Building hours

RICHARD5

RICHARD5

Well-Known Member
With respect to a potential employer, which would be viewed as making a more capable candidate; Comm direct to instructor, or one who flew all his hours in aircraft not associated with any flight school?

It is basically a question of 1,000 hours Vs 1 hour 1,000 times but with the addition of not presuming the perspective of the employer.
 
RICHARD5 said:
With respect to a potential employer, which would be viewed as making a more capable candidate; Comm direct to instructor, or one who flew all his hours in aircraft not associated with any flight school?

It is basically a question of 1,000 hours Vs 1 hour 1,000 times but with the addition of not presuming the perspective of the employer.
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Depends on what kind of flying you would be doing in those aircraft not associated with a flight school. In my experience there is NO professional pilot on a hiring board who looks at flight instructing in anything but a positive light. Anyone who has been a CFI knows it is not the same hour 1000 times. Well, I have to add...I have met a few pilots who look down on instructing and think it is a waste of time....they all went to gulfstream and were PFT.
 
USMC-SSGT said:
Depends on what kind of flying you would be doing in those aircraft not associated with a flight school. In my experience there is NO professional pilot on a hiring board who looks at flight instructing in anything but a positive light. Anyone who has been a CFI knows it is not the same hour 1000 times. Well, I have to add...I have met a few pilots who look down on instructing and think it is a waste of time....they all went to gulfstream and were PFT.
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Exactly. If anything line flying is in large part the same hour, done thousands of times over.

Things got much more sporting, much more quickly while flight instructing compared to anything else I've done.
 
I would go the Flight Instructing route. It will teach you so much more. I taught for seven years full time and enjoyed every min of. Multi time is not as easy to come by but you can worry with that later. A friend once told me Total time First and then worry about the other stuff. Also depending where you are going to do the other flying are you going to be PIC or SIC. To Me 1000 hours dual given as PIC is worth a lot more that 1000 of siting SIC.

Keith
 
Just talked to a Gulfstream V pilot from Netjets, He recommended the CFI route as well. He said 30 years ago he was CFIing in a 152 making 8 dollars an hour (an average of one dollar a landing when doing touch and goes). He still thinks that was the most fun he had in his entire career.
 
One thing that has become evident over the years is that just because someone has "made it" does not make their opinion more valid.

For example:
You will find a 747 CA with 30,000 hours that will tell you to just do PFT and get in the right seat ASAP while you may find an A380 CA that says that flight instruction is the best route to the top. Most people will either just recommend what they did or are so far out of the loop that they will just tell you the most recent thing they read out of flying magazine.

There is no magic formula and no one can say for sure. It does seem to be the general consensus that you cant go wrong with flight instruction. It is all what you make of it..if you want to do banner tow for 2000 hours then fly the hell out of the banner or follow that pipeline till your eyes hurt or watch that traffic till you.......you get the idea.
 
USMC-SSGT said:
There is no magic formula and no one can say for sure. It does seem to be the general consensus that you cant go wrong with flight instruction. It is all what you make of it..if you want to do banner tow for 2000 hours then fly the hell out of the banner or follow that pipeline till your eyes hurt or watch that traffic till you.......you get the idea.
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Put another way...fly whatever you can, and fly the hell out of it, right?
 
Everyone thinks their way was the best. I'm no exception. If, God forbid, I'm ever in the position to hire anyone, I'll look most favorably on guys who clawed their way up at a 61 school, instructed at the same (preferably from grass strips or at least uncontrolled fields), then spent a few thousand hours bumping around single pilot in a busted up freighter.

Now, what's interesting is that the fact that one's opinion on the matter is colored by one's own experiences doesn't make it more or less valid. In the end, the question is how many logical guns can you run up to defend your prejudices?

In my mind, obscure arguments about skill-sets, judgment development, etc aside, it's pretty much beyond question that coming up the hard way is more economical, which (again, IMHO), ought to seal the question right there.

But if that's not enough, I am 100% certain that whatever good sense and plane handling ability I accidentally display from time to time is a product of experiences which, if not very similar by any objective standard to what I do now, were in a more holistic way a "school of hard knocks" education on the bumbling art of operating an aviation appliance.
 
RICHARD5 said:
With respect to a potential employer, which would be viewed as making a more capable candidate; Comm direct to instructor, or one who flew all his hours in aircraft not associated with any flight school?

It is basically a question of 1,000 hours Vs 1 hour 1,000 times but with the addition of not presuming the perspective of the employer.
Click to expand...

I've been wondering the same thing. I never did get my CFI because I was lucky enough to get a gig with low hours. I don't know if a lot of employers look only at TT or whether at least some of it was instructing, or if it makes much of a difference to a lot of them.
 
RICHARD5 said:
With respect to a potential employer, which would be viewed as making a more capable candidate; Comm direct to instructor, or one who flew all his hours in aircraft not associated with any flight school?

It is basically a question of 1,000 hours Vs 1 hour 1,000 times but with the addition of not presuming the perspective of the employer.
Click to expand...

Look, the "1 hr 1000 times" in line flying only happens if you let it and get complacent. Yes get in a routine, but do everything like you're going to a new airport every time, and you won't have any trouble.
 
vheissu said:
Spot on!
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Yep. CFIing can be worth a lot, I've known some pilots who were great pilots thanks to their stint as a CFI, I've also met guys who were excellent CFIs, but had never ventured out of the traffic pattern, only flew on good VFR days unless they were filing, and who's flying ability was quite limited. PIC time is what counts in my opinion, be it banner towing, or CFI-ing, that's what makes or breaks the judgment and decision making skills. When its your responsibility for your life and the collective life of others, that's where the rubber meets the road.
 
Boris Badenov said:
Everyone thinks their way was the best. I'm no exception. If, God forbid, I'm ever in the position to hire anyone, I'll look most favorably on guys who clawed their way up at a 61 school, instructed at the same (preferably from grass strips or at least uncontrolled fields), then spent a few thousand hours bumping around single pilot in a busted up freighter.
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...yeah?

Can you do me a favor and shoot me a PM when god allows you to hire people then? :D Haha

I also think that dual given time should be looked at in good light. I have only been instructing for about 5 months (280 hours, at an uncontrolled grass strip...in tailwheels!!! :laff:) and it has already changed me. The discipline, values, and confidence that CFIs put into students, I feel falls back on the instructor again and again.
 
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