SAAB 340 rating: deal or no deal?
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: UK
Posts: 1,164
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
BigNumber,
The good old Shed, fantastic aeroplane. As little as 12 months ago, Shorts 360 rated pilots were probably as rare as tits on a bull but believe it or not theres actually already rated 360 guys(with hours on type) out there looking for work just now. I know that for a fact. Its also not the cheapest of ratings to get either, nor are there many authorised TRTO's in Euroland.
A jetstream 31/32 rating however.....
could be just the way ahead. Not that I would encourage a rating without a job of course!
The good old Shed, fantastic aeroplane. As little as 12 months ago, Shorts 360 rated pilots were probably as rare as tits on a bull but believe it or not theres actually already rated 360 guys(with hours on type) out there looking for work just now. I know that for a fact. Its also not the cheapest of ratings to get either, nor are there many authorised TRTO's in Euroland.
A jetstream 31/32 rating however.....
could be just the way ahead. Not that I would encourage a rating without a job of course!
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: UK
Posts: 410
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I think BenAir still hold a Shorts 360 TRTO in Europe? I reckon that it's not too costly at guessing around 11,000 ish Euro's, but stand to be corrected.
Is it not more likely that a Wannabe would achieve a job with this rating than the ubiquotous 737,320 etc?? Even giving consideration to those already that hold the rating.
BN
Is it not more likely that a Wannabe would achieve a job with this rating than the ubiquotous 737,320 etc?? Even giving consideration to those already that hold the rating.
BN
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Flightdeck
Posts: 272
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I obviously got this very wrong. How does it work? Lets say I have completed my training and I am applying for an airline. I donīt have any Type Rating. Donīt you need any type rating in order to get a job? Lets say I apply for BMIbaby without a Type Rating could they accept me and give me a position without a type rating?
But many airlines do pay type ratings right? These boys and girls that pay everything they got in order to go to Oxford Integrated and then got a job with KL, BA, Flybe etc. They couldnīt alla have had the money to pay for type ratings. This means that many airlines do pay for this right?
I know nothing of this so please explain this type rating deal.
But many airlines do pay type ratings right? These boys and girls that pay everything they got in order to go to Oxford Integrated and then got a job with KL, BA, Flybe etc. They couldnīt alla have had the money to pay for type ratings. This means that many airlines do pay for this right?
I know nothing of this so please explain this type rating deal.
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: UK
Posts: 1,164
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
BN,
In Feb last year, Benair's 360 rating was 15k(pound sterling). Thats roughly 16.5k euro's in todays money. Not sure what this year's fee is.
I would definately agree on the turboprop front though...much more chance of a job rather than with a 737 or Bus rating. Following Excel's, Zoom's and Sterling's demise, there's far too many rated Boeing pilots probably looking for work. Anything on job offer just now would appear to be either short term agency contracts based in europe or full time position's in the Far east. Nowt much else on the job front I dont think
In Feb last year, Benair's 360 rating was 15k(pound sterling). Thats roughly 16.5k euro's in todays money. Not sure what this year's fee is.
I would definately agree on the turboprop front though...much more chance of a job rather than with a 737 or Bus rating. Following Excel's, Zoom's and Sterling's demise, there's far too many rated Boeing pilots probably looking for work. Anything on job offer just now would appear to be either short term agency contracts based in europe or full time position's in the Far east. Nowt much else on the job front I dont think
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: UK
Posts: 410
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Hi Mike,
Yep, on my side of the tracks too. (I currently fly P1 on a privately owned Biz Jet.)
Corporate Aviation has been destroyed in the last 6 months. You cannot believe how many airframes are being rested, crews laid off, orders cancelled.
I just can't reckon on this being a short term blip in the market but more a sustained long term industry change. The boom's over.
Hence it was interesting to 'game' what I would have done had I been in the 'low timers' market.
Great to chat, have a good weekend if your off.. otherwise see you in the airway..
BN
Yep, on my side of the tracks too. (I currently fly P1 on a privately owned Biz Jet.)
Corporate Aviation has been destroyed in the last 6 months. You cannot believe how many airframes are being rested, crews laid off, orders cancelled.
I just can't reckon on this being a short term blip in the market but more a sustained long term industry change. The boom's over.
Hence it was interesting to 'game' what I would have done had I been in the 'low timers' market.
Great to chat, have a good weekend if your off.. otherwise see you in the airway..
