When did you get your first job????

[Streetfighter]

When did you get your first job????

[AMEX]

Can't find where it says:
-After you sent many many CVs, knocked on many many doors, towed gliders/banners or dropped meatballs* (skydivers;))had to go abroad (Africa or elsewhere), RHS here and there, now and then, with the whole process taking several years (recssion helping) until you got lucky.


*Although those positions help you to get more hours, usually they come without a salary or something in its most primitive form which can hardly qualify as such. That's why I dind't count it as a Job (with a J). No offence meant, been there and done done that.

Good luck all

[Tinstaafl]

What do you mean 'After flying instructing'? (my emphasis).

I consider paid instructing a real job.

[Streetfighter]

Tin...

You are absolutely right, my apologies... Actually I should have asked...:

When did you get your first AIRLINE job!!!


Around 300 people have viewed this poll but only 20 people have voted....

C'MON... all you flying guys:mad:
It doesn't take that much time to vote!!!!!!!!

[Gin Slinger]

Perhaps you should request having this thread moved to Questions then?

Wannabes by definition aren't airline pilots.

[PorcoRosso]

Totally agree with AMEX

You could put choices likes :

By pure luck
By solely networking
Direct after CPL/IR ME ....after 14 months search
Just before committing suicide !

and so on

Furthermore, your definition of Job hunting (or finding ) seems to be restricted to the airline world; but as far as I am concerned, my first (and present ) flying job is not at all related to airliners.
Business flying is great fun also ! You have to rely on yourself.
It's a lot of responsabillities to be the pilot, the mechanic, the operation agent and the cleaner ....

[Towering Q]

Shortly after the ink had dried on my CPL, no IR and no Instructor Rating. It's who you know, not what you know. :rolleyes:

[Luke SkyToddler]

Got my first instructing job straight out of school ... got my first air taxi job after 6 years and 1500 hours of off-again on-again instructing ... still waiting for the 'airline' position.

[erjdriver]

My first job: 15 years old, mowing grass
My first aviation job: refueling airplanes
My first "real" aviation job: flight instructor (1200 hours of it) -- very proud of it, too. Perhaps better that the airlines
My first airline job: EMB145 F/O (hired with 1600 hours)
My first "real" airline job: FedEx, I'm waitning...

PEACE

[Dan Winterland]

Not enough categories.

After 16 years military flying in my case.

[JJflyer]

Got my first flying job straight out of flying school. This was delivering airplanes, both small and big around the world.
I flew Citations, Kingairs and Cheyennes in the corporate world with some night freight in Metros in between. Got lucky when I got a short contract flying a VIP B737´s -300´s and -500´s.
Later I flew VIP B727´s again around the world.
For the last year I have been in and out of western Africa flying PAX B727´s. Quite different. But beats working in Micky Dee´s. I got that gig through a friend of mine, he decided to make a 180 out of that hellhole.
Flying as a contract pilot can be very rewarding. Most of the jobs seem to be coming from friends and by word of mouth

I am still looking for the first " real " nice and neat airline job. Might take a while, but I got all the time in the world.

[Pin Head]

Paper round aged 13.

[Smokie]

With CPL, no I/R but Multi though.
Towing Gliders, no pay, Super Cub.
Dropping Paras,no pay, C206, Cherokee 6, BN2a Islander.
Aerial Photography, good pay, lots of hassle, lots of hours,payed for my I/R.
Flying freight DC3s
Recce in C404
Recession late eighties, redundancy, no chance for another 4.5 years flying anything at all.

This really does test your sanity, coz if you don't have any Turbine time, you don't get a job and there were plenty of Air Europe and Dan Air guys out ther with every Turboprop type in the world on their license's !

You now learn every scam in the world just to survive; sponsor yourself through a Shorts 330/360 course and get a job on a.......
Bandit ?

