< 500 hour pilot jobs

brian.sloan

brian.sloan

Well-Known Member
Please dont tell me CFI... Thats an obvious route. Is there anything else out there? Are all these aerial survey companies 500 hour mins, and is there any way to bypass this? I am currently a commercial single/mutli pilot with instrument ratings and 230 tt and 103 multi. I do not have any tailwheel time either. Any information will be useful!

Thanks,
Brian
 
There has been quite a few people getting hired by Pinnacle with less than 300 TT but only if your training was 141.
 
Most tow companies and aerial mapping companies require 500 per their insurance.
I'm not sure how you'll get 270hrs, but when you do, I suggest mapping or towing (banners/gliders).
 
When I had as many hours as you, I worked for an aerial photo company. We would go up to about 8000 feet, fly up and down grid lines, and cover whole states with a camera stuck out the bottom of the plane. Take a picture like every 2 miles or whatever. The states paid for it because they need to keep track of the crops being grown or whatever.

The place I used to work for isn't around anymore, but I'm sure there are similar operators still out there.
 
Thanks for the input so far. I am considering trying to get a job as a skydive pilot until I achieve that 500 hour mark. Does anyone know of any positions that are open?
 
brian.sloan said:
Please dont tell me CFI... Thats an obvious route. Is there anything else out there? Are all these aerial survey companies 500 hour mins, and is there any way to bypass this? I am currently a commercial single/mutli pilot with instrument ratings and 230 tt and 103 multi. I do not have any tailwheel time either. Any information will be useful!

Thanks,
Brian
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Welp, uhhh. Good luck!
 
Jet said:
There has been quite a few people getting hired by Pinnacle with less than 300 TT but only if your training was 141.
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And were furloughed when they got displaced to Colgan. That bridge program will not work anymore as long as 9L holds it own cert. New 9E hires head to 9L.
 
I did a lot of traffic watch in dallas... Cinci might have trafficwatch but i highly doubt dayton will
 
brian.sloan said:
Please dont tell me CFI... Thats an obvious route. Is there anything else out there? Are all these aerial survey companies 500 hour mins, and is there any way to bypass this? I am currently a commercial single/mutli pilot with instrument ratings and 230 tt and 103 multi. I do not have any tailwheel time either. Any information will be useful!

Thanks,
Brian
Click to expand...

Towing maybe, but most low time gigs I know of are going to want you to have a CFI anyway, even if you aren't instructing.
 
Most skydive companies require 500tt per insurance
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I found that to be true also. The ones that don't require 500TT just don't have insurance. So they'll hire you, but if anything goes wrong, they make you pay for it.
 
drunkenbeagle said:
Towing maybe, but most low time gigs I know of are going to want you to have a CFI anyway, even if you aren't instructing.
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Our tow insurance requires 500tt so towing seems to be out the question as well. Plus he would need the required tailwheel experience which he lacks as well.
 
I'm not going to tell you to be a CFI, but I'll tell you my story. When I was in your shoes, I had no desire at all to be a CFI. I ended up doing it anyway, at a busy flight school in the Chicago area, for one year. I got about 100 hours a month during my 12 months there, and then I had the hours to get a 135 job flying piston twins, which led to the next job flying jets a year after that. If I hadn't been a CFI it would have taken WAYYYYY longer to get where I am now. And, I ended up liking it which I did not think was going to happen.

There are hundreds of places you could be a CFI, and I think maybe not as many of these other places (photo flying, skydivers, traffic watch) so getting a job will be easier. And if you instruct at a busy place, like I did, you'll rack up more hours faster than you would with some of these other jobs. That's going to get you closer to your "dream job" the quickest, whatever that may be.

I just wanted to give you a different view, because I didn't want to instruct either. But it worked out for me.
 
Well thanks to the people that actually had some helpful input. The reason I am looking for something else besides CFI is because I have failed my CFI ride twice now and I really don't want to take the chance of having 3 fails on my record. I failed the oral at the very end during my explanation on aerodynamics. I came back to see him the second time and he said congrats you passed the oral awesome job, but we cant fly because someone let the plane roll back into another plane and damaged the tail section. 2 weeks later I go back and pre-flight the plane and am ready to go. We were filling out the paper work and he said he would like me to do a w/b. No big deal I thought. Well I did the weight and balance with the charts in the Cessna POH and he said that was fine, but what was the formula to do it without the charts. Well unfortunately I was never taught this method and if I was I dont recall it, so he failed me again. He said that fails cannot be accessed by airlines and it was up to me to inform them of my fails, but from what I read online that looks to be false. Either way I am not sure and just want to find another way to get to 500 hours if its possible. Thanks again for the help.
 
brian.sloan said:
Well thanks to the people that actually had some helpful input. The reason I am looking for something else besides CFI is because I have failed my CFI ride twice now and I really don't want to take the chance of having 3 fails on my record. I failed the oral at the very end during my explanation on aerodynamics. I came back to see him the second time and he said congrats you passed the oral awesome job, but we cant fly because someone let the plane roll back into another plane and damaged the tail section. 2 weeks later I go back and pre-flight the plane and am ready to go. We were filling out the paper work and he said he would like me to do a w/b. No big deal I thought. Well I did the weight and balance with the charts in the Cessna POH and he said that was fine, but what was the formula to do it without the charts. Well unfortunately I was never taught this method and if I was I dont recall it, so he failed me again. He said that fails cannot be accessed by airlines and it was up to me to inform them of my fails, but from what I read online that looks to be false. Either way I am not sure and just want to find another way to get to 500 hours if its possible. Thanks again for the help.
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I failed my CFI checkride twice, and I've had zero issues thus far with my career. If I was HR I'd be less apt to hire you if you gave up/quit on the CFI rather then fail 5 more times. Suck it up, finish it up, you've gotten this far. O btw, my buddy just got hired at a regional and he has failed three checkrides.
 
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