Infinte Type Rated Pilots it seems!!
 

Has anybody in the know, ie employed in an airline or corporate jet company heard from their bosses that the type rated pilots tree is turning bare.

Im relatively experienced with 2600 TT including 1600 King Air turbine time in there but as Im not Boeing, Airbus or say Gulfstream type rated, nobody will give me the time of day in Europe.

It seems if you shake a tree, shed loads of type rated pilots fall out, including the low time 200 hour guy who buys his way in. When will we be returning to normality with regards to looking at experience when hiring? :ugh:

In the corporate atmosphere in the US there seems to be an endless supply of people either willing to buy a type rating or already has one. I find Gulfstream pilots are a nickle for two dozen and other entry-level jet aircraft (Citations and Lears) face similar problems.

The issue is now that employers have become use to not having to invest in an initial course for their crews they won't settle for anything less. "Back in the day", around 2005/2006, the company's would risk $15,000 to $50,000 depending on the aircraft to type rate new pilots. Now they just demand employees come with a rating and I can tell you from experience up until two weeks ago resumes still come in with semi-current pilots.

Until the FAA implements, very slowly implements, new training standards for non-airline entities you'll see "come typed and current" on most corporate and charter jobs.

sorry but probably you're looking for work only inside U.K and for a really specific job in a major airline... If i had your 2600TT king air FOR SURE, i wouldn't be unemployed... there are many job offers in turbo props around europe, just seek better for them.

Trust me, I have sent emails, cv's everywhere. I have flown in Africa, Australia, US and converted to JAA, companies are just not interested unless you are type rated on jet aircraft.

Friends flying in the industry here have all told me, their companies only look at type rated or cadets through places like ctc willing to cough up.

I think for now, we just have to wait until the economy improves and business picks up like 2006/7 levels, then their will be jobs but I am not coughing up 30k to join Ryanair, thats for sure!!

It is funny though, because when things turn in the pilots favour again regarding employment, the experienced guys will offer zero loyalty to their prospective employers due to the slash and burn tactics being used now!!

Can't ever have one thread without a dig at Ryanair.

BA are in the process of recruiting, what do they require?? 500 hrs in last 12 months on either B737,A320, B757/767. Where can one get this type of flight time? Oh maybe somewhere like Ryanair!

Shake the tree, and I'll fall out. Least I'm in the tree! Paid for type rating or not, everyone pays one way or another, least most people who want to fly jets live in the now, and are not clinging onto the hope of the industry returning to the 'old days.'

As much as it annoys you that 200 hr cadets buy a type rating to proceed further in their career, the same goes for me with 2500 hr single pilot guys with hours instructing etc who think they deserve, are even capable, or automatically entitled to fly a jet just because they have some flight time.

Rant over- can't have it always so one sided.

Happy new year

VJW, forgive me, but I thought that was the point in any industry. You go do the **** jobs, earn your stripes and progress up the ladder.

I doubt very much you would want your heart surgeon buying his way into an operating theatre for open heart surgery without ever having done the meaningless thankless tasks gradually getting more difficult and laying a foundation of appreciation for what is exactly required to do your job.

Imagine lawyers paying for court time to practice on their clients without the proper understanding or experience gained in learning from their mistakes on less important decisions than say the big murder trial of an innocent man.. would you want to be one of those patients or clients

Good luck to you and your career, but there is no harm in doing a little hard work and earning your way in like the rest of us. Safety and experience is not to be ignored in aviation. It is not the god given right of bean counters to decide who flies and who does not.

Imagine the general public actually had an understanding of what happens in the airline industry today, they would be horrified!!;)

Horrified perhaps, but the question is would they care?. Probably not. All the public care about is getting a cheap seat for their bucket and spade trip. As long as its cheap as chips and runs on time then theyre happy. Harsh but true.

Hey man, I'm not knocking your thought process - but you're thought process is out of date as much as we all hate to say it. You almost suggest that people paying for their type rating are off the street, and haven't studied ATPL's along with completing a CPL, IR and a MCC.

Why does your KingAir experience automatically help you fly a 737? A 200 fresh CPL IR holder is just as likely to succeed during a type rating than you with your 2500 KingAir experience. Proven, whether you like it not by the fact it currently happens.

