Single Engine Turbine or Multi Engine Piston??

[Smash312]

I have two potential offers on the table....just very confused as to what would be the better route to take.

Is it more lucrative to have Single Engine Turbine (Caravan) time or is it better to get multi hours (Baron) albeit all piston multi time?

Confused as to the turbine would make me look better in the future or if the multi woul do me more justice.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[imacdog]

I was faced with a similar situation and took the multi piston route. Six months later I had well over 500 hours of multi time and was able to check the box at more places than if I had more single engine time, even if it was turbine. It can be tough landing your first multi job, so take that into consideration if you pass on this opportunity.

 

[Photoflight]

Depends on what you want to do. The turbine experience is good to have but unfortunatly the 'van isn't looked on as incredibly impressive to many large companies as they generally want some sort of highspeed complex multi turbine aka kingair, mu2, saab, metro etc...

Multi-time is and will always be a minimum requirement to get anyjob. The regionals aside most any place will want 500-1000 multi pic.

The caravan is a fun airplane to fly and the turbine time would be good. My best advice would be to look at where you want to be in a year company wise and do everything you can to meet thier min's. If they want multi time go fly piston multis, if they want turbine time go fly the van. If they want both well....I'd still go fly the twin becuase then it would definatly be easier to transition to a multi turbine aircraft.

Needless to say pay, locations, MX, and schedule should all be considered as well.

 

[WhiteCloud]

Get at least 500 hours of piston twin time before moving to a Caravan.

 

[SEVEN]

Multi engine pic is better than single engine turbine.....just my 2 cents.

 

[KeroseneSnorter]

Go with the piston IMO.

After I got furloughed I flew a PC-12 for a while, nice airplane, pay was decent considering the state of the industry right after 9/11.

However as far as being useful for any kind of job application.......most of the boeing/airbus operators do not even have a place to put single engine turbine on the application, and none that I know of count it as "turbine PIC" for requirements..(SWA, FEDEX, UPS etc..) unless it begins with F or T and involves blowing stuff up!!

I do not know how it is looked at by the regionals, by the time I flew the thing time in a book was not my concern, keeping the roof over my head was.

IMO,you as a pilot looking to get time, the Baron job will net you more useful time in a logbook, PIC Multi.

Again the RJ operators might find it more useful than the heavy iron operators do, maybe check with some HR departments if you have a contact of two.

 

[CaravanMan]

I flew a Caravan for over a year before making the move into twin pistons, and, if I had it to do all over again, I would have rather gone thru the multi first. Comparing myself and my career steps to those of my friends, who did the multi thing a year or so before me, I can see how much it set me back. However, now that I got that multi out of the way, I had a lot of turbine PIC and it helped get me the C-90 PIC gig I've got now.