Airline employment with low hours.

[MASI]

After a PPrune search I failed to pick up any info on the following question.

: What Hours did YOU have when you got employed by a major airline?

(what type of hours?)

I have heard rumour of pilots at Virgin Blue getting employed with between 500 and 1000 hours!

any one out there that was so lucky?

Thank-you in advance.

[Skylark3]

Hello MASI,

I start the B767-300 ER course in 2 weeks. I have just over 200hrs now, Ab Initio course.
You can imagine that I am SO extremely happy in these hard times!!
Cheers,

Skylark3:ok:

[rodquiman]

WOW!!!

CONGRATULATIONS.

I am also 200 hrs but no success in anything.

I wonder how you do it!

Enjoy your 767:ok:

Cheers

[OBK!]

Right people, right place, right time :cool:

Skylark3, which airline if i may?

[Coastrider26]

What skylark is not mentioning that he/she comes from the KLM flight academy which is a prefered supplier for KLM and KLM hired 40? people from their academy. Then again the later classes didn't get hired. But you have to have some luck in this industry.

[late developer]

As you suggest, Coastrider, luck is an essential ingredient. Don't you reckon we can make our own luck to a large extent though? No? Oh well, here goes nothing:

I'm 46, with just 240 hours (albeit mostly international A to B stuff at N0120 and lots of instrument training). I recently completed all the JAR ATPL Theory exams in 6 months and am now ready to fly my way to a CPL/IR and frozen jobbie. After 25 years in a normal job there was one saving grace, my credit cards still have bigger limits than most of you wannabes have got so I don't mind buying some well-placed person a well-placed dinner ! Maybe I'd even buy my own type rating if someone could give me a good reason! But don't get me wrong, like most of wannabes, I can ill afford to miss getting a right hand seat out of such heavy expenditure.

I'm looking to choose a school (or an Academy!) that can give me the absolute best chance of becoming a serious contender to the younger crop for one of those seats. The reasoning part my brain works as well as the brains in most 21st century whippersnappers - I know because I pitted it alongside a few in that 6 months Full-time ATPL course and came out remarkably unscathed! My old Physics degree and other studies are still up there and kickin' ass with the best of them!

As for managing the aeroplane, I have never been harboured any ambition to fly like Brian Lecomber. The only serious red eyes I am expecting are quite definitely well outside his box and moreover they'd be after, not during, a steady M0.74 or so in a long straightish line at a comfortable 1g towards a sunrise. So, instead of all that non-essential aerobatic malarkey, I think I am rather aiming to be a sort of cockpit cross between Thunderbirds' Brains, Scott and Virgil, especially Brains and Virgil of course, because between them, they know what's in every one of the pods, don't they! Oh and not to forget the probable Daddy of all the drivers, Parker 'imself m'lady. I'd be implicitly trusted by Uncle John as the best guy to maintain Lady Penelope's smile in the back at all times (even if 'er ladyship claims 'er jet-lag is worse going west!)

If anyone out there has any serious proposals for relieving me and my greying sideburns of a significant sum to achieve my goal before I croak then please feel very free to PM me! Like many of us lower hours wannabes, I am not as green as I am cabbage-looking!:D

[skyman68]

good for you skylark, but I want tell you you dont have the experience to fly a 767 but they will train you. you will be fed-up and bored soon like all my other friends who fly the airbus and who depress now.pilot on the 767 is to be an operator. you follow some procedures and you look at the PFD1 and nav display.very far from the pilot'job.but maybe I hope you will love this plane and the life style.

keep us in touch during your training.good luck!

[Coastrider26]

I can't give any good advice about being an jet pilot since I'm still stuck in a turboprop due to some circumstances (bankruptcies) But there is only one thing that would help you to a job. Write letters till you drop of your chair, call the guys concerned and one day...or a year you'll get your job as a pilot.

The only real washouts are the guys working in offices saying they had no other choice then to work in an office and give up on flying. And believe me after my employer went bankrupt and sitting at home for a year... You'll get pretty close to give up.

At the moment I am working for a U.S. D.o.D. and i love the flying as I never was able to do so before. As I was an FMS/AP/FD junkie.

Besides @ the time of the 9/11 the airliners were looking for pilots. Hope they'll be doing that again in the old way...That's hiring LOTS of US