Will I make it? (1500hr consideration)

Z

ZL340B

Well-Known Member
Hello,

I'm currently 21 (almost 22 and getting older... :oops:) with a 3-year Australian Aviation degree and hope to make a full-time career as a pilot but would like the advice of you experienced aviators. By basic number crunching, I should have 270TT by Sept/Oct if I was to enroll in ATP's program and hopefully, an instructor job can fill the rest but I understand that finding that job in the first place may not be as smooth as planned.

I'm currently about to complete my PPL at a 'mom & pop' as I had prior experience but have always studied enrolling in ATP to complete the other necessary licenses in their advertised fast-paced manner. The main factor behind this was really in hopes of getting myself into a regional as soon as possible and start building some flying time before that 1500 hr rule takes effect next August. I meet the age requirements but I'm more so concerned with whether I will meet the experience requirements to be considered.

What's the plausibility of myself making the deadline in this somewhat limited time frame remaining? Reason I ask is due to the fact that if it isn't plausible, I might as well take my time and consider other options.

Thanks for your help.

(PS I had a hard time deciding whether this was more so an ATP forum topic so please edit as you see fit mods/admins, thanks.)
 
Doesn't sound like it. 270TT in October leaves you 10 months to find a job, get hired, get through training, and build 1,230 hours. You can only fly 100 hours per month, so the math says no way.
 
You're young enough that it doesn't really matter either way. Rushing through your ratings and getting checkride failures is more prejudicial at the regional level than anything right now. Not saying its impossible to not fail any rides going through ATP, many have. I think getting 1500 hours between now and next August is impossible, but who knows. Even very busy instructors at ATP don't get very much more than 80hrs a month.
 
jknight8907 said:
Doesn't sound like it. 270TT in October leaves you 10 months to find a job, get hired, get through training, and build 1,230 hours. You can only fly 100 hours per month, so the math says no way.
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You can fly 240 hours a month as an instructor if you wanted to. (8hrs a day * 30 days)
 
Geez man, take your time. You potentially have 44 more years of professional flying to do, why try and burn yourself out in the first year? Try and enjoy the process and learn something along the way. I'm pretty sure the airlines will always be there.
 
Why the rush? Slow down and enjoy building your time man, I guarantee when you finally do get into the right seat of an RJ, it isn't going to be as glamorous as you thought it would be.
 
jknight8907 said:
First of all, his question was about getting hired at a regional at that point.


Second, come on dude, seriously? o_O
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No, his question was about building enough time in order to get hired by a regional by flight instructing. At least that is how I understood it.
 
SpiraMirabilis said:
No, his question was about building enough time in order to get hired by a regional by flight instructing. At least that is how I understood it.
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Okay, and what CFI job do you know of where people log the max hours every day? What is the average rate a CFI builds time? My guess is it depends on the location, but a maximum of 60-80 hours/month with some good months in there at a busy flight school. If you live where it gets cold in the winter, cut that number in 1/2 (whatever number you came up with).
 
I'd bet you won't make it in time. If you get on with a big flight school such as riddle you could fly about 100 hrs a month. You only have to get up to 1200 hrs if you want to try 135 for a bit. Flight express is desperate for pilots.
 
I will just say to the OP, don't rush...enjoy the ride up and gain good experience. There is no rush to this job, no matter what people say. If you rush, you will be miserable. I can point out a few people on this board who come to mind...
 
Take your time, way I see it is the whole regional sector is in for a rocky ride the next few years anyway. Enjoy life, fly as a CFI to kill the bug and bar-tend to get the money and the honey. Like all said, your young, this is the time to go get all the really fun flying jobs (banner tow, flying skydivers, grand canyon site tours, etc.) Don't get me wrong, flying charter/corporate/airline jets is fun still, but some of my most memorable fun flying was done during the jobs i was doing to build time.
 
Stone Cold said:
Okay, and what CFI job do you know of where people log the max hours every day? What is the average rate a CFI builds time? My guess is it depends on the location, but a maximum of 60-80 hours/month with some good months in there at a busy flight school. If you live where it gets cold in the winter, cut that number in 1/2 (whatever number you came up with).
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Unless you give up sleep, none. But my point was simp: no, there is no 100 hour minimum -- you have in effect no minimum because you'll never reach 8 hours a day every day.
 