BN
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Dubai, UAE
Posts: 172
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Hi Fabbe,
If you were to apply to baby without a type rating you still could be accepted, then complete the rating with the company and be bonded. You could be taken on with a rating that you had paid for already and be taken on. The point here though really is paying for line training. Line training is flying that aircraft on money making routes, as part of the normal operation of that airline, and as such pilots should be paid for operating that aircraft. In my opinion, and I am sure that of a lot of others is that if that is a revenue flight, then the pilots should be paid, and not that one of the pilots is paying the airline.
The issue Febbe is that it is all about supply and demand. Supply at the moment far outstrips demand, so all the line training in the world is not going to help. The only thing it does by paying for it is keep training organisations going by filling the financial gap from the downturn in initial training courses.
I am confident that when the upturn arrives, and it will, that there has to be a shortage of pilots. Airlines are not paying for any training now, or indeed investing for the future, but this is coupled also with a downturn in individuals paying for their own training. Banks are just not lending large amounts of cash now to complete initial pilot training. HSBC and Natwest who were lenders for this in the UK have pulled the plug on that. Credit for pilot training is now very very hard to secure. Couple both of these together and you have a large decrease in pilot numbers. When will this manifest itself? Who knows, but when it does and the experienced pilots move about and are all secured positions again, the airlines will look at the low houred pilots to fill the remaining slots.
Many newly qualified pilots have to get out of the mindset that a type rating, and some line training will get you a job. It won't. At the moment it won't do nothing more than provide funding for the training organisation or the airline, and infact the more people who do it, the more diluted it becomes as a method for securing a pilot position.
I did pay for my type rating, but not before I had done my research, and knew I had a position secured, although not with immediate effect. It worked out for me for that reason only.
Others have also been lucky doing a type rating without the reassurance of an airline position but have got lucky and secured a position, at a time when SSTR were reasonably new, and the vast majority of newly qualified pilots did not have a type rating.
To do it now would be financial suicide. Save your cash, keep yourself current and just wait for the upturn. Whether you like it or not, the financial situation of the world industries, let alone the airlines, is in a dire situation, and you have to accept that now and probably for some considerable amount of time there will be only a handful of pilot positions, and of those they are most likely to go to experienced pilots already made redundant in the current financial climate.
If you were to apply to baby without a type rating you still could be accepted, then complete the rating with the company and be bonded. You could be taken on with a rating that you had paid for already and be taken on. The point here though really is paying for line training. Line training is flying that aircraft on money making routes, as part of the normal operation of that airline, and as such pilots should be paid for operating that aircraft. In my opinion, and I am sure that of a lot of others is that if that is a revenue flight, then the pilots should be paid, and not that one of the pilots is paying the airline.
The issue Febbe is that it is all about supply and demand. Supply at the moment far outstrips demand, so all the line training in the world is not going to help. The only thing it does by paying for it is keep training organisations going by filling the financial gap from the downturn in initial training courses.
I am confident that when the upturn arrives, and it will, that there has to be a shortage of pilots. Airlines are not paying for any training now, or indeed investing for the future, but this is coupled also with a downturn in individuals paying for their own training. Banks are just not lending large amounts of cash now to complete initial pilot training. HSBC and Natwest who were lenders for this in the UK have pulled the plug on that. Credit for pilot training is now very very hard to secure. Couple both of these together and you have a large decrease in pilot numbers. When will this manifest itself? Who knows, but when it does and the experienced pilots move about and are all secured positions again, the airlines will look at the low houred pilots to fill the remaining slots.
Many newly qualified pilots have to get out of the mindset that a type rating, and some line training will get you a job. It won't. At the moment it won't do nothing more than provide funding for the training organisation or the airline, and infact the more people who do it, the more diluted it becomes as a method for securing a pilot position.
I did pay for my type rating, but not before I had done my research, and knew I had a position secured, although not with immediate effect. It worked out for me for that reason only.
Others have also been lucky doing a type rating without the reassurance of an airline position but have got lucky and secured a position, at a time when SSTR were reasonably new, and the vast majority of newly qualified pilots did not have a type rating.
To do it now would be financial suicide. Save your cash, keep yourself current and just wait for the upturn. Whether you like it or not, the financial situation of the world industries, let alone the airlines, is in a dire situation, and you have to accept that now and probably for some considerable amount of time there will be only a handful of pilot positions, and of those they are most likely to go to experienced pilots already made redundant in the current financial climate.
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Flightdeck
Posts: 272
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Ok so basicly you can do like this if the airline dosnīt pay for ya,
You fill in a application and go to the interview and the tests etc, and after a week or so you get the call saying yes we have a job for you. So now I know that I got a job with BMIbaby so now I have to go and pay for my TR?
