None of them are worth a $h!t. Hours count. You will have all the ratings you need until it's time to get your ATP. No ground instructing, centerline thrust, tailwheel whatever will do more good than instructing and building up enough time to do 135 or get a regional job. JMO. Anyone else?TC
Untrue. No amount of training is wasted.
I've been hired for a number of jobs, and hold several jobs right now, because I have a wide variety of exposure to different types of flying, and experience. Many opportuities I've had would never have opened to me if I didn't have that experience.
Further, I'm alive today because having that experience made it possible. Time after time I have been able to look back on events that I've experienced and draw on them when necessary, sometimes under challenging and unusual circumstances.
Never listen to someone who tells you to obtain the minimum, or meet minimum performance standards. That is not a professional attitude. Achieve everything you can. Be everything you can. I never discuss practical test standards with a student or applicant or trainee or interviewee, because I expect a higher level of performance, and train to a higher level of performance. I don't work with or fly with those who train to or profess minimum standards. Set higher standards.
Do you need additional ratings? Not to meet minimum hiring and performance standards. No. You don't. But is there any reason you should not seek that training and experience? None. Seeking out and obtaining the training and experience is commendable, and will serve to make you a better pilot, and a more valueable asset.
Just as a college degree is a discriminator in selecting a candidate for a job in many cases, so is the level of certification you hold in your wallet. Hours are worthless. Ratings are worthless. Just paper. But they do impress folks. I've got a passel of FAA certificates. Employers get a kick out of seeing them laid out on the table. Do they count for anything? No, not really. Nothing more than the ink that dirtied up the paper they're printed on. But I've gained an edge in a variety of jobs because of those ratings. I have ratings in aircraft that will never fly again; they aren't out there to fly. But I also have the experience that came from them, and whatever some may choose to believe, that experience does count for something. It makes me a better me, gives me a broader range of experience, and has given me an edge in interviews.
Look at it this way. I've listed a few of the aircraft I've flown on resumes and applications. Inevitably that starts a conversation in the interview, and that alone as an ice breaker gives me an in. Does the airplane itself make me more valueable to the employer? No. But in the employers mind, it gives him something unique to remember me for; he may even see it as a plus, as an edge...hey,this guy has had some solid experience...
Maybe not. At any rate the training you get isn't wasted.
You'll learn about mistakes that have crept into your early training when you receive instruction on conventional gear (tailwheel) aircraft. You'll learn about energy management, weather, lift, and proper flying of the wing (rather than the engine) when you obtain your glider rating. You'll learn about fine wind currents and planning when you obtain your balloon rating. You'll learn a lot about coordination and a thousand other things when you obtain your rotorcraft rating...helicopters are expensive. Start with a gyroplane rating.
Do you need these things? NO. You don't. If you're going to go for a government flying job, a dual rating is a very strong, very big plus. But not for an airline job. But I gaurantee that if you pay one iota of attention in training, you can't hardly help becoming a better pilot for it.
I learned more about aerodynamics by flying my own body in freefall than I ever absorbed from various texts on the subject, or in any of my flight training. I had come to undertand the books, but to feel it, to make your body into an airfoil and become the wing, become the lifting body, become the test object in a giant wind tunnel...that has made an unbelievable difference in the way I feel and fly the airplane. It's made a difference in the way I plan ahead, the way I see things spatially and dimensionally in flight.
Learning to land off field, fly under power lines, fly close to objects...these gave me an appreciation for thinking "outside the box" (I hate that yuppie expression) aeronautically.
Working on airplanes isn't everybody's cup of tea; I started doing it as a means to flying. Now I own 12 tool boxes that are shadowed and full of tools, and all of them have been well used. I've made my living getting dirty at times when the flying wasn't there, but that experience has also enabled me to understand aircraft systems, and to deal with airplanes in an emergency in ways that I don't believe I would have, or could have, without that experience. Is it necessary? No, but I'm alive because I have had that experience, and to me it's invalueable. You'll have to determine if pursuing that experience is valueable enough to you to make the effort. It's an individual determination.
I've been put through the ringer with the FAA a time or two. Those very unpleasant experiences gave me the impetus to follow the advice of an associate who once wisely told me that the only way to beat the red tape crowd at their own game is to be better at it than they are. I don't recommend getting jammed up with the FAA. But the experience put me in a position today where I'm a lot more comfortable dealing with FAA intracies, I am a lot more serious about understanding and adhering to the regulation, and I have a much better feel for my place in the system. I don't think that would have happened without that experience, for me.
My point is that experience is not wasted. Is it an absolute essential? No, you can get to an airline seat, what I would call an entry level position, without any of these things. But who in their right mind advocates a minimum achievement level? A minimum level of performance? You can achieve the same seat with all the experience outlined, and at the same time you make yourself a whole lot marketable along the way.
This year, most of the large air tanker contracts were inexplicably (and illegally) cancelled by the USFS. A lot of very experienced and knowledgable hands, indeed the backbone of the aerial firefighting industry, were out of work overnight.
Many were quite upset that they didn't immediately obtain or could not obtain a seat in the single engine air tanker (SEAT) program, because they lacked the agricultural and conventional gear experience. A lot of bitterness arose. I believe their fire experience would have made them very valueable assets in those SEAT cockpits...but the majority of pilots trying to make that transition in times past have balled up the airplanes. A few did it. I was very fortunate to already have a seat in a SEAT...and I incurred a lot of wrath from the large air tanker crowd, where I once flew, out of jelousy on their part.
Here is an example of a time when having a wider experience base, of having that conventiona gear experience (and some ag experience) would have been the perfect safety net for their position. Essentially furloughed, they couldn't get work in their own industry because many lacked the essential experience to get insured in the SEAT aircraft. I knew one such large air tanker pilot that approached my own employer about a SEAT slot, and a week later balled up a conventional gear airplane...he had eight hundred hours of tailwheel time, but not in comparable equipment, and he wasn't ready for the transition. No slight on him...but it supports the point that the experience you gain today is NOT wasted tomorrow. No matter what segment of the industry in which you operate.
Take every opportunity to train. That training can only serve to help you. Good luck!
...I'm assuming that I should use the money that I'll save not getting a seaplane rating and buy some ramen or twin time?