The more training I've been doing the more I've been thinking how glad I am I didn't just rush into my ratings and go from nothing to commercial in 90 days, or whatever they're selling nowadays. Quite frankly in my opinion, training all the time largely blows. The main reason I want to finish my current rating is so I can just go up on my own time and have some fun again.
 
JordanD said:
The more training I've been doing the more I've been thinking how glad I am I didn't just rush into my ratings and go from nothing to commercial in 90 days, or whatever they're selling nowadays. Quite frankly in my opinion, training all the time largely blows. The main reason I want to finish my current rating is so I can just go up on my own time and have some fun again.
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Pretty much this. How anyone can enjoy the type of flying involved in these zero to hero flight programs escapes me. Some of the most interesting (and fun) flying I've done occurred before my first flying job.

Heck, most of that flying was way more fun than the flying I'm doing now....
 
I was in the same boat as you man not too long ago. I'm at around 400/110 thinking if I could make it to a regional before the 1500/hr rule kicked in. I applied to every regional I could think of, had friends write LOR, etc etc. I just wanted to get there. Well turns out they all up'd their mins right before I started applying and I was SOL. I actually ended up getting hired at Silver Airways for the B1900. I would have had to commute to Parkersburg, WV, live there or pay for a place because they only do day trips, all for about what I was spending a month on BILLS. So I turned it down!! Never in a million years did I think I would do that. I took a job at home in SoCal as a pt. 135 dispatcher for a jet charter. I make about what Silver captains make, I'm using the GI Bill to finish my degree from ERAU Worldwide which puts an additional $2175 in my bank account every month. I'm working on CFI, but I'm not rushing through it like a lot of my friends did. Rushing through flight training SUCKS, and rushing through CFI will want to make you stab your eyes. One of the best things I learned thus far is to SLOW DOWN and relax. It WILL come... you just have to stop worrying about WHEN. I know I will (and you for that mater) will be in the cockpit someday, the airlines aren't going anywhere. So chill... take it easy and enjoy the ride. If you asked me when I was 18 getting ready to enter the real world if would have done the things I did, I would have said no. I planned on going to school here SoCal, CFI the last two years, then to Skywest after graduation. What did I do? Joined the Navy, got out, went to ERAU in Daytona to finish my ratings, now I'm a flight dispatcher. So it never goes as planned, but that's the beauty of it all.

Enjoy it! :-)
 
As an aside, if you do manage to get hired before the ATP rule takes place something tells me if they havent already they will come out with grandfathering current FOs. This is the one and only time the ATA or RAA will have your back on something, so enjoy it.
 
SpiraMirabilis said:
As an aside, if you do manage to get hired before the ATP rule takes place something tells me if they havent already they will come out with grandfathering current FOs. This is the one and only time the ATA or RAA will have your back on something, so enjoy it.
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Someone summed it up in one sentence. "A part 121 FO hired on or before August 1, 2013 shall not comply with the provisions of HR5900" - I bet someone like this will come to fruitation. Lot's of my buddies at the regionals now are saying there's lots of talk about where the pilots will come from after HR5900 kicks in. Put in a grandfather, drop the mins to 250/multi and hire as many as you can. Is it smart? Who knows. Has it happend before? Yep. Will management do this if allowed? You bet.
 
USN88 said:
Someone summed it up in one sentence. "A part 121 FO hired on or before August 1, 2013 shall not comply with the provisions of HR5900" - I bet someone like this will come to fruitation. Lot's of my buddies at the regionals now are saying there's lots of talk about where the pilots will come from after HR5900 kicks in. Put in a grandfather, drop the mins to 250/multi and hire as many as you can. Is it smart? Who knows. Has it happend before? Yep. Will management do this if allowed? You bet.
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I have heard the quite opposite from a source at Air Wisconsin, in that they are continually raising their mins each hiring cycle so they don't have to worry about grandfathering anyone if it comes down to it. Basically was told as the date closes in, the mins go up and will not hire anyone without ATP mins.
 
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