You fill in a application and go to the interview and the tests etc, and after a week or so you get the call saying yes we have a job for you. So now I know that I got a job with BMIbaby so now I have to go and pay for my TR?
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Europe
Posts: 651
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
The key item is....:
Paying for a TR is understandable (even though still ridiculous imho) when you got a contract with a carrier and they tell you: Go get that type rating, you'll fly for us then.
THIS way you know you'll have a job to earn your money back.
Just going out, buying a Saab340 rating for 17000 Euros and then googling the five Saab 340 operators in Europe trying to impress them is a hell lot of wasted money.
Paying for a TR is understandable (even though still ridiculous imho) when you got a contract with a carrier and they tell you: Go get that type rating, you'll fly for us then.
THIS way you know you'll have a job to earn your money back.
Just going out, buying a Saab340 rating for 17000 Euros and then googling the five Saab 340 operators in Europe trying to impress them is a hell lot of wasted money.
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: uk
Age: 55
Posts: 117
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
MIKECR.
you appear to be full of infinate wisdom or is that bulls**t
Tell me what is it you fly, who do you fly for, how long did it take you to get that job and how much did you pay for the type rating?
cheers
ICSC
you appear to be full of infinate wisdom or is that bulls**t
Tell me what is it you fly, who do you fly for, how long did it take you to get that job and how much did you pay for the type rating?
cheers
ICSC
Educated Hillbilly
MikeCR, Eastern to my knowledge are the only Jetstream Operator in the country apart from one or two in Corporate use, as Eastern have their own TR scheme, I would say that a Jetstream rating would be of very little use.
I have nothing against people paying for ratings, as in better times I have known several who have secured employment by funding ratings (in particular I can name nine people who secured employment with the ATR rating from Skyblue between 2004-2007).
Although I don't necessarily approve of self funded line training, I can understand why some individuals opt for this route. When I consider that I took somewhere in the region of a 30000 a year pay cut to become a full time instructor, although this did lead to several interviews, a few offers and subsequently a turboprop job, I was laid off from the TP job last year. One has to ask with hindsight would I have been any worse off staying in my old job for another year and opting for a type rating and line training scheme.
However if you go through the list of commonly funded ratings then you can see at this moment in time there is no real good option,
ATR42/72, although Skyblue have had a good record in the past, Aer Arran have just made several crews redundant, Air Contractors and Aurigney are not recruiting. Although plenty of ex-pat contract work around this is only really for crews with experience.
B737: Excel and European Aviation going bust, means plenty of 737 crews around.
Citation: Euroepean Business Jets going under means that there are a few experienced citation crews around, this isn't the only biz jet operator to have made cut backs, so that rules out the citation rating. For a low timer in the biz jet world low hours can be a problem with regard to insurance.
A320: Easy had cut back a few crews, but I can't think of any major A320 operator going under, so maybe if you really were considering a rating a 320 and line training scheme would be preferable to the above types.
King Air, mostly operated single crew (very few operated on a multicrew AOC), hence unless you have between 1000-1500 hours and a couple of hundred hours of multi time you won't be able to get insured to fly it.
If you are single and no commitments heading to Africa is your best bet at the moment.
I have nothing against people paying for ratings, as in better times I have known several who have secured employment by funding ratings (in particular I can name nine people who secured employment with the ATR rating from Skyblue between 2004-2007).
Although I don't necessarily approve of self funded line training, I can understand why some individuals opt for this route. When I consider that I took somewhere in the region of a 30000 a year pay cut to become a full time instructor, although this did lead to several interviews, a few offers and subsequently a turboprop job, I was laid off from the TP job last year. One has to ask with hindsight would I have been any worse off staying in my old job for another year and opting for a type rating and line training scheme.
However if you go through the list of commonly funded ratings then you can see at this moment in time there is no real good option,
ATR42/72, although Skyblue have had a good record in the past, Aer Arran have just made several crews redundant, Air Contractors and Aurigney are not recruiting. Although plenty of ex-pat contract work around this is only really for crews with experience.
B737: Excel and European Aviation going bust, means plenty of 737 crews around.
Citation: Euroepean Business Jets going under means that there are a few experienced citation crews around, this isn't the only biz jet operator to have made cut backs, so that rules out the citation rating. For a low timer in the biz jet world low hours can be a problem with regard to insurance.
