Hour Building Pros and Cons

[CPL]

When applying for an airline, do they bother looking at how and where you log your hours.. im thinking doing cross country flights from Uk to spain.. and other countries too build 100 hours, this will obviously be dearer than buying a package and doing it in usa at an airfield, doing local flights..

Do the airline just look for how many hours you have done OR where you flew doing the hours and what aircrafts you have flew in ?

Thanks :confused:

[Bealzebub]

An airline isn't going to be in the least bit interested where you did "hour building" other than those hours that are relevant. Those being, hours in turbine/Jet equipment related to the stipulations they made in their recruitment requirements.

Unless a candidate satisfies the stipulations necessary for consideration for interview selection, their logbooks and other documents are not going to be viewed in any event.

[B2N2]

Don't think about the airlines, think about yourself.
You need to fly these 100 hrs PIC for the CPl correct?
Do as much "CPL" training as you can while you time build.
Fill as many columns in your logbook.
Every flight a cross country with a nav log, plotter E6B.
Use radio nav, track VOR's NDB's use everything including GPS, just do not overly rely on just one of them.
Don't see these hours as a necessary evil that you must do, see it as THE opportunity to train yourself to a higher standard.
What do you mean you would have to do local flights in the US? Utter rubbish.
Cross country everywhere.
Keygrip, one of the moderators here, has on more then one occasion offered to fly with people and critique their flying skills and help them improve.
He lives in the US..........

[CPL]

Thanks guys, its just as my friend was telling me too fly with him to spain and france because it will look good for the airlines but its around £700 too do..

too save money should i buy a package in the us and do flights there or do my hour building at a steadily rate in the uk

[The500man]

I think hour building gives you an excuse to do some fun flying to interesting places that would perhaps be hard to justify if you weren't hour building. I don't think cost should be the limiting factor. Flying to France, Spain etc. will be something you're never likely to forget and you will automatically be gaining experience and learning new things by undertaking such flights.

I think you should try to do new things and challenge yourself. Don't be one of those fools that spends an hour a week in the circuit! Try to fly something with a wobbly prop and retractable gear, something on floats, something aerobatic, and maybe try some gliding. (I think you can include upto 30 hours of gliding in your hour building)

I also think it would be a good idea to save your last 10 hours or so for mentored hour building with guidance from a CPL instructor to make sure you're not going to struggle on the CPL course.

Most importantly have fun with it! You'll never get the opportunity again. :)

[corporate-pilot]

No they do not care where you did your hours.

As has been said though, use the hours to your advantage, do some in flight diversions, maintain discipline in terms of speed, heading and altitude and remember to enjoy it!! This is your opportunity to make your CPL training a bit easier by preparing yourself and upping your game.

If you make any mistakes, be honest with yourself, look at the error chain and learn from it. A popular interview question is "have you ever made a mistake while flying, and what did you do to recover from it?"

I would also urge you to consider spreading any hour building over a few locations, it's all too easy to go to one school in the US or Canada for 6 weeks and fly the same routes etc. The first week is always the hardest and being out of your comfort zone is when you will learn a lot. So if you find yourself becoming a bit lazy and flying the route you did yesterday it might be time to be honest with yourself and mix things up a bit.

[CPL]

Thanks for the advice everyone, great tips..

Taking the advice on board and using the hours to the best advantage as i can, make it fun but yet training myself too a better level.

Got my night rating tonight and then hour building whilst studying my atpl exams.

Thanks again everyone :D