Remind me how many total haul losses that Easy or RYR has ever had due to lack of pilot competence and/or experience? Answer none! System works fine, just a shame its an employers market and not employees market right now. For you to say you are better because you have some KingAir experience simply isn't true.

'It is not the god given right of bean counters to decide who flies and who does not.' If by bean counters you mean the those working within the airlines, then yes it is ENTIRELY up to them who can apply and who cannot.

VJW, I dont think Im a better pilot than say a cadet, they could be naturally very gifted. I just think that it is a shame people can buy their way in without ever working for it. Experience still counts for something.


Bean counters dont have the right to decide who flies and who does not, based on a finacial decision. By law, safety theoretically should always come first and that comes with experience.



Anyway, it is off topic, the original point was are we running out of type rated guys... hopefully yes!!;)

Foolish words, a typical arrogant response from yet another Ryanair drone.

People like VJW are desperate to escape the shackles and move on to a proper job in the airlines.

Let us know when BA come knocking on your door VJW.

Not really off topic at all, you're main gripe is with people paying for a type rating.

Nobody buys their way in without ever working for it. I paid a type rating, and worked very hard up until that time and EVEN during and after the type rating course. Paying for a type rating course, doesn't mean you simply pay an examiner to stamp you're licence, so please stop insinuating that it does!

You are also missing my point. You seem to think that because you've been flying a KingAir you are automatically going to be more safe having passed a 737 type rating course, then a guy out of flight training, unless of course they are naturally gifted! Again this is not really true.

If I was flying with you or a cadet fresh from flight school on the 737 and the sh*t hit the fan, who would I prefer to be sat next too? Toss a coin, it'd make no difference.

How is it arrogant if it's a fact?

My long term plans aren't in Europe or UK and/or BA, my wife is American, so hoping to eventually go there. Going BA and waiting 10 years for an upgrade doesn't sound appealing if I'm honest.

Experience is earned flying things like King Airs, period. You are probably one of the hundreds dropped off the OAT conveyer belt, straight into a self funded type rating course, this does not arm you with all the skills you need to be a safe and efficient operator.

I'll bet the author of this thread could fly his King Air whilst wiping your arse in the process.

Again foolish and unsophisticated VJW, are you really a professional pilot, or some bored teenager?

You see this is the problem we have.

You automatically assume that a command is a given right and that you don't want to wait for it. The same I suppose applies to your leg up into a RYR 737?

This is the type of character I'd hate to sit next too, and probably extremely common in BA.

Remind me the last time BA hired someone with experience close to what bokboy22 has, as a FO they then bonded onto a course?? Don't tell me that's how you gain experience, when you're airline is known for never accepting a guy in bokboy22's position, or a modular student from flight school. When they did hire cadets its was the very people you just described off the OAT conveyor belt, and now they're looking for guys with time on type? I should start querying whether you're a professional pilot.

Insult me all you want, but while the bokboy22 is wiping my a$$ flying his kingair, it still isn't helping him apply to the airline you work for!

Proper job, not for me.

PS Definitely not an OAT student (apart from the MCC at the end)- I was self funded modular.

I sympathise with bokboy22, but it's the way of the world now. Whether it be BA/Easy/RYR etc etc - no one recruits experienced FO's unless you have time on type.

Shaun Ryder, I for one as the writer of this thread am glad you get what Im saying here. Experience counts for everything, especially in aviation.

My days of charter in singles, twin pistons, King Airs etc taught me invaluable lessons especially when it comes to the decision making process.

There is nothing like putting your own neck on the line in a twin piston IFR flight with thunderstorms heading your way to really make you think what is the best option here.

I for one am glad I got to experience all of that as it really made me appreciate just what we actually do for a living.:ok:

I agree, experience is key. I worked my way through flying air cargo on a Cessna 206 and Chieftain until I got a lucky break with a Citation. What I learned and the problems I faced while trudging through weather in mountainous terrain sculpted the thought processes I used on jets. An initial training course and all the sim sessions in the world can't teach you what to do when your deadlines are running tight, weather is down, and you find a problem with the plane that may or may not be deferred.

