Originally Posted by
X670
In my opinion the GA pathway in Australia is not worth it, there's limited opportunities and progression is far too slow. Do you really want to spend upwards of $80k to fly clapped out 210's and maybe a piston twin or caravan if you are lucky, or at worst not find employment at all (there's a lot of CPL holders who never find work)? If you make it through 5 years of that, you then have to compete with cadets for regional jobs...
If you can justify a few years in the USA, I'd suggest doing your training there with one of the schools that feed the regional airlines. They pretty much offer the full pathway from zero to RHS of a jet, including placements for the hours to meet their ATPL requirements. The other advantage with the US is their GA industry is huge and they don't have this approach to aviation where anything bigger than a Seminole is treated as if it were the space shuttle in terms of complexity. If you did want to go down the GA charter path over there, there are lots more opportunities to fly king airs or small business jets at 500-1000hrs which is simply not going to happen in Aus. This is all much easier now that Australians can access the E3 visa.
You can always do a few years over there, build up your hours quickly and return to a job here.
When I finish school next year I’m going to begin my flight training.
This is an extremely viable option but I don’t think that US flight schools will sponsor a visa as an Australian. I’m Interested to hear what other people think about it though.