What to do if you don't want to fly for an airline?

A

aaronwexler

Well-Known Member
Ok, so this is a pretty common topic among my co-workers. I am a photo acquisition pilot living in Denver, CO who really does not have much interest in being a airline pilot. I am coming up on my 135mins but the trouble of course is how to get relevant (turbine) time without going into the airlines. The common answer seems to be "you have to get lucky".

To be satisfied in this career I do not need to be captain of a boeing business jet. I would be perfectly happy in a PC-12, a King Air, or a Piaggio. Just as important to me as what I fly is a fair wage and quality of living, not something I see when I look at the regionals. I would love to hear other opinions on this matter as well as from those who have gone this route while bypassing an airline.
 
You are WAY farther along that I am in this process... I'm 41, getting ready to pull the career switch, and have all of 49.5 hours to my name. After about a month or so of research on this forum, the forum's home page (same URL without the forums. part), and wading through the muck over on the APC forums, I've gleaned enough information to know at the very least how to mostly avoid the 121 side of things, even if it does mean that it will take me a little (lot?) longer.

Here are the main highlights that I've learned over the past few months with regards to nailing a 135 job. By no means are these inclusive, but they do make up a bulk of the work necessary to land a corporate gig:

  1. Network
  2. Network
  3. Network
  4. Network
  5. And last, but certainly not least, network.
 
If corporate is your goal, id try to get a freight job first. The natural progression is usually fly to 135 mins>cargo>corporate. Its not entirely out of the question to land a job without ever having to get the clap from a freight plane, but thats just luck of the draw.

Like steve said, network your ass off, and try not to be an ass.

On a side note, one of the "dirty little secrets" that no one will really talk about is that a fair amount of corporate flight departments and to a lesser extent 135 caro ops, wont look at a guy with a majority of 121 time. So in reality, its actually the norm for someone to get in a king air without ever getting in an airline.
 
cmill said:
... wont look at a guy with a majority of 121 time. So in reality, its actually the norm for someone to get in a king air without ever getting in an airline.
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This was one of the biggest things I learned that helped me out in several ways. First, while doing all of this research, I more or less assumed I'd have to join a regional for a while to rack up the number of turbine hours I'd need to be competitive. I worried not only about getting a regional job, especially with the new ATP regs coming down the pike, but also about the really poor QOL. I understand QOL at any time-building job is not going to be anything resembling great, but I hear a lot about regional pilots just plain burning out. Was hoping to avoid that. So was my wife :) This little tidbit of information definitely helped in my research into the plausibility of pulling off this career change.
 
I know a guy who went from Amflight to a highly competitive PC-12 Air Ambulance job. He has decent pay, lives in a low cost area, and good QOL. I agree that 135 cargo would be a good stepping stone.
 
cmill said:
On a side note, one of the "dirty little secrets" that no one will really talk about is that a fair amount of corporate flight departments and to a lesser extent 135 caro ops, wont look at a guy with a majority of 121 time. So in reality, its actually the norm for someone to get in a king air without ever getting in an airline.
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That's really more of an old wives tale than a "dirty little secret". There are PLENTY of corporate flight departments out there stocked with former 121 folks. At my last corporate gig, I was the only one without 121 time. I got into corporate after flying 135 charter.

Though oddly enough, I'm now at a regional and pretty happy. Weird how things work.
 
SteveCostello said:
Damn. There goes all my research.
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Not that it doesn't happen, but it's not the norm from what I've seen. Besides, would you really want to work for somebody that was so close minded that they refused to hire anybody from an entire segment of professional aviation? All kinds of red flags would be going up in my mind, and most likely it would only be the beginning of weirdness.
 
@OP, Dynamic aviation has a department called Airborne Data Acquisition "ADA" which specializes in surveys, mapping, etc which would be right in line with what you're doing now; except that they do it in Kingair 90s. You should check out their website and look for the ADA stuff. I've been with Dynamic for over 4 years now and have worked in almost every department, including ADA so PM me if you've got any questions.
 
Boskru - Good info. Will have to remember this once I am somewhat competitive. I see most of your ops INCONUS are in Bridgewater. Do you have any smaller ops in the midwest?
 
aaronwexler said:
Thanks for the info guys. I wish there were more cargo places in Denver beyond key lime.
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The short version is don't believe everything you read on the Internet from disgruntled former employees and even disgruntled non-employees.

And my apologies for posting here and causing certain folks to spread their mindless jihad to your thread.
 
GypsyPilot said:
Not that it doesn't happen, but it's not the norm from what I've seen. Besides, would you really want to work for somebody that was so close minded that they refused to hire anybody from an entire segment of professional aviation? All kinds of red flags would be going up in my mind, and most likely it would only be the beginning of weirdness.
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From what I've seen you're right as long as it's a crewed airplane. If the operator flies single pilot. Usually their number one thing is seeing single pilot time... and lots. There's a few air ambulance companies fling king airs and such single pilot that could give a crap less about turbine time and more about a very high amount of multi PIC and SPIFR. One thing a lot of 135 places don't care for much is a high SIC to PIC ratio as well.

Oh and the biggest lie in this entire industry is turbines are somehow hard to fly, and you need experience to fly them. That's BS. They are significantly easier to fly than big piston twins. They just cost more.
 
TallFlyer said:
And my apologies for posting here and causing certain folks to spread their mindless jihad to your thread.
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I didn't see any mindless (or mindful...) jihad here. Nor did I see disgruntled (or even gruntled) employees. So far, this thread has gone WAY better than had the same question been asked over on APC (although, the 135 forums on APC are definitely far more pleasing than any of the 121 threads...)
 
SteveCostello said:
I didn't see any mindless (or mindful...) jihad here. Nor did I see disgruntled (or even gruntled) employees. So far, this thread has gone WAY better than had the same question been asked over on APC (although, the 135 forums on APC are definitely far more pleasing than any of the 121 threads...)
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Oh just you wait, certain folks will find me soon enough. I can't hide.
 
I think someone said networking?

yeah do that, go make some business cards off vistaprint (250 for $10) and meet people, be friendly and put yourself out there.

Im in the same boat, I work 135 cargo right now, looking at a part 91 corporate/135 charter job next. and it really is all about who you know and a lot of luck when going this route. So get out there and meet people!
 
SteveCostello, Well; most of Dynamics CONUS work is based is either in Los Angeles, or in Bridgewater, VA. The LA gig is a decent gig but not amazing pay and 98% of the flying is within 50 miles. The survey stuffout of Bridgewater is only based there but flies where ever the customer needs us to go. ADA had stuff all over the US, South America, Canada, Australia, Caribbean, Middle East, North Atlantic. It all just depends on what customers need.
 
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