Flight Engineer

[CUEBOAT]

Is a flight engineer certificate with a turbo jet type worth anything with zero experience? if one was in this situation could a job be had sitting sideways?

 

[flybrowntails]

im not sure the cert. is the best money spent. if you can get your fe ticket cheap that may be a different story or let the airline train you. you generally only need the fe written.

maybe take the extra cash that is just sitting around on the kitchen table beside the cereal bowl with dried fruity peebles and get a 73 type.


FBT

 

[CUEBOAT]

I personally keep my extra cash in the coco puffs. I'm trying o talk a coworker out of doing this, I think its a waste of money. Unless its very easy to find work with zero time logged.

 

[SMOE]

It's near impossible to find work when you have the FE ticket, 5,840.6 hours of flight time, and the A&P ticket.

...its a dying crew position. The test is easy and doesn't cost much but even your time is worth more than the FE written.

 

[roughneck]

I agree the FE certificate may be a waste of your "own" money. If you can get someone to pay for it you will learn a ton. It is great experience, but it is a dying position. Not many spots left.

A cool perk of having a FE ticket is you qualify for the short course if you want to get a dispatch license. I think it takes 10 days or so. Not sure there are any dispatch positions anywhere either though.

 

[bafanguy]

How does having the FE ticket relate to getting a dispatcher license ? If anything, I'd think having the ATP would be a more direct association than the FE if any shortcuts were allowed.

When I got my dispatcher ticket, I just studied on my own and took the written and oral. I was not asked by the FAA what tickets I already had, or at least, I don't remember that coming up in the scheduling or taking of the oral ( and I took it from an FAA inspector at a FSDO ). But then, maybe the FAA has changed something since 1980....nah, that couldn't be right...

 

[roughneck]

I don't have a dispatcher license so I really don't know, but it seems they are crunching the same numbers on a daily basis as the FE. Maybe that is how they relate.

Some guys I worked with in a former life said they had some of the "short course" guys in class with them while getting their dispatch certs. Thats all I know.

 

[habubuaza]

You have to evaluate your own situation. If getting an FE ticket is an "assured way" of getting into the cockpit of a Transport Category Airplane then "DO IT!!" Believe me that if you are serious about flying professionally as a pilot your company will notice that. Don't sit on your a$$ though if you do get an FE position. Continue doing what you have to do to be upgradable. I along with many pilots have gotten into a jet through the FE seat. I only had about 1500hrs when I became an FE for a year. Then went straight into the right seat of the 727 and never looked back. That is common. I don't know of many pilots who were FE's that had their pilot's licenses and weren't given an opportunity to upgrade. Even friends of mine who were PFE's on the 747 were eventually allowed to upgrade as long as they had their pilot's licenses. Comm, MEL, etc. So don't just automatically shut the door on the FE ticket. Good Luck

 

[CUEBOAT]

PFT into a 747?? darn!! where on earth are they doing this?