One Year Upgrade?

ppragman

FLIPY FLAPS!
In about a 18 months I"ll be looking for someplace with about a 1 year upgrade. Who out there is sitting at about a one year for an upgrade time, so that I can hit 23 and be in the left seat?
 
greyhound_bus.jpg
 
In about a 18 months I"ll be looking for someplace with about a 1 year upgrade. Who out there is sitting at about a one year for an upgrade time, so that I can hit 23 and be in the left seat?

I wouldn't trust what anybody says is happening 18 months from now...
 
I think what he is trying to tell you, that you can sit in the left seat in a bus. One year upgrade I think is hard to come by. Plus eighteen months is a long time in the aviation world.
 

THAT...was fracking hilarious!!

What he's saying is that no one can know what's going to happen 18 months from now. Your goal to be in the left seat when you're 23 is probably non-realistic with the state of the industry right now. Maybe see first off what job options are available when you're ready, go to the interview, get a job offer and then look deeper.
 
No such thing as current upgrade time

In about a 18 months I"ll be looking for someplace with about a 1 year upgrade. Who out there is sitting at about a one year for an upgrade time, so that I can hit 23 and be in the left seat?

When people post things like this I've phrased it before that there is no such thing as current upgrade time.

The people upgrading were hired months or years prior and they are filling the vacancies that you planned on upgrading into within a year.

What you need to do is forget about finding someplace that has people upgrading in a year. Unless they are doing a lot of growing, you missed the boat there. The upgrades will have occurred and you will not be able to get a PIC vacancy.

Instead, find a place that is about to grow. Forget how long the current captains took to upgrade because that is the past and you are thinking about the future. If you find a company that is about to increase in size then you have found one where the upgrade will be shorter.

I am not sure you fully understand the condition of the industry right now or in general if you think that there is an accurate guess for this answer right now, with the exception of a few companies but even they could change drastically in the timeline you've asked about.
 
Re: No such thing as current upgrade time

Or try not to think too much about what aircraft you're flying. You can become PIC of single or multi turbine freight airplanes much faster, although it may be more difficult and dangerous flying.
 
Colgan had a one year upgrade last year, so did Pinnacle and Mesa and Great lakes and Big Sky and Compass and Lynx and..........

Now where are upgrades for these companies? It hasnt even been 18 months. Most of those companies were still upgrading at around a year or so until as recent as April.
 
In the current environment your best shots would be Compass or Mesaba.

IMO the boat on growth has already sailed at both of those places, and both (I think Measba is in on it too) are places that the NWA, and maybe Delta post-merger ?????? furloughs can go, bumping the current guys down.



to the OP, find the joint that will be growing in the near future, and get on at the begining of the hiring wave. The guys that went to Mesaba when the "upgrade time" was 10 years at a company that had just furloughed a crapload of guys made out the best, not the guys that went there 6 months ago when the "upgrade time" was 1 year or less.

As for who will be on the cusp of growth in 18 months? My crystal ball says the only sure bet is the national debt.
 
Re: No such thing as current upgrade time

Or try not to think too much about what aircraft you're flying. You can become PIC of single or multi turbine freight airplanes much faster, although it may be more difficult and dangerous flying.

I know, any freight companies would be appreciated too. I am walking before I'm running, I driving 207s out of anchorage everyday, and going to college in no small part to the advice I got on this board. In 18 mos or so I'll be done with school, and will be ready for bigger and better things, I am looking for options and places to scout that are outside alaska, and which give me that golden 1000TPIC so I can move up in the world. (be advised I did read the post about 1000TPIC)

As for hitting 23 then being in the left seat, its not really a big deal for everyone else, however, for me, by the time i'm 23, I'll have been flying commercially for 4 years, I'll (if I stay at my current job) have over 4000TT, and will have a 4 year degree. I don't want to go from making $45,000 - $55,000 per year like I'm getting now, to $20,000 per year for a couple of years (ok, so it goes up to 30,000 after your probabtionary year), one year at $25,000 less I can tolerate, two to three years, I don't know if I'll be able to afford it (though I don't really have any debt rather than student loans now) I'm just trying to scout things out, I don't think I'm entitled or anything, just trying to get an idea of what places had a historical upgrade time of about one year.
 
just trying to get an idea of what places had a historical upgrade time of about one year.

That is the only part where you are going wrong in that whole post.

Re-read the posts above about fluctuations in upgrade time and revisit the entire concept of vacancies, growth, attrition, and hiring waves.


There is no such thing as current upgrade time.​


You will not know your upgrade time until you actually upgrade. One class could have a six month upgrade and the following class (that occurred one week later) could have a five year upgrade. It literally can be that different from one class to the next.

If it helps think of it this way:

The day you interview at a company you can look around the building for someone who is at the training building to upgrade to captain. If you asked him or her what their upgrade time was, they would answer and they would have just found out when they were awarded captain a few weeks or months prior. Until you are awarded the upgrade itself, you will not know the duration of time to have the chance to upgrade.
 
Why don't you just stay where you are and move into the multi or turbine equipment? The money is good up in Alaska and you are building PIC time. You will not get that in the lower 48.
 
Why don't you just stay where you are and move into the multi or turbine equipment? The money is good up in Alaska and you are building PIC time. You will not get that in the lower 48.

Where I work now doesn't have multi turbine equipment, hell we don't even have multi piston (though we might get a 402 pretty soon, and if that happens I'll probably be here to stay for a while) we're single piston only. PIC is about it right now, and after a year and a half here, I'll be sitting at about 3000-3500TT with a bachelors, and 600TSIC, with 650 or so multi, and enough PIC to skin a cat

I might consider getting a bush job at that time, but only time will tell.
 
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