Turbo Prop Jobs

[MikeJeff]

Are there many of these going at the moment? what sort of experience are people looking for in f/o turboprop drivers?

ta

[Man Flex]

Usually turbo-prop operators will take people with next to no experience ie a fATPL/IR with 200 hours. The number of turbo-prop operators in the UK is dwindling and I can think of only two/maybe three who fly passengers instead of freight.

On a brighter note there is no better place to start out in this industry. Get some time on a turbo-prop and the jet operators will be clambering over themselves to sign you in a couple of years.

[MikeJeff]

Cheers Man!

To be honest I like the idea of some real flying before climbing into a computer/jet!

[Luke SkyToddler]

Well I dunno if it's as easy as that to get into a turboprop job, my chief pilot has 2 massive great cardboard boxes that he fills up every few weeks with CVs that arrive in the post ... and then he empties them all into the bin and starts again. And he doesn't even keep on file the ones with less than 1000 hours TT or a type rating.

Furthermore I don't know if it's that easy to move on either, there are several experienced turboprop drivers in my company who have been actively trying to get out for some time now, and they have been getting comprehensively ignored by every jet operator in the country for many months :(

Sad but true :uhoh:

Oh yeah and man flex's guess work is a bit misleading, ppjn list no less than 17 UK turboprop operators, of which only 2 are pure freight carriers - and there are several other turboprop operators which spring to mind who aren't even listed on the site, I would conservatively guess 20 to 25 turboprop "airlines" + god knows how many operators of King Airs and Cheyennes and that kind of thing.

[blueb0y79]

Luke SkyToddler

I tried to send you a PM but it came back saying that your inbox is full ?

Anyway i was just going to ask a favour...ive just got my frozen ATPL and would really love to fly a turbo prob as my first job. so heres the question....

could you please tell me those Turbo Prob operators that are not on PPJN ? Also any advice on flying turbo probs and handling their operators would be hugely appreciated

I promise not to send your boss my CV to add to his pile if you reply !!!!

No but seriously any help or advice would be great.

blueb0y79

[Luke SkyToddler]

Well I never knew your inbox could get too full, thanks for that blueboy, I wondered why no b@stard had replied to any of my PM's ever since xmas!!!

Off the top of my head, UK turboprop operators in addition to the ones on PPJN

- Highland Airways
- Isles of Scilly Skybus
- Keenair
- Air Contractors (ok they're Irish but I include them in this post anyway, cos I know at least one UK wannabe who got a job from them)
- Euromanx (isle of man, but once again def worth dropping them a CV)
- Hop, likely to be a new and very big mover and shaker in the UK turboprop job market in the next few months if it all remains on schedule.

How to get a job with them? Well there's only one guaranteed way and strangely enough it's something that's barely even mentioned on wannabe's any more, as though it's a dirty word around here or something ... multi piston time. Don't forget there are something like 70 piston-twin operators listed on that PPJN and a year's worth of flying with any one of them, or some twin instructing or whatever, will make you about 10000000 times more employable to your average pragmatic chief pilot than your bog standard 200 hour FATPL wonder kid.

Good luck, may the force be with you :ok:

[Man Flex]

Luke SkyToddler

I feel that I must justify my earlier comments.

At my previous company it seemed to be almost policy that the right-hand seat positions were filled by flying instructors with several hundred hours on Cessnas etc. I happened to be one of these individuals but also one of the last as the self-improver route became more and more difficult under JAR. Laterally the company were recruiting mainly approved school graduates with the minimal two hundred hours. When I left the company to join the world of heavy jet prior to September 11th 2001 the vast majority of F/Os were guys with less than one thousand hours total time.

The events of that day drastically affected airline recruitment throughout the industry but we are slowly emerging into a new brighter dawn. My previous company reports several guys recently leaving for jobs with jet operators such as easyJet and NetJets. In my experience guys who have a turbo-prop background are highly regarded and much sought after in the jet world.

The comments I made regarding the two or three turbo-prop operators remaining within the UK was purely to highlight the move in recent years towards the regional jets such as the EMB145. The number of turbo-prop operators that exist now are far fewer than before.

The companies that did spring readily to mind were Eastern, Loganair and Aurigny. There are others obviously such as Emerald and Highland Airways but these predominately concentrate on freight operations.

I stand up to be shot down again...

[dorosenco]

bleedfail,

just out of curiosity, why did you wait for so long before applying for a jet job ? You could have applied with 2000TT and 1000 turboprop time ...
I wonder if some of jet operators don't see you as a "too many hours" case. I know ! It's ridiculos but these days the jet operators prefer the 200 hrs guys, :\

[High Wing Drifter]

I don't know the subject well enough (still training - no experience).

However, I reckon the TPs will still carve out a niche. My reason for thinking this is that they are still significantly more efficient than the jets. Therefore, as the short intra-country/French/Irish/Dutch routes multiply from the UK between various regional airports it would seem to me that TPs like the ATR are set to dominate.

Maybe somebody can correct or add more substance to this reasoning.

[Luke SkyToddler]

Correct h-w drifter

And another thing that will ensure they're round for a good long while yet, is that they can get into and out of lots of strips that jets can't go.

There are lots of small regional cities with associated airfields (like my home strip Dundee for argument's sake) that while they have certainly got the population to justify having an airline service, they haven't got a big enough runway for an EMB145 but can comfortably fit an equivalent size fast turboprop like a Dornier or ATR.

The operating economics of the regional jet are getting better and better but there are still plenty of jobs that a turboprop can do that a jet can't :ok:

[redsnail]

A possible reason why bleedfall "waited so long" to apply for jet jobs is "Sept 11". A paid job after that date was pure gold.
Of course I may be wrong.