Anyway, enough hours to move on(100+ a month;) );)
Drive the ole Shed for a year or so, then 10 years after
I embarked on this course of aeronautical lunacy I managed to get my first Jet job.

Of course I know lots of 18/19 year old guys who came straight from the training schools straight into a jet job with only 200-300hrs good luck to them . What have they learnt on the way about life, survival, flying in general etc ? probably very little ! its all handed to them, seemingly on a plate .

One day they will find out just exactly what they have missed, hot, heavey, out of say Klagenfurt or some other mountainous Airport with mega down draft from the wave and not going up !
Will they literally know which way to turn ...safely ?

Its a long hard slog out there boys and girls, enjoy it though, its your apprenticeship and worth every penny.
:) :)

[ShenziRubani]

Like others here, it's who you know and where you are at that moment.

By pure luck
By solely networking
Direct BEFORE CPL/IR ME ....

Will join Juliet Papa in land of the Maasais.
;)

[Paterbrat]

A nice man who was a 3 holer (small) Captain for Eastern who needed a seat filled. He had a small school called TailDraggers and had given me a basic aerobatic course and needed an instructor for a new contract he had just got with an Air Academy who had decided the cadets needed some air experience.
The ink was still wet on my licence but he needed someone now and I hadn't crashed his Citabria so that was it. That allowed me to save for the II which was my passport to the place where it really hummed, the red diamond 'sausage factory' across the field.
When I finaly got there, I built hours with a vengence. The first student came at 6:30 for briefing for the 7:00 start. Lunch was a tin of Hormole franks in beans for 50 cents heated in the micro, or a plastic cheese sandwich for 75 cents, hey it was quick, cheap, besides there was a student waiting to go.
Loved Instructing, one learned a huge ammount from teaching others. Did wonder if I was developing an ulcer though, teaching primary students landings is an interesting experience day after day and you have to allow them to make mistakes,the trick was, knowing when to stop letting them make mistakes. While we are on landings, fun also when one was in a Lake Amphib, where you have a tractor on the roof and when you pull the power off the nose rises. This is always a good one because the instictive thing for the new student on them, is to pull back when they pull the power off, and unless you were ready could result in no airspeed at an ambarrasing attitude and altitude.
Got lots of hours very quickly, Vietnam vets with GI benefits were flooding into the market. It was a great time with great memories and it was the start of an interesting and fascinating flying career. It was always tough to get a job, although being in the right place at the right time is always a possibility. We pay our dues to the profession in our various ways
Getting that first job is part of the job, it goes with the life you have chosen. In this uncertain world we live in it is a job that is full of the constantly changing, and that's part of it too. It's a magical thing being a pilot, and a pleasure that's immensley rewarding. If you are at the bottom of the ladder it's not always an easy climb but one that you will hopefully never regret.
It gives me a thrill as electric and as exciting as the Solent flying boat I was put on when I was about three. The memory of watching that float through the spray lift out of the lake and as we took off with the water streaming of it is as fresh and clear as the take off's I did yesterday, and the feeling of being able to leave the earth behind and climb into that azure sky above the clouds is as powerful a drug as it ever was the first time.
Yes, the first one is a tough one and all the more rewarding when it does come. It's worth the struggle and the sweat because you will know how hard it was to get, and you will remember it with pride. So whether it's instructing or para dropping, crop spraying or even getting hired by an airline may it be as pleasurable and rewarding for you as my first job was for me.

[bluff]

Took me five years of instructing and flying freight until I got my first interview, they offered me the job on the spot!!

Crazy industry, but great fun.

[piperindian]

what about the 1000s guys who never got a paid flying job after the CPL/IR/ME (fATPL) ? would give a better picture.

[sfomarc]

Obtained private, instrument, commericial, multi commercial, CFI, CFII, MEI, flight instructed for two years, then flew tour planes in the Grand Canyon, then corporate for a year, laid off, out of work for 2 years, then corporate again, then charter airline, then major airline.

Start to finish, 16 years.