I spent some time working for a company that contracted maintenance to airlines and when dealing with the "cracker jack pilots" at the regionals the experienced mechanics would groan. The pilots often lacked the ability to be independent decisions as a crew and would defer PIC decisions to pilot management, union personnel, and maintenance control. In the corporate world those pilots would be eaten alive.

There is something to be said for having to make your own life and death decisions without being able to defer those decisions to a higher up. It hardens your resolve and sharpens your judgment. You can't ever teach those sort of things, but that's what I look for in a pilot. When look to hire a pilot to act as PIC (or SIC even since I eventually want SIC's to be PIC's) I would take someone with 2500 hours hard King Air time versus a 737 rated 800 hour pilot and I have done so many times in the past.

Stick flying accounts for only 10% of what it takes to fly a jet, 90% is judgment and general experiences.

these posts prove my point that you are all a bunch of frustrated pilots...YES you are: Bitter, angry, whatever, you are all the same...
what do I read? the guy on King Air not happy to fly, want be on 737.
the guys on 737 switching A/P, not happy, want be captain.
The captains on 737 want be on 747....
Type rated: unhappy, not type rated: unhappy. Integrated: unhappy, modular: unhappy...

and at the end, captains 747, whining, because their retirements are coming, and still they are not happy with all the money they have saved.Blaming their 4 wives (ex hostess), and numerous (unofficial)kids they still have to support.

My God, guys, get a life! get happy with you life or you will regret it!
look at what you have, and not at what you don't have!

Show me ANY other profession where someone with about 2 years experience (actually about 15 months at 40 hours per week), is considered to be "Relatively Experienced".

2600 hours is NOT relative experienced, if you were working for an accounting firm, you might still be on probation with 2600 hours accounting experience. Especially since the first 250 or so were your training, which for an accountant took FOUR YEARS at university. Based on that, you're still a sophmore at school.

I, for one, am not comfortable when I find out that the two pilots in the front office have a combined total time less than 5000 hours. Sure I can understand it on a Caravan, or a 210, but in a 737? No. Scares the pants off me to think that I'm trusting my life, and the lives of my family to some kids who're younger than my own sons (And I'm only 50).

It blows my mind to think that people actually believe they're qualified, ne, entitled, to have a front office position in a Boeing or Airbus. They need to put in several - read 10-15 years in a SAAB first, and that after having spent several additional years flying something smaller.

What ever happend to work ethic? To being willing to start at the bottom? In the corporate world one must start "in the mailroom" and work one's way to the top. Excluding small family owned businesses, even the bosses son starts in the mailroom.

You are completely wrong my friend. Some "kids" as you said, might be much better than some others older. Of course they need experience, but when we all begin operating a new aircraft, doesn't matter the age. Know the aircraft, what are you doing and safety overall, not the age. Just my opinion.

One could also argue that paying for a type, working for a low cost carrier and getting paid only when you fly, is starting at the bottom!

Times are changing, years ago you'd have said no way to removing the flight engineers and navigators from the cockpit but they're gone.

Flying is easier now with the technology. Perhaps those saying you need to get 10 years flying a saab 2000 before hitting a jet, perhaps aren't as natural to flying then others. Harsh, but perhaps also true?

Darkrooms comments almost sound like those coming from someone in a midlife crisis...we're all getting older mate, everyone seems younger now then what we were when we did the same things. I notice this especially in bars I hit when at Uni, everyone there looks so much younger then I was when I started going there, fact is, they aren't!

VJW - you're hilarious!

"Going BA and waiting 10 years for an upgrade doesn't sound appealing if I'm honest"

It was only a couple of weeks ago that you were on the BA interview thread crowing to the world that you'd got an impending interview with them...... guess you fell at the first fence right!?

You also seem to be applying to every other airline out there - TCX, BMIbaby etc. Life at RYR so great that you can't wait to leave?

Wow!
I opened up a can of worms didn't I?

2600 horus can easily be achieved in with just two years experience of actually line flying. It is, however only equal to one and a half years of working at any other job.

I am pointing out that 2600 hours sounds like a lot, but it is in fact very very inexperienced, when one considers that if one is to get a degree, in say history, or accounting, or computer science, one will have more than 2600 hours of "training" before one graduates with a bachelors.

To consider yourself experience with 2600 hours is ludicrous.

