constraints of Turboprop time

[boogie-nicey]

Hello folks, been sometime since posting on here but I have a bit of a question that I may need your 'expertise' on .....;)

I realise that jet time translates far better towards prospective job opportunities in the future. However would turboprop time consign me to the Dash, ATRs of this world for the rest of my career? My long term goal is to end up in the Middle East but am not sure whether turboprop time would be on a different track and thus the opportunities with the likes of Etihad, Qatar, Emirates, etc fails to materialise.

Thank you for your input and happy new year to you all!
:ok:

[powerstall]

I have a friend who flew ATR 72's here and there, later this month he will be leaving for the sandpit.
Just keep on flying. Keep current. :ok:

[captain.weird]

Hi powerstall,

Can you maybe tell us for which sandpit carrier he's leaving for? Some of those ME carriers don't 'recognise' Turboprop time..

PM is okay too

[Piltdown Man]

Aeroplanes are aeroplanes. At a personal level, you should really focus on putting food on your table and paying for your house. On a professional level it is important how you operate what you fly, no matter what it is. Do you conform to your company's/employers SOP's? If you can demonstrate that you operate turboprops in a professional manner, appropriate to their capabilities, there should be no reason as to why should not be able to operate other aircraft types.

[urge]

Well Piltdown and Smash bugger are not really giving you proper advice. First of all, you have to get out of turboprop flying and into jet flying as fast as you can. Unfortunately, the status of pilot hiring is requiring jet time more and more as well as JET PIC. Turboprop time is getting meaningless. I had lots of turboprop time in my younger days but those type ratings are useless in the contract world or carry much less weight on a FedEx computerized weighting system and so on. You need to do whatever you can to get into jet time first, then get into the left time as fast as you can to get 1000 hours of jet PIC. Get into an aircraft with a good type rating that can be useful in the contract world in case you decide to fly for a US carrier and crap starts hitting the fan, like it has been for awhile. Now with that being said, and you want to get out to the Middle East, you can see how long it will take you to move up to F/O then see how Qatar's program is for upgrade to CAP or better yet to a bigger jet F/O position like B737 or A320. Then your moving.

[G-ALICE]

Flying is better than not flying!

[boogie-nicey]

Thanks for the help, I shall indeed try and make the jump to light speed by moving onto jets but sometimes I feel the pursuit of TRI/TRE qualification.

[powerstall]

Captain weird,


Q.A.

but mtow must be more than 20T for F.O.

[taxi_driver]

Turboprop time is a little out of fashion right now. Progressing onto jets you are still expected to cough up for training costs like the 200hr cadets. Less airlines have mixed prop/jet fleets, so another progression door has closed.

I have seen alot of people fall into unhappy lives, pursuing the bigger/faster is better option.

The best type to fly is often the one parked at the bottom of the garden, whatever it maybe. Quality of life, and the type of flying that you actually enjoy, are worth considering.

[FlyingEngineer]

Turboprop time - "get out as fast as you can", out of fashion etc.. Absolute rubbish. Talk about bad advice!

My current employer uses tired old turboprops and within the last six months have had people leave for Jet2, BA, Flydubai to name a few. Most of these people have spent at least four years with the company.

Some of the best flying and experience you get is from flying Turboprops, where you tend to get exposed to more non-precision type flying rather than the automated vectored ILS to ILS type stuff with jets.

[boogie-nicey]

Well FlyingEngineer your opinion is most valued and I shall take it onboard. I appreciate the sentiment behind your comments regarding 'real' flying versus playstaion type flying and that can only be a good thing.

But then again on such types that time to command (relatively speaking) is also shorter.

[power.r]

WOW such a mixed bag of advice! :ugh:

[Luke SkyToddler]

There's turboprop time and there's turboprop time ... there's a world of difference between proper airline ops in something like a brand new ATR72 (basically a mini airbus), or doing night freight in a thrashed old bandeirante, or throwing meat bombs out of a caravan, or whatever, it's all turboprop time. Most employers would look at the type of flying ( and the SOP / CRM environment you operated in ) as important as the actual type.

And the jet vs turboprop debate is a load of crap as well ... what's better on a CV, a C130 or a Citation? A Dash-8-Q400 or a Embraer 145? Yes we all know that modern airbus & Boeing types are top of the tree, but nothing is cut and dried below that.

[Journey Man]

Surely its what's available?

I suspect if you have a 'choice' between TP and jet, its which type rating to buy.

A more pertinent question would be who pays a viable salary and offers the best non work lifestyle. Aircraft are aircraft. Granted, some are fun for a few years longer, but its the money and life that matter.

[boogie-nicey]

Actually I notice that whilst looking around a number of carriers permit turboprop time but whether that helps or indeed hinders I'm not sure. How would for example some of the bods over at FlyBe consider such time, when they are predominantly an Embraer outfit?

[redED]

Qatar did accept turboprop (EFIS) time but have recently changed their requirements. Flydubai still accept turboprop time:

modern (EFIS) multi-crew, multi-engine aircraft over 10 tonnes operating weight

[tarmac12]

Just on the websit and it appears they still do.

Second officers - Fast track


Minimum of 1,500 hours in a modern multipilot turbo-prop greater than 12,000 kg MTOW
Valid ICAO ATPL or frozen ATPL
Valid Class 1 medical
Minimum level 4 ICAO English proficiency

[airman13]

I dare to ask what is better, being with modern turboprops(ATR), 5 to 6000 euros in pocket ,2-3 overnights only , around 40 flt hrs in a month, also 5 days in toulouse for simulator(as examiner).......or as captain on jet , 6-7000 euros ,90 flt hrs , some sectors +4 hrs.......what do you choose????

