >300-500 hrs/pilot per year) and find out what they fly and put the remaining money into Flight Safety training on that airplane if they agree to hire you.

 

[damnflyboy]

Lousy advice and quite impractical. Flying consumes too much of your life to develop anything else worthwhile.

Lousy advice and quite impractical. Flying consumes too much of your life to develop anything else worthwhile.

Tell that to the pilot who also works as a Dentist. Or the pilots that successfully flip homes and rent others out. Or the pilot who is also real estate agent. Or the pilot who has a lucrative accounting/wealth management firm. Or the pilot who is an electrician. Or the pilot who is a video/film editor. Or the pilot who has his own general aviation A&P business. Or the pilots that co-own & operate a fantastic firearms training academy. Or... I could go on and on and on. All successful, and all continuing to engage in these activites because they are indeed worthwhile.

It can be done. It takes extra work, of course. Diversifying income gives the above pilots much more protection from the sadistic misfortunes of this industry than we both have. I'm just trying to give the kid some facts.

But I truly appreciate your opinion. You bring up some good points that I had not considered myself.

 

[livin'thesim]

To an even greater degree than before, starting a flying career is like getting married.

Aviation is a cruel mistress, but with the new 1500 hour requirement and the other issues in the industry, she is now a 90 year old mistress who is grouchy and incontinent.

The old career track most of us took will be tougher than ever, because it is not "just" the 1500 hours. With a diminishing base of GA pilots, there are fewer and fewer non-career students to teach. Buying a crappy airplane might be the only route to 1500 hours for some.

In fact, if you have a really good paying job, it might be cheaper to fly off the hours in a tri-pacer than it would be to sit around all day at the airport waiting for a chance to teach for a couple hours and make $20.

 

[cordova1]

Get your ratings and teach at an airport near you... AND REALLY LEARN HOW TO FLY AN AIRPLANE. Just enjoy the ride and don't be so focused on the end goal too much. You will just make yourself crazy and be set up for a let down.

Well said. You have until 65 years to be a pilot(give or take)sometimes the quickest way to the finish seems the slowest.

 

[IBNAV8R]

The military option assumes A) you can get into flight school and, B) your cockpit is not an air-conditioned trailer in the desert.

My advice is to get a good career so that you can afford to fly for pleasure. Fly on the side, build time. This is what I did. By the time you get to 1,500 hours, you'll be old and wise enough to not choose this career. (epic fail on this part)

Still, if you are hell bent on flying, don't get married, don't have kids and make sure you're folks' basement is still available - unless you have an obscene trust fund or a spouse that can support all of you.

Well, it still beats working.

 

[zasca]

Wow, so much awesome advice being given... Go instruct. Go fly for a mapping company. Go tow banners. Go beg, borrow and steal cheap time. Bartend on the side. It was never supposed to be easy to get this job. Yeah it sucks that gas is expensive and 250hr wonders are no longer allowed. 1500 hr is what it took to get hired most places in 2005.

BUT with practically endless hiring, across the board, starting in the next 3-5 years, who are you to play Nostradamus??? Freaking regional first officers are already being nabbed at USAIR and United. When was the last time that ever happened???

We're all chasing a dream. Don't tell people it's not worth it because of your sour grapes.

 

[bizicmo]

With the 1500 hour rule now in effect, what is the best way for someone with zero time to get the minimums to apply at a regional? I am not asking if it should be done, but if it had to be done, what is the best option.

Ramper or plane cleaner would be the fastest way to make it to a regional. Of course the 1500 hour rule didn't affect those routes because you don't need any flight time to work the ramp or clean the plane.

 

[airplane wizard]

PP SEL

Buy an old junk Apache

COMM MEL
IR
CFI-ME
CFII
instruct others for their ME rating
split costs with other ME pilots looking to build time

Sell the old junk Apache

 

[livin'thesim]

Yeah, marriage is bad news until you've established your flying career.

Oh, she will go along just long enough to make you think you're going to fly for a living, then she will run out of patience, which means you will run out of access to the vajayjay, and - HELLO OFFICE JOB!

Seen it a million times.

 

[AirMike]

You may want to try networking with JAPA as well. It's a very small organization but they are very tight knit. They do have certain requirements to being a member whereas OBAP and WIA take anybody. Good luck!

 

[pilotyip]

With the continued reduction in military flying, it might take 15 years to log 1,500 hours.

Doesn't need 1500, military pilots get an ATP at 750 hours.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program, go to a puppy mill that trains foreign pilots. Want cheap flight time get a glider, go someplace where the glider will stay in the air for 8-10 at a time with one tow.

It fits with what I have been stating for year. It will take you approximately 10 years to get to a job that will allow you to start making QOL a goal in your job search. Pilots get hired at good places because they have Turbine PIC, you must build turbine PIC to have control over your career. You have to go wherever that job is that gets you turbine PIC. You stay in that job until you can get another job that gives you better turbine PIC, i.e. Bigger airplanes, Turbojet, 121, etc. It is called paying your dues everyone must do it. Some do it in the military, some do it at the regionals, and some do in the on-demand business. Everyone pays his or her dues.

 

[BGSkyGuy]

I love it when pilots drop a steamer on the entire profession just because they're miserable. If it's so bad quit. And by the way, if you want to enjoy your aviation career don't go to the regionals at all. Lots of other ways to earn a buck.