Compared to 250 hours, sure you're experienced, but that's like a senior in college comparing themselves to a high school student. The senior has much more background, sure, but nowhere near as much as the person who's been doing the job for 10 years.

It's not got anything to do with how well you fly the plane, I don't pay my $1000 for a ticket because I want someone who can fly the plane, anyone can fly the plane, especially with all the current technology (this is an exageration, I know that not just anyone can fly the plane). What we, the flying public are paying for, is to have a pilot in the front who's got enough experience to know how to react in an emergency.

Look at the FO who just recently was unable to recover the plane when he disconnected the autopilot when he moved his seat forward, and the captain had to come back into the cockpit before he could finish in the toilet.

And the fact that you can SOOOO upset, shows the level of maturity you have not reached.

You clearly aren't a pilot. EU OPS limits maximum block hours for flight crew to a maximum of 900 hours per year, although in reality, most pilots in airlines do about 800 block hours. The biggest mistake you made is compare flight (block hours) with working hours of an accountant. Block time starts when the aircraft starts to move on its on power and end when the aircraft comes to a complete stop on the blocks, not when a pilots shows for work and leaves after final flight of the day. Comparing block time to 9-5 job of some accountant - :ugh::ugh::ugh:

Darkroom, I think you are missing my point. I agree, people who put their families on aeroplanes want guys experienced, not just in aviation but life.

With my 2600, I said I am relatively experienced, I did not call myself Chuck Yeagar. Put me with a 4500 hour captain and there is 7000 hours up front.

I was emphasising the point, that after a city career in I.T. which admittedly I did not mention, I was willing to start again and learn and earn my stripes to be able to fly a 737.

I did do a 4 year degree, got that experience, then got to a high management position running teams and projects, then did start again in aviation learning the ropes, building my way up and appreciating what is required in the decision making process which unfortunately a 22 year old who pays for a type rating with RYR just could not comprehend because they have not done it.

Ask yourself this, what is the point of experience if we can all just buy our way into a right hand seat once we have a license and IR. As somebody who has a masters degree in computer science, believe me, I understand more than most how easy it is to plug some numbers into an FMS and 'Monitor'.

The question is, does one understand the process of making the decision that could save lives when technology, captain or both are not their to hold your hand. All I have been saying is that I have a great appreciation for having the chance to gain that experience to make decisions on my own and keep learning which is what is missing in aviation today.:ok:

Seems that the term "experienced" is quite subjectif. Yes you can be experienced with 1600 king air time. Depends what you did with king air.

I have friends who are "experienced" on their boeing doing everyday the same track although they've never been in Russia, Africa etc.

I'm doing a lot of flights to Russia, Africa and ME but not on an boeing/airbus but on a private jet.

So am i less "experienced" than they are or are they just more "experienced" than i am??

Earlier this year I operated a heavy crew flight (2 captains and a first officer,) where we discovered that between the 3 of us, and in roughly equal measure, we had 45,000 hours experience on the same type and for the same company.

Despite that, there isn't a day that goes by without the realization that you are still fallible, and always have something new to learn.

Inner, I guess we are all experienced in our own way, but less experienced in others like you pointed out.

The issue is, how do we go about getting that experience so that everybody benefits as a whole wether it be pilots, pax etc.

Someone pointed out earlier, in the good old days, you started in the mail room and worked your way up, I agree with that thought process in aviation.

Lets be honest, most passengers dont want to get on a plane and see a 22 year old pilot in either the left or right hand seat of a 737.

And with regards to how I started this whole thread, any ideas when we are nearing the end of an abundance of type rated guys anybody!! Im actually job hunting and trying to get bonded to some airline/corporate/cargo company... need to pay the bills.:ok:

I am a pilot.
And I have had a career in business.
And I know that a pilot can get at most 1000 hours in a year. and even if you only figure 800 hours, that's a whopping 3 years of experience.
But you have to SUBTRACT the time that would be the equivalent of getting your degree in the REAL WORLD, so you have to subtract four years of "experience" and what do you have? a negative balance.

I am NOT saying that 2600 hours is nothing.

I AM saying that 2600 is not "experienced" it is just a newbie.

And "a 4500 hour" captain plus 2500 FO means 7000 hours. well that's just a grand total of less than 10 years combined.