[ford cortina]

Qatar Executive are more than happy to look at Commercial Turboprop time, their minimums are 1000 hours+
This weeks flight international.:sad:

[boogie-nicey]

I think airman raises an excellent point. When you put all the variables together and then look at the end result, shiny jets aren't always better.

[Journey Man]

This thread and the thread titled "Type Rating Effect" (http://www.pprune.org/interviews-jobs-sponsorship/474187-type-rating-effect.html) should be combined as they ask the same basic questions.

[airman13]

thank you boogie-nicey for your position about my point of view....and to continue my story, my flight ops manager told me some months ago, if I am not interested in a position of captain in our jet fleets(boeing and airbus) medium haul....I answered I will give up at my ATR for an A330 only or so, that is to say for a long haul if the company will get ever.....

[WX Man]

If you want to go and work for a ME carrier- Qatar, Emirates, Etihad etc, don't waste your time on TPs.

Go to RYR or CTC, cough up for their SSTR and spend 1 year flying for them before moving on.

[boogie-nicey]

Agreed that not all turboprop time is the same with 'heavy' TPs such as the Dash/ATR seeming more preferable. Yet the industry just can't get away from it's short sightedness of hiring the low hours guy that will take up the SSTR option.

I am sure that having TP time cannot be detrimental but the bods in airline HR departments clearing see things differently. Would I be persimistic to suggest that TP time will only translate well for other TP jobs. Then again it's a sub part of the greater airline industry and we would have our own brotherhood complete with secret handshakes and induction ceremonies:)

[redED]

It's not so much TP time is so limiting its more type rated time. Even being current on a nice shiny jet everyone wants Airbus or Boeing. It'll all change when the industry finally claws its way back onto the up curve.

[UAU242]

People say to move to jets asap, so at the end of the day, whats the way forward to move to jets? Cough up for a type with ryr or ctc, or continue to be patient and hope to be one of the lucky ones that gets picked up by jet2, ba etc. With the way things are going,that's probably not for the forseeable future.

[boogie-nicey]

It appears that the humble turboprop will be.... how can I put it, sidelined over the coming years. Sure the technology of the TP matches and even exceeds that of jets but with the recent Embraer series of 190/195 I see the ascendency of the regional jet. It is especially more palatable for the traveling public that would much rather walk up to a small jet than a TP. It's that mental relation of the prop to old black and white WWII movies :)

Anyway after reading the posts on this thread I am of the opinion that TP time will be increasingly viewed in an isolated manner, i.e. good for other TP jobs. So if you start out on the ATR then what heavier TPs can you really move onto? The C-130? :) As for the well trodden but rapidly disappearing route of building your time on turboprops and then onto the jets, well that seems to be history (much to my regret). The advent of the SSTR put paid to that where the 'source' of pilots from the lower rungs of the aviation ladder have been blocked off by the SSTR. Shame really because beyond the technicalities of the flying, the licences/ratings, etc is the personality. Alot can be said about your past flying/life experiences and they would only add to the job not detract from it but I doubt the beancounters see it like that. Clearly in the coming years the personality will no longer be there in the airline world (jet) because they all started of midway up the ladder rather than working their way up. Ask any armed services chappie if their past experience didn't count, they'd probably go on-and-on for ages about how such experiences made them what they are today.


I don't mean to rain anyone's parade especially SSTR, I understand and respect people decisions for going that route but whilst that new revolution was taking place the turboprop got squeezed out. Oh well things always change and evolve, aviation is no exception. However I shall still try and see what can be squeezed out of good ATR time and then take it from there.

[dudubrdx]

Haha don't worry my friend, I work in a company which has lost 10 to 25% of their FO's EVERY YEAR since they started...
A lot of companies call my DFO, asking directly if they could recommend some pilots for an Airbus or Boeing transition. And in my opinion this will only increase, as ex-TP captains are now occupying postholder positions in other companies.
Make your own choice, if you want to move to EK,QR (:ugh:) as fast as possible then go for CTC or RYR but don't go for rating without a job offer, never do this.

[WX Man]

Extremely good post, boogie.

The one thing I will say about TP flying is that it hones your "hand flying" skills and airmanship. Whether you're barrelling about doing surveys at 8000ft, flight calibration at a couple of hundred feet, or flying pax around Scotland at FL230, you're never out of the weather. The high(er) proportion of flying outside controlled airspace increases your awareness about what else is in the sky, and the larger number of sectors that you'll do, hand flown down to Cat I minimums into sometimes fairly challenging strips is good experience.

But as an alternative point of view, if in a Jet the computer flies the aeroplane and the pilots are there only to program the computer, then maybe all that experience is irrelevant...

[boogie-nicey]

WX Man, thanks very much old bean :)

The post was just a quick brain dump of what I was pondering over in the back of mind. I realise that aviation is a wide spectrum with all manner of differing circumstances but felt that a number of 'artifical variables' such as SSTR has changed the river's course so to speak. I guess it's not a bad nor good thing depending on where you stand but in the meantime the rather honest (relatively speaking) issue of turboprop experience is behind crowded out. I agree with the previous posters that there is movement even in the TP world with a number of skippers now holding posts elsewhere. Under such circumstances it would only be natural for them to seek the devil they knew in the form of TP pilots, at least they know what they were getting.

Good one!

[Independance]

airman13 (http://www.pprune.org/members/191034-airman13)
I dare to ask what is better, being with modern turboprops(ATR), 5 to 6000 euros in pocket ,2-3 overnights only , around 40 flt hrs in a month, also 5 days in toulouse for simulator(as examiner).......or as captain on jet , 6-7000 euros ,90 flt hrs , some sectors +4 hrs.......what do you choose????

Tell me where is that company????
I will aply instantly...

Best Regards