A320: Easy had cut back a few crews, but I can't think of any major A320 operator going under, so maybe if you really were considering a rating a 320 and line training scheme would be preferable to the above types.
King Air, mostly operated single crew (very few operated on a multicrew AOC), hence unless you have between 1000-1500 hours and a couple of hundred hours of multi time you won't be able to get insured to fly it.
If you are single and no commitments heading to Africa is your best bet at the moment.
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: UK
Posts: 410
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
PHF,
I definitely concur that the CJ market is plump with pilots at the moment. It was very sad to see the demise of EBJ in particular. (Some really good folks lost their jobs).
I was really thinking more about the older Citation family members - they are still very much working - might get a wannabe a start.
BN
I definitely concur that the CJ market is plump with pilots at the moment. It was very sad to see the demise of EBJ in particular. (Some really good folks lost their jobs).
I was really thinking more about the older Citation family members - they are still very much working - might get a wannabe a start.
BN
Educated Hillbilly
Big Number, no idea about the demand for the MD80, maybe worth investigating.
In terms of opportunity in Africa, well it is possible to get work on a Cessna 206 as a low timer, you will have travel out there before the start of the season and meet the operators in person not something you can apply for over the net.
In terms of opportunity in Africa, well it is possible to get work on a Cessna 206 as a low timer, you will have travel out there before the start of the season and meet the operators in person not something you can apply for over the net.
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: UK
Posts: 1,164
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
ICSC/Portsharbourflyer,
ICSC, why the hostility?? Firstly, I am speaking about JAA 'land' rather than just the UK. Secondly, Eastern are not the sole operator of jetsream's in the UK- Highland Airways for example have no less than 9 of them on the current fleet list. Thirdly, I never advocated at any point to buy a type rating on the of chance of getting a job. I was speaking purely hypothetically - a jetsream rating wouldnt be the worst of ratings to have(if one was desperate enough to buy a rating!). I know of 2 operators in JAA country who have within the last month interviewed people for J31/32 positions. A good friend has just got one of the FO position's on offer.
ICSC, why the hostility?? Firstly, I am speaking about JAA 'land' rather than just the UK. Secondly, Eastern are not the sole operator of jetsream's in the UK- Highland Airways for example have no less than 9 of them on the current fleet list. Thirdly, I never advocated at any point to buy a type rating on the of chance of getting a job. I was speaking purely hypothetically - a jetsream rating wouldnt be the worst of ratings to have(if one was desperate enough to buy a rating!). I know of 2 operators in JAA country who have within the last month interviewed people for J31/32 positions. A good friend has just got one of the FO position's on offer.
Educated Hillbilly
There is Blue Island aswell, so three operators of the Jetstream in the UK. That isn't a good number of operators as a basis for funding a rating.
There may be a few other Jetstream fleets in Europe but it isn't a significant number.
There may be a few other Jetstream fleets in Europe but it isn't a significant number.
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Scotland
Posts: 35
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I am gobsmacked by some of the comments made on this thread, in particular to the Saab being "small time". Yes i am biased. I fly the Saab. But to be told it's small time... what planet are you living on? Everyday that lump of junk impresses me, yes, we don't carry many passengers, yes, we have 2 hamsters running around in the engine nacelles instead of engines, and yes, it is very loud, but when it resembles a flying iceberg rather than an airplane, and still plods on without making any fuss, or going to the back end of nowhere when its blowing a gail 90 degrees to the runway, horizontal rain, a short narrow runway, and it can still come to a stop with plenty of tarmac still available, it really does come into it's own. Granted it doesn't have all the capabilities or toys of the bigger jets, but it does have glass cockpit mixed with analog dials, autopilot, and my favourite thing (other than a hostie) the hold button! So in general, it does what it's designed to do brilliantly. Would like to see some of these jet snobs put a 737 into Orkney on a wild winters night.
In my honest opinion, leave the aviation industry for now, and go back to what you did before your training (if possible) keep ratings etc current and to keep your skills up to date, and when the markets have shown a positive growth over a period of say 6 months, go and get a rating on something, or an instructors ticket, or the old fashioned way of getting an interview and negotiation an option mutually beneficial to yourself and an prospective airline.
CJH.
In my honest opinion, leave the aviation industry for now, and go back to what you did before your training (if possible) keep ratings etc current and to keep your skills up to date, and when the markets have shown a positive growth over a period of say 6 months, go and get a rating on something, or an instructors ticket, or the old fashioned way of getting an interview and negotiation an option mutually beneficial to yourself and an prospective airline.
CJH.
SD3 and J31