I wouldn't put a project manager on building a $300 million factory who had less than 10 years experience, plus a 4 year degree, why would I put less experience in charge of a $300 million airplane with 400 lives at stake?

So where DOES the public expect to see a 22 year old in one of the seats up front?

That is probably the question to ask, and when you have the answer, then you know where you need to go to get a gig (if you're 22 years old).
And if you're older, and just starting, you have to realize that flight experience wise, you're basically the same, and so you have to start at one of those jobs.

From what I can tell, those are the small cargo ops, the small pax ops - Cessna 210's 206's, maybe a caravan - then after you've got a couple years experience doing that you can move up to the smaller regionals - ie. cape air, and then with a few more years you move on to something bigger. If that's the case, there aren't a whole lot of type ratings required before the first 5 or 6 years are done.

I am finding that there is a difference between types of experience too.
For example, if you've got a few thousand hours experience flying the family, that's one kind, but flying the line is different, and it's not about the "flying" as much as working within an organization in the difference between the family and the line.

It would seem to me that companies are also going to see cargo flying differntly from pax flying. One's usually all night flying for example.

VJW- I think you like many others fail to appreciate just how fortunate you were to secure a jet job with such low hours, and because of this you automatically feel entitled to further fast track progression.
I notice from some of your comments that you're very defensive of your airline, but why may I ask have you in the past few months applied for just about every jet job going?
Thankfully airlines such as BA that you choose to openly criticize have a tried and tested selection, and from that they are easily able to recognize anf reject characters like yourself. Perhaps being rejected adds to your bitterness?!
Either way, good luck in your continued endeavours to leave Ryanair!

"So where DOES the public expect to see a 22 year old in one of the seats up front?"

In the front of a Caravan, a King Air, a Cessna 206, a Chieftain, a Citation Jet, a Beech 400, a Beech 1900, a Dornier 228, a Pilatus, a Beech 99, an MU-2, a Cessna 421, a Q400, a Dash-8, an EMB-120, etc.

Basically there are many aircraft with forgiving characteristics that let a pilot make their mistakes and correct them without catastrophic results. Most jets, save the Citations and Beech 400s, will not allow for a newer pilot to make the errors necessary for learning without major problems. Often times newer pilots will get behind aircraft, even if those pilots have logged 10,000 hours in a jet as an SIC they will find themselves in a whole new world when their name is under the PIC column of that dispatch release.

It is imperative for any good pilot to have left seat, real PIC time. I'm not talking about flying a jet or handling the yoke. I mean making the big decisions from the moment you show up at work to the moment you duty off. As I said before, a real pilot's skill isn't how smoothly they can land but how well they can plan and execute a flight in its entirety. This can only come from being in the left seat and baring the burden of command.

A young pilot that has never bore that burden and made those decisions in their entire career will be ill equipped when they upgrade. It's easy sitting in that right seat and playing armchair quarterback, but without the time gained making real decisions while commanding a flight you will flounder and you will make more mistakes than someone who has experience sitting in the captain's chair. I'd rather my pilot made their "stupid mistakes" in a King Air moving along at a comfortably slow cruise than a 737 packed with happy vacationers rocketing around at .78 mach.

We all make mistakes, we learn from them too. I can go through a lifetime of near death experiences and diaper changes I encountered in my early flying days. I made those mistakes and escaped with my life because the plane I flew allowed me to slow or turn tightly or land in a forgiving manner. Then I took the lessons learned from that sheer terror or humiliation and applied it to how I made decisions in jets. If I was in a 737 or a Gulfstream when I had gained my hubris there's a good chance I wouldn't be writing this today.

Darkroom - the irrefutable fact of the matter is, most of the flying public couldn't give a rats arse about who sits in the flight-deck.

The vast majority of passengers (certainly in Europe but it all started in the good old US of A) want to get there for the least possible amount of money. This is why the lo cost model is so rampant and the likes of Ryanair carry more passengers than the legacies.

Flying is routine and with the locked door policy, Jo Public almost never sees who (or how old) the 2 people up front are. The first time any consideration will be given is when it is evident that the proverbial poo is hitting the fan - and that just (almost) never ever happens.

