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breaking into the corparate market?

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Knee pads, oh and big titties help too...
 
amazing how may furloughed-from-the-major guys are "ready to come back to their roots" in Corporate Aviation

once they get recalled, or the next job comes along, see ya. Roots? See ya

All about me baby, all about me



Ah yes I remember the good ole days when those bus drivers would look down their noses at my lowly steed taking up precious room in the conga line to the active.

Now I can wallpaper the hanger with their resumes...
 
Someone asks for some guidance and all you guys do is take shots at him for being a former airline guy. Why the hostility? The airlines have no problem hiring corporate pilots. Why do corporate pilots think they do something special? Flying is flying.

My guess is most pilots end up at their current jobs more by chance than by design. I'm sure a good percentage of airline pilots and corporate pilots didn't set out to specifically pick a corporate or airline career path. It just happens. Whatever your first job is after instructing probably has more influence on your career path than anything else. Let's face it, most of us took the first turbine job we could live with and the rest is history. For some it was a King Air. For others it was a Saab. After that we progressed based on the experience we had on our resumes. Obviously some started out knowing which career path they wanted to pursue. I doubt they are the majority.

I'm an airline guy, but I've flown a little bit of corporate (very,very little). Based on my experience just about everybody I've flown with would do well in either world. The most unsafe pilot I ever knew was a corporate pilot. OTOH, the biggest jerk I ever met flying was an airline pilot.

Once you get some experience there's nothing particularly difficult about flying an Airbus or a Falcon. I've done both and I liked both. The unique part of corporate is the fact you are a one or two man self-contained pilot/dispatcher/logistician/gate agent/travel agent. That is a different skillset than suit up/show up fly the trip. Don't discount the challenges of the airline world though. Compared to part 91 you have a much bigger spotlight on your day to day activities and somebody else's screw up will take you down with them and, frankly, being responsible for 150+ lives and $65 million dollars worth of airplane is more stressful than 5 lives and a corporate jet. Day to day that isn't a big deal, but when the wx is crap and you're getting your ass kicked it matters. Dead is dead, but the stakes are higher. Just to be clear I'm not saying either job is harder or better. There are some subtle and not so subtle differences, but the overwhelming number of pilots I know could do either one equally as well.

If there's anything I can do to help any pro pilot I know find work I'll be glad to do it. I'd like to think most of you corporate guys would do the same thing for another fellow professional regardless of their background.
 
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why the "hostility" you ask, maybe because most corporate guys work a long time to get a good corporate job. Just because you get laid off from the airlines doesn't' mean you go to the front of the line for corporate jobs. Next time the airlines hire I want to get picked first for a job, even though I am a corporate pilot. :)
 
Someone asks for some guidance and all you guys do is take shots at him for being a former airline guy. Why the hostility?

I didn't see much hostility towards him for being an airline guy...but I see plenty for him asking how to break into corporate with a hint of entitlement ("something for nothing" comment), then claiming to be a part 91 Chief Pilot. If he was a Part 91 chief pilot, he wouldn't need to ask how to break into the industry, now would he?

I got hired into my current 91 job with no type, no time in type, and as a regional airline first officer. As everyone has said, network network network.

frankly, being responsible for 150+ lives and $65 million dollars worth of airplane is more stressful than 5 lives and a corporate jet.

I disagree.

In the airline world, you don't have your boss in your ear as you're cleaning up from a missed approach asking "Why aren't we landing? I've got a meeting in 20 minutes. What's the plan?"

Besides, in the airline world you might be responsible for 150+ lives and a $65M jet but in bizav those 5 passengers could be responsible for a multi-billion dollar multinational corporation employing tens of thousands of people.

How's that for stress?

In the end though, both bizav and airline flying contain similar missions (fly safely point A to point B), but most everything else is different, requiring a different level of skillsets, a different tolerance for a different type of BS, and most importantly, a different mindset. You're right though, most pilots could go from one segment to another with minimal issues.

So let's not make this thread what its not - an airline vs. bizav issue.
 
He asked how to get started, not how to be the CP for a Fortune 100 company. Most good airline jobs aren't easy to come by either. They also require lots of time and effort to get there. I don't see any sense of entitlement in his post.

Using your logic, it would be absurd for a highly experienced corporate pilot to expect a reasonable shot at getting hired at a major airline because they have no airline experience. Yet we all know that most majors hire corporate pilots. No one expects experienced corporate pilots to start out at the bottom of the airline world. Why can't it be the other way around? Why should an experienced airline pilot have to start out at the very bottom in the corporate world?

Good flying jobs are hard to get. Most experienced corporate pilots would make great major airline pilots and most experienced airline pilots would make great corporate pilots.
 
He asked how to get started, not how to be the CP for a Fortune 100 company.

Someone who claims to be a part 91 chief pilot should know the answer to that question...that's my whole point!

I don't see any sense of entitlement in his post.

Then how would you quantify this statement?

All I see are jobs that require that stuff. This is probably a dead horse but WTF, everyone wants something for nothing.

That statement, especially in this economy with THOUSANDS of highly experienced corporate pilots out of work, sure seems like a bit of an entitlement attitude to me...

Why should an experienced airline pilot have to start out at the very bottom in the corporate world?

They don't...but they also shouldn't have an expectation that just because they are an experienced airline pilot that they should be able to waltz right into a part 91 department as a PIC, not knowing the airplane or the operation. Its that sense of entitlement thing again...

Also, think about the flip side of the coin: why should an experienced corporate pilot have to start out at the very bottom in the airline world?

Most experienced corporate pilots would make great major airline pilots and most experienced airline pilots would make great corporate pilots.

On that, I agree 100%.
 

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