Pinnacle???

Gotta go with Zmiller, too. Why pay for something you're gonna get for free? Take the money, build experience and open up your options more. Sure, I coulda done MAPD and gotten on with Mesa, but that would have pretty much hitched me to them. Same thing with JetU and Pinnacle. I chose instead to spend my money getting my CFIs and taking that route. If I had it do over again, I wouldn't change it.

Yeah, we're hurting. We're hurting BADLY. I'm in the top 1/3rd of the FOs in MEM, and I'm starting to get called on every day off by crew scheduling for JMs. I had to burn my extension refusal for June during my first trip of the month! Granted, since I'm already scheduled for 98 hours, they can't do a whole lot to me. Upgrade in DTW was awarded on this latest bid to guys that aren't even out of training yet for FOs, and even then there were slots that went unfilled.

Ken, we seriously need to hang out. I've probably passed you in the airport ten times and not even known it. :)
 
Bog said:
I would never advocate going to Mesa over anything, including jail. Hey ... at least in jail, they provide you with clean housing, 3 meals, a uniform, mental help, a gym, guaranteed play time, reading material, etc, etc. Mesa won't even give you that.
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Clean housing.....apparently you havent spent a night in jail..
 
Kell- i imagine we have walked by each other on more than one occasion. You obviously know who I am as far as names but let me know the next time you are working- i have a bunch of 4 days with "airport appreciation" sits this month.
 
higney85 said:
Kell- i imagine we have walked by each other on more than one occasion. You obviously know who I am as far as names but let me know the next time you are working- i have a bunch of 4 days with "airport appreciation" sits this month.
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You already have a line?
 
Well, since today was my first day of training at Pinnacle i figured I'd chime in. There were 3 or 4 people out of 9 who went to Jet U and got hired with relatively low time. 500 or less. They all justified their expense by saying it's the way they train you that makes the difference. I would completely disagree that an accelarated jet training course makes one a better pilot in lue of flight time. I have no doubt that they will have an easier time in ground since they already know the systems, call outs, flows, profiles, etc. But that doesn't make you a good pilot.

So where is you money best spent? Well that's up to you. I think 40 hours multi time will go a long way. ESPECIALLY right now with airlines so hard up for pilots. I personally loved the time I spent going to random airports building time. You'll never do anything like that again in your career, most likely. But if an airline job is all that will make you happy then go for the jet training.

I got 1200 hours mostly from corporate flying and x country flying in twins. I wouldn't trade that experience for any type rating. I could have gone to the airlines much sooner, but have no regrets waiting a little longer. My final 2 cents is to smell the roses at whatever point you are in your career. Good luck!
 
Wait till one of those guys has to go into Pellston, MI......they won't know what to do without a tower.
 
JET U is a joke. right now they are using UND's CRJ 200 sim from midnight to 6 am for there jet training. Well i can say the equipment is good but as far as there instructors go well that a debatable question. The CRJ instructors at UND are all retired or active pilots from the airlines such as NWA, AAL, and UAL. Some of them flew the CRJ-200 in line ops so always a big plus if they especially flew them for 9E. The biggest thing is these instructors give out good pointers about how flying the line goes. JET U doesnt get any good instructors and well its just a joke. my two cents?

-Farva
 
Farva said:
JET U is a joke. right now they are using UND's CRJ 200 sim from midnight to 6 am for there jet training. Well i can say the equipment is good but as far as there instructors go well that a debatable question. The CRJ instructors at UND are all retired or active pilots from the airlines such as NWA, AAL, and UAL. Some of them flew the CRJ-200 in line ops so always a big plus if they especially flew them for 9E. The biggest thing is these instructors give out good pointers about how flying the line goes. JET U doesnt get any good instructors and well its just a joke. my two cents?

-Farva
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Have you ever personally visited JetU? Have you ever stepped one foot on there campus ?
 
higney85

I read your first long post and am going to go read the second one, but I thought I'd let you know:

Paragraphs are you friend! That was very difficult to keep my place.
 
DE727UPS said:
So JetU calls it a campus? Do they give degrees, too? What a crock...
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It is in the sense the classes/sim is on the first floor and dorms are on the second floor. No degrees given. It's a Pinnacle-specific pilot mill, with an approx. 14 week CRJ course. Also, Jet U has a flight school which is separate from the CRJ program. The flight school takes you from Private through your Commercial-Single/Multi for a price comparable to ALLATPs.

JET U is a joke. right now they are using UND's CRJ 200 sim from midnight to 6 am for there jet training. Well i can say the equipment is good but as far as there instructors go well that a debatable question. The CRJ instructors at UND are all retired or active pilots from the airlines such as NWA, AAL, and UAL. Some of them flew the CRJ-200 in line ops so always a big plus if they especially flew them for 9E. The biggest thing is these instructors give out good pointers about how flying the line goes. JET U doesnt get any good instructors and well its just a joke. my two cents?
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Jet U has both current and retired airline pilots as instructors. Among current airline pilots, there are 2 current Airtran pilots, 1 current UPS pilot, 1 current Pinnacle pilot, and a few more, along with a bunch of retired airline pilots.
 
