Low Hours/HighTime

[CX880]

Since you're the perfect age for that program, I would try Mesa Pilot Development. It's 10-15k if you don't have the multi and it takes 2 or 3 months. MPD is justified in your case. If you say no to MESA, what I would do is go to a multi-engine time building session at ATP or Ariben, immediately. You are very close to the minimums for a few regionals such as expressjet or pinnacle, just focus on getting your multi engine time rather than instructing. If you already have multi engine time then, I'd just stick to what you're doing, regionals hire now below 1000 hours so it's not going to take as long as you think.

 

[WMUSIGPI]

Honest answer. Fly for fun. Work in the mouse maze and provide properly for your family. Take the extra you will make there and rent a plane for fun. At that age just getting started you will waste your savings to reap nothing but an ulcer.

 

[Way2Broke]

I have set this to be my goal and I will do it. I am going to be a professional (not flight instructor) pilot

I have to say that I took great offense to this statement. While CFIs are underpaid they are the core of this industry. If you can not be a "professional" CFI then how can you be a professional pilot? I, like you, started to wonder "will it ever happen" around your flight time. Looking back on it I was at the stage where it felt a little like a job for the first time. Unfortunately, this is very difficult to slow down I have found. Every day a pilot gos to work, especially with low time, it feels more and more like a job. It feels more and more like a job because it is a job (If that is what you have chosen to make it of course). What keeps me at it is the fact that it is a job doing something I love. If I could eliminate all the politics involved in aviation it would be fun 24/7, but that will never happen because it is a big money business. Good luck to you and I wish you the best of luck building your time. This business takes more patience than any one person really has. Now that I am done with my rant I only ask that you please take the time to do one thing, go to your FOI book and look up "professional." Hopefully you will learn that in your current position you are more of a professional than 99.9% of "real pilots" out there as a CFI.

 

[Geoff Huppe]

What I meant by Professional, other than CFI, was that I would like to work as a pilot in another position that CFI. I have been a teacher for 20 years. I do know that a CFI is a professional pilot. Please do not take offense. At my age I just feel as if the process, and it is a process, is taking forever and my patience is wearing thin. Ask my students if they think I am a professional. I lost one the other day because I wouldn't let him wear flip flops! Was I over the top?

 

[Goose Egg]

Any chance of your family joining you in Florida for the next 6 mo.? Although, there seem to be some airlines that are hiring at lower times than 1000 hours. I'm just a shade under 900 hours, and I've already had a couple interviews (the companies just weren't the right "setup" for me, but that's beside the point), so it might not be the 6 mo. grind that you are anticipating. Instruct a another month or two, send out some resumes and see what happens.

Good luck to you!
-Goose

 

[Goose Egg]

What I meant by Professional, other than CFI, was that I would like to work as a pilot in another position that CFI. I have been a teacher for 20 years. I do know that a CFI is a professional pilot. Please do not take offense. At my age I just feel as if the process, and it is a process, is taking forever and my patience is wearing thin. Ask my students if they think I am a professional. I lost one the other day because I wouldn't let him wear flip flops! Was I over the top?

Oh, and it is a process. It's been five years of tribulation to get to this point--and I turn 30 next week. I sometimes feel a bit 'behind the curve,' but when I look back and see all that I have accomplished, it is worth it. I truly enjoy instructing though.

-Goose

 

[avbug]

I need help again. I have 450 hours, 100 dual given. Been away from home for so long I've forgotten what my kids look like. I need to know how to get going faster towards getting hired. I know of ARI-BEN aviators and ATP should I go to thier fast paced schools? I am 48 years old a cfi and soon will have cfii. Time is now critical, I need a job!

No experience and just getting started, and you're critical and need a job? Did you want tenure in your first teaching assignment...or did you have to put in your dues, learn to walk before you could run, and build your career like everyone else?

You have no experience, you are at the entry level, and now you're critical...now you must have employment outside instructing?

Instruct for a year or more. Then find something different, if you like. Fly freight for a year or two in a Cessna 210 and move to a light twin. Do that for a year. Then find something else.

At four hundred fifty hours, you're just nearly to the point where you are qualified to open the aircraft door. And you want a jump start into your career...get some experience, then get a job. To everything there is a season. Your season presently is flight instruction; enjoy it.

 

[Goose Egg]

At four hundred fifty hours, you're just nearly to the point where you are qualified to open the aircraft door. And you want a jump start into your career...get some experience, then get a job. To everything there is a season. Your season presently is flight instruction; enjoy it.

Oh, and it goes quick. I have as many hours of dual given as you do total (Geoff, not avbug), yet it doesn't seem quite possible.

-Goose

 

[Way2Broke]

What I meant by Professional, other than CFI, was that I would like to work as a pilot in another position that CFI. I have been a teacher for 20 years. I do know that a CFI is a professional pilot. Please do not take offense. At my age I just feel as if the process, and it is a process, is taking forever and my patience is wearing thin. Ask my students if they think I am a professional. I lost one the other day because I wouldn't let him wear flip flops! Was I over the top?

Thank you. I may have misunderstood.

Are you dead set on only flying for the airlines?

The flops...... Open toed shoes have no business on a ramp. While I may have let it go, if you approached it as a "safety concern" you were not over the top.

 

[Geoff Huppe]

Avbug...do you have a family? The Airlines are the way I would like to proceed. That is my goal. I am not sure why you are so inflamed with my choice. It is obvious I need more time. That is what training is for...correct? Perhaps they'll show me how to open the door.