Originally Posted by
lilAussieBatla
I still may consider the GA ready course as a "last last resort". It's another $5,000 investment and with the amount of money I've already spent, I'm just not sure I can keep throwing money into something (on top of the thousands needed to keep current/recent etc). I'll probably end up doing it because of the sunk-cost fallacy at play.
Do you mind if I ask how much heavy Cessna time you have (by 'heavy' I mean C206, C210 or even C182)?
Given that you are considering one of these courses, suggests that you may not have any. If this is the case, there is your answer right there.
I have spoken to a number of GA Chief/HOO's and their number 1 biggest gripe with low hour CPLs looking for work is that they have never flown a heavy Cessna (or even a C172 in many cases). If you go up there with 10-20 recent-ish hours in at least a C182, you will stand out against all the others who have gone right through to CPL and beyond having flown nothing other than a DA40.
You may think an aeroplane is an aeroplane (which it is), but in many cases I have seen it take over 10 hours to get a DA40 CPL holder comfortable with smoothly handling and flying a tidy circuit in a C182 (and this is time/money that one of these employers doesn't need to spend if the guy next to you has something like "C206: 5 hours / C182: 15 hours / C172: 50 hours" on his or her resume.
So believe it or not, in this day and age with what the sausage factory flying schools are pumping out, C206 / C210 time (or at least C182) is actually a big selling point for a new starter. And bonus points if you actually did a chunk of your training or general flying on the humble old C172.
And please don't spend $5000 if it will only get you 5 hours. You don't need to do a "course", you just need to find somewhere that will do a few hours dual to get you comfortable in it then hire it for a few hours and for your $5K you should have over 10 hours in something relevant.