Since you compared your flying to Alaska, I thought I would share what a couple of pilots who flew over 2000 hours in various aircraft in Alaska had to share with us when they came to our airline.
They pretty much said that there is kind of a 1000 hour mark up there in that kind of flying that is kind of a survival point. Meaning that if you make it past a 1000 hours up there, you have a much greater chance of surviving the rest of your flying up there. They counted off a dozen or more instances of people they flew with who killed themselves in airplane accidents in Alaska, mostly because they did not have the experience to handle the situation. All I am saying is be careful. Your next 700 hours of flying should be done with extra caution and a voice constantly in the back of your head asking are you doing everything right at the moment. Never get complacent.
Additionally, I applaud your experience thus far. What you are doing is the most challenging flying there is, asside from maybe landing an F-14 on a pitching carrier deck at night or flying one in combat.
Now people, please don't flame me on this and look for the point before firing back... Kit Darby and his AirInc seminars/manuals/jobfairs are given reviews good and bad. But one of the things that I heard that I have since witnessed to be true is that you do NOT want to standout away from the norm. Airlines are conservative in their view and will be more likely to choose a pilot who on paper and in interview looks very similar to the hundreds or thousands of pilots currently working there that are perfoming their mission succesfully. As a consequence, you will have a BETTER chance of having MORE offers from various airlines to which you apply IF you match a model close to what they are looking for. It is such a fickle process that sometimes it boiles down to who's resume format they like better. Consider that since your Airline career will likely be DOWN HERE, you will probably want to look like most extra applicants on paper that apply from down here, and use your bush flying as that extra bonus. That way a potential employer looks at both people who are CFIs (and it is likely that the interviewer may have gone that route too) and says one of the former CFIs is an experienced bush pilot. Bingo!
I have personnaly known several pilots who were hired with airlines with considerably less time, with the stipulation that they start in the training department because of a shortage of instructors. But guess what... they were former CFIs.
Don't take all this the wrong way. I am by no means putting down the type of flying you are doing. I just wanted you to know what I have seen from inside the industry thus far. One of the former Alaska pilots I mentioned didn't have a CFI and he got hired just fine. The whole game is a giant crap shoot. I am just telling you how to load the dice a little in your favor.
