I think comments like j train's are a little more in jest/friendly ribbing that maybe come across a little harsh online.I'll enter with some possibly controversial opinions. @JordanD said in a post recently that when kids come up to him in the airport and ask him how to become a pilot. He has no answer because everything he could give them is outdated info in the current environment. And like Harrison Ford said in The Force Awakens. "It's true. All of it!"
Hourly rates for an older 172, Warrior, or Cherokee here in the valley range anywhere between $120-155 an hour wet. CFI is going to cost about $75 an hr. Multi for a Seneca I or II cost about $325-370 an hr. plus CFI. and you need a minimum of 25 hrs. It's about $220 an hr. for a G-1000 Cessna/Warrior. Much more expensive than when some of you were on the come up years ago. And likely to go up even further with gas prices, related to the Ukraine crisis.
As someone whose currently in the rat race to build hours to get to 1500. It's hard out there right now, it's a knife fight for hours. Unless you got the scratch to pay for them out of pocket. Or have a rich family. Or you're a favored son/daughter and have connections to someone who can get you on with a 91/135 outfit. Let me tell you that yes this current environment is probably the best hiring environment in awhile. But you still need hours to be able to get over the hump, which is the problem. There a crap tonne of low timers out here also looking to find a job and build hours, for very few low time jobs. But I constantly hear pilots at a legacy, ULCC or flying G-something either in real life, or on the nets. Telling me and others like me in the current situation, that us low timers are complainers, making excuses. Or we aren't working hard enough and aren't doing enough or knocking door down enough doors. Are you even flying, bro? Or that we're lazy and need to work harder to get where we want to be. Because when they were in my same spot they did this, or that and got their job. Well that was then, and in some cases what they did back then to get their first break still works in the current market. But not really. Or I hear what essentially sounds the same as regional pilots getting told at career fairs from legacies. The much frustrating and hated, "keep doing what you're doing." But only at the low time level.
A 121 pilot here in PHX, who was at a flight school I was at a few months ago, when I was getting checked out, gave me some sagely advice. He said that the FAA can get you from 0-250 hrs no problem. But they have no organized plan to help get the current and future crop of pilots from a CSEL/CMEL to ATP. He said that its going to be the hardest thing for me to be able to get my first low time job, near impossible. But that once I do. Everything is typically up from there. Typically. I was surprised to hear that from a WN guy, because again. All I typically hear is 121 guys that're out of touch with the current congested and super competitive system to build hours and it gets super frustrating to always have to low time splain'.
I've said this before. I have about 455 tt. w/ a CMEL. I've put in like 50 or more apps to places. Crickets. I continue to put in more all the time. Competitive mins in the current competitive environment is 800-1000 tt. for a friggin' survey job. One place wants 1500 tt. Yes, mins are advertised at 500 tt. but no guarantee that you're going to get it. Well, how do you get to 750-1000 tt. to be competitive, if you can't get a job to build hours? My roommate at pilot house was 18. He's currently flying Lears. Super happy for him, but his family has money, he's from Dallas. His neighbor flies for AA, his son flies for Envoy. The dad knew someone at pipeline company that pre pandemic got him a job to build hours before the music stopped. To be able to get him 1000 tt. to fly a corporate gig. He hasn't struggled to get to 1500. His case of nepotism/networking isn't everyone's. It's been said over and over hiring is all about luck and timing. Honestly from jump trying to get into this career started, I've just had absolutely nothing but bad luck and timing. Out of training I had a survey job. Interviewed, offered job. Then COVID came and May 2020 the offer was withdrawn. Haven't been able to strike it rich again in two years. And definitely not for lack of trying HARD either.
Lastly before @ASpilot2be lectures me again about my 5 paragraph minimum. CFI'ing. So everyone knows that I live in Phoenix the flight school capital of the states. I'm currently studying for my FOI. Two guys I know went to two different flight schools. They were told in a handshake deal by management/school owners that if they did all their instructor ratings at their schools, they were guaranteed to get a CFI job. Both recently got ghosted by management without explanation and found out someone else in the clique at the school got their promised CFI job. Probably a tale as old as time. So even with a CFI it is not assured you'll have much successes and at least around here lots of the schools locally, maybe for insurance reasons don't seem too keen to hire a new CFI with no dual given. I hear that A LOT. But again... how do you get a lot of dual given, if no one is willing to give you the chance. Lol. Super frustrating. I don't let it get to me. at least I try not to. You just gotta stay positive and keep pushing.
So its not that we low time guys are lazy. Or that we aren't out here trying our hardest/damnest to hustle to get that first time building job. We're all super frustrated and tired of rejection, which is life. Or hearing "keep doing what you're doing." Pay your dues, or any variation. Of etc., etc. etc.
I shall now don my gay apparel of bunker gear/turnout gear and wait for the impending scorch. Lol.
I give my best answer, but probably the most common is how long it took me and I'm honest with them. It took me 11 years to go from intro flight to RJ FO starting out at 14, with parents willing to foot the bill for one or even two lessons a month if I was lucky. Debt free, but I preface it's probably faster if you take out loans or trip and fall into a giant pile of money. But that answer feels like a disservice so I need to come up with something more current/helpful.
I have to ask where that is, because there's a wide variety of survey jobs, I'd find it hard to believe that flying anything like a piston single to do survey is going to require more hours than required for an airline. Something like Quantum Spatial flying Lidar in a Caravan is absolutely going to require more hours, or a survey outfit flying any number of twin turbines.
I don't mean to antagonize you with the exact thing you're venting about, but nothing in there is unique to this environment, and everyone's mileage is still going to vary. I had a CFI job where most people would either not want to fly with me because I was young, new, and my answer to "how many people have you gotten their license?" was "none, yet.", or they'd show up for one lesson and never come back again because they realized it was expensive and you actually had to work and study hard. Then the school's airplanes got sold out from under me. Moved across the country, moved back and took another job, finished that one out and got another survey job, then all the work dried up and all the guys hired with me got ghosted and never sent out on the road not even knowing if we were employed. I get your frustration, it's a long and tough road and you have to have a pretty high degree of flexibility, and the "easy" experiences you see aren't necessarily the norm.
Long winded way of saying I know your pain, because I've been there, but this is not a new phenomenon even in the last few years. The first job really can be and often is the most frustrating phase of your career and you have to accept that if you want to fast track things you're going to need a pretty high degree of flexibility.