My question for those of you that are so set against the CRJ schools is .. where do you suggest one get the necessary training to pass the airline school ??? Seems to me the washout rate being so high is due mainly to not understanding the high end stuff. I understand that building hours will make you a better overall pilot but I have over 500 TT and its all old school stuff. These new systems are wonderful but building more hours is not going to prepare me for airline training ... CRJ or 1900 or whatever. I'm 57 so I'm not bashing old school stuff but I visited Jet U and was very impressed with their overall operation. I agree its a lot of $$ especially when you're getting 0 actual time but how does one prepare themselves for call outs, systems, FMS, glass cockpit, etc. ???? Can you purchase software that will train you ?? Jet U has 2 weeks on a PC where all you do is learn the CRJ cockpit. I'm not promoting any school ... in fact I'm still in left field as to how to proceed. I'm heading down to Ari to "build" my ME time but again, how would I do if an airline questioned me on systems and gave me a sim test ??? With no training, I'm not real confident. I'm very interested in suggestions.
 
A couple of points, both are rather speculative on my part:

1. I don't think that the wash out rate is nearly as high as the jet schools want you to think. Once you are hired the airlines have a financial interest in seeing that you pass. They are not out to bust pilots, and in fact most sim and training personnel will bend over backwards to try to get pilots through the training.

2. I sincerely believe that of the people that do wash out, many more of them do so due to a lack of experience rather than with trouble handling systems classes or high end avionics. Things happen fast in the sim environment, and the best training for it is having done a fair amount of single pilot IFR flying where you have to learn how to effectively multi-task and prioritize. There are times when you can't do everything that should be done *right now*, and the guys that have experience and understand the priorities of IFR flying can adjust better to the sim environment, and can do multiple tasks while keeping the big picture intact.
 
I understand the concern about where to get some glass cockpit training and jet training courses. They are useful but as Steve C said flying experience is the biggest factor. Learning the glass cockpit and autopilot systems are not that trciky. It just invovles some good reading on the systems and some practice in a sim at whatever airline or company you get hired by.If you dont want to wait for that training and go ahead and get some training, you can get that training at major universities such as UND,EMRU,Purdue,OSU, and a few others.If you cannot afford the 141 Flight universities then you can always pay to go to Flight Safety Interantional if you are that worried about getting a experience and knowledge level in glass cockpits. Personally at the flight school were I am at we have glass cockpit aircraft and well the transition is not as bad as most think. I do how ever still prefer steam gauges.

But anyway those schools are actual universities that provide more than just a flight certificate. Jet U is a pilot factory that takes some one from 0 time to commercial pilot in 9 months. That is a short amount of time to get that kind of athuority and will always bring up the question of pilot safety because it does not matter how safe the pilot might think he or she if the expereicne level is very minimal. If the pilot had been flying for a few years and then got the commercial then the pilot would have a better experience level and provide a safer flight than the fresh rookie who got there certifcate without knowing the regs 9 months ago. Also with Jet U getting a guareenteeed job means diddly squat. Taking a guareentee like that is risky and also brings up the question are you paying for yourelf to get a job? Jet U may have some good instructors but you still can not overlook the fact that they are bringing in people who have no time to commercial pilot standard in 9 months and three months later have a guy ready to fly a CRJ-200? That in its self sounds dangerous and well it does not sit well with alot of people.

If you guys are offended by what I am saying then I am sorry. Pinnacle may like ya but the rest of industry may think other wise because alot of people went the traditional way by flight instructing and busting there ba**s to get ther job at a airline. Those people are always gonna give people at places like Jet U a hard time. Plus you gain other experiences when you do fly from places that are outside of Florida and those places offer unique and effective pilot skill and control. For instance like flying in snow storms and LIFR. you generally do not get those condition in FL yet you will be flying in that kind of weather quite often at Pinnacle and flying in that weather requires special consideration and well the FTD no matter how good it is still cant replace the real thing. Also the flight instructing helps you in providing a basis of crew coordination and cockpit management.

They may have a nice "campus" and have some airplanes that are definently cool but the overall deal is that Jet U is not the best thing since sliced bread and when you dig down into it and understand why pilots mostly do not care for this kind of institution then you will understand, I am sorry if I am offending anyone who thinks I am wrong I am just doing things the right way when I earned all of my certs through sweat and blood and by working my ba**s off.

-farva

P.S. Tuckster....UND i know for sure since that is my school and i am not sure with some other but i am sure they do as well have the CRJ-200 VFD Sim in which you have a class on it including systems, flows, flight operations, and a FTD Sim. Just letting ya know. You can get the VFD Sim from a company called AeroSim Inc. for most any aircraft in the transport category fleet and also get a systems manual and Checklist though it may not help you much since each companies checklist and flows are different. Just letting ya know buddy. :)
 
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