Ok guys,
I will try to be as objective as possible without defending any point of views here:
I am currently living in Africa.
Some people here on the forum will tell you: go to Africa, do some bush flying and come back in europe with a bit of experience....
Ok, nice idea BUT be careful, bear in mind that africa is full of South African pilots camping on the airports and waiting to have jobs. In Namibia for example, it is being harder and harder to obtain the work permit! Same in Tanzania! A lot of countries here clearly don't want any more foreigners.
It was not the case a couple of years back!
FACT: a friend of mine went for an interview in Kenya recently, to fly a C206; they have asked him for 1000 hours ON TYPE!!!
Here the pilots on the caravan have thousands of hours....
So the market is really bad. Nobody is hiring, so people stay in those bush jobs, and that's why nowadays, they are asking for such stupid requirements!
So the point is: just don't think it's that easy to just go and have a job here. It's not!
In Europe, if you don't have anybody to help you out finding a job like paradropping or stuff like that, again the minimum hours they ask is totally crazy!
So when you get ouf of flight school.... what are the options nowadays???
Well you'd better pray for ryanair to call you because it's one of the only airline in europe hiring people with 200 hours TT and only requiring to speak english an not an other language!
And if you don't get called by them... well you have to think at the other options which may be to pay a Type Rating and a line Training. Again be careful, because the people involved in this business are crooks, so you can't trust them at all.
But once you have 500 hours on type, the war is not over!!!
Because beleive me there is a lot of us with more than 500 hours on type out there. (you will realize once you will have them).
And it's not because there are adds saying "we are recruiting with 500hrs on type" that means that they will call you for an interview.
But after all if you hang on, if you are willing to go in Asia or Africa you could make descent money, enjoy beautiful sceneries, have quite an unstable private life but do the job of your dreams!
Make up your mind!
Happy flying everyone
