Quidam,
I hope you know that you have to have 300 hours total flight time before you can do the FI course, so you have to get that 115 hours post CPL if you do it at the minimum of 185 to complete.
so that needs to be budgeted for because you will find it next to impossible to get commercial work onshore with 185 hours, your only option would be as co-pilot for one of the 2 north sea operators, whose demand is very cyclical, i.e they hardly recruited at all between 1998-2001, but they are at the moment, but who knows by the time you qualify, so to do a basic CPL is a high risk strategy, to get an FI rating is a lower risk strategy, I agree with whoever said before that the current surplus of instructors will reduce in the medium term.
you may well get positioning flights, but it would take forever to get 115 hours, because every operator trys to make every flight a revenue flight and only gives them away when there is no alternative.
if you want to know more, I can help you as I have got an ATPL(H), and an FI rating with more than 1000 hours instruction.if you want I can email you my phone number and I can tell you most of what you need to need to know.
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elpirata