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Help with decisions on career

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heph224

Active member
Joined
Aug 18, 2005
Posts
44
Need some insight on what to do about my aviation career. Here are the options that I have.

1: Continue flying FAR 135 (piston) and advance to turbine.
PROS: Pay
CONS: No turbine currently, on call, fewer days off, Smaller Jets

2. Apply to some regional airline
PROS: ability to join a major within 10 yrs (maybe)
CONS: reserve, poor pay, frustration, furlough, ERJ/CRJ, flying a
90+ seat plane for 50 seat pay. FO for 4+ years

3. Devote 6 to 8 months of full time studying and convert my certificates to JAA as well as a 737-300 Type and by this time next year being an FO on a 737 in Europe.
PROS: good money, job security, turbine PIC within 3yrs on 737 ability to fly heavy equipment.
CONS: Living in Europe, Ability to join a US MAJOR after??????
Paying for more training

I would like to get some kind of advice.
 
Been flying 25 years, over 20 professionally. 2 years until retirement so I am gonna stick it out, if I don't get furloughed again. If I knew when I started whor... er, flying the state of the aviation industry would turn out like it is today, I would have never gotten into it. If my kids wanted to go into aviation today, I would do my best to talk them out of it. The BS you gotta go through now to even get near an aircraft, much less fly it, ain't worth it.

However:

1. Continue 135, start networking and look for TT and larger jet aircraft.

2. That is the way the industry has turned out. No way around it.

3. A lot of foreign carriers won't hire anybody that is not a citizen of the country of registration of the carrier, so choose carefully. 737PIC in 3 years? As long as US airlines have furloughees, they wont be doing much hiring. Startups may hire then, but job security? There ain't no such thing in Aviation.
 
"A lot of foreign carriers won't hire anybody that is not a citizen of the country of registration of the carrier"

I totally understand, France and Germany are great examples of that, Im not too sure about England. I have dual citizenship of a country in the EU so I can work legally in most of Europe and am a citizen of the country where the Airline I wanna join is registered.
 
I think this decision depends on what you personally want to do. Someone else may find any of those options a better way to go for the cited reasons. It seems more a personal choice. They are all viable in one way or another. Go with what makes you happy.
 
Do not move too often you will be tagged as a job jumper, build time until you can make a good move such as a jet or turbo prop. Go someplace that will eventually get you TJ PIC, do not leave that job until you get your 1000 hours of TJ PIC, make that a goal. I would stay away from the regionals for pay and lack of experience building. As a RJ F/O, you program the RJ you do not fly them. Learn to fly before you get too far into automation. Once you have your 1000 hours of TJ, you will have many opportunities available to you. You ask for advice, here it is. This is still a great career. Where else can an HS grad have the opportunity to make 100K per year by the time he is in his mid 30’s?
 
pilotyip said:
This is still a great career. Where else can an HS grad have the opportunity to make 100K per year by the time he is in his mid 30’s?

I wanna hear more. What do I have to do?
 
Here's what I'd do:

Attend one of the ATC job fairs coming up and apply. They'll hire you tentatively provided you graduate controller school.

You get to play the mental game of flying all day, sleep at home every night, get paid boatloads more from day one, and can fly your own plane on your days off.

Seriously...
 
Rogue5 said:
Here's what I'd do:

Attend one of the ATC job fairs coming up and apply. They'll hire you tentatively provided you graduate controller school.

You get to play the mental game of flying all day, sleep at home every night, get paid boatloads more from day one, and can fly your own plane on your days off.

Seriously...

Amen.

GP
 

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