So it's all well and good for you and others to sit in your armchair and pontificate about why YOU would never hire such people into YOUR airline - the the fact remains, YOU are not running an airline. So your opinion in fact counts for sod all. It is just that, an opinion like anyone else's. You are entitled to it and so is anyone else.

As a side note - how many serious incidents / accidents have occurred with inexperienced newbies (lets say less than 3000 hours using your yardstick - which incidentally could be 8-10 years experience in my sector of the industry) compared to the old timers at the controls? Just what percentage of Darkroom's tiny 2600 hours would have been racked up at FL350+ for over 8 hour sectors with the autopilot doing the work - gosh you really learn your trade in the cruise don't you???? Total volume of hours is not in itself the only way of measuring experience.

Without diving into the details, seems to me that the likes of American, Delta, United etc etc etc have lost more hulls than Ryanair and EasyJet (and those two companies complete a HUGE number of sectors per year combined) - clearly it hasn't been many in recent years, perhaps technology does have an impact?

VJW, the simple fact is that it is people like you that brought all our Ts and Cs down to what they are. I hope it all bites you in the arse one day.

Pilots with limited skill and a fat wallet from either their oldies or a remortgaged house. Congratulations. Its not competition that you have created its a cancer.

My limited 25yrs in the industry has made me very very weary of people like you. I dont want to sit next to you or even talk to you in the crew room. You are a breed of your own and so obviously happy with screwing the industry to make your bosses happy just so you and your own are ok...Well down boyo.

VIRGA,

Quote: VIRGA.
"Pilots with limited skill and a fat wallet from either their oldies or a remortgaged house. Congratulations. Its not competition that you have created, its a cancer."

AND
"My limited 25yrs in the industry has made me very very weary of people like you. I dont want to sit next to you or even talk to you in the crew room. You are a breed of your own and so obviously happy with screwing the industry to make your bosses happy just so you and your own are ok".

VIRGA: Re-mortgaged house?
Yes...that's the best way to obtain money and pay for a type rating.
If the folks have extra cash then, that's a bonus!

**From what i can gather with your post ,you haven't used your money wisely in your younger years and you don't have access to lower interest loans, such as mortgaged home loans.
So now you envy people that have access to cash, at low interest loans.

*Well, you have definetly stuffed up the money somewhere along the way, in your fabulous life, for you to respond in this fashion.

**bokboy22:

Why don't you just appy to the main carriers and see how you go?
If you were just a co-pilot in the kingair, then that's useful but it's not to
glamorous, as you have a captain watching all your moves!

What are you expecting?
The world to move for you?

I would say a kid out of school, with a CPL/ME IR and ATPL subjects, could challenge you with you general knowledge and skill!
You got to be aware of that!

If you haven't moved forward from your king air days, then you never will?

I have posted this before but will offer this analysis again.

I hold that it will increasingly prove difficult to earn a "plausible living" performing what is essentially a blue collar function that others are willing to pay to do.

So............

Whilst flying desperately retains its last morsels of kudos, young 'pasty faced' little boys will take their walking talking daddy wallets down to Oxford to attend a highly polished open day. Following a thorough assessment day, and now armed with an apositely aquired confirmation bias, Oxfords cash till can ring again. (Timothy did so very well in those difficult computer tests.)

Dinner party's at M n D's now routinely turn to the challenges of flying a modern jet; our 'pasty faced' lad is delighted to elucidate much to the delight of his parents! That JOC course has been most useful. Mum glows with pride each time Timothy comes home, (with his washing), wearing that smart Oxford Uniform carrying a ridiculous brief case included in the course price at no extra cost. The stickers were extra.

But, now armed with his MEP/IR MCC and JOC, employent just isn't beating the path to the door. (Times have been hard you know in all industry's, not just aviation.)

Faced with the social indignity of mums bridge group learning that 'Timothy' is working at B & Q and flying 3 hours a month on a 150 Aerobat further funding is soon made available to secure 'our' rightful place on a TR / Flexiscrew, P2F similar. After all, these lads are the lucky ones.

It's a great result!!! Timothy gets to play pilot, Mum gets to 'blow off' at Bridge Club. But, best of all, Wayne n Tracy get a well deserved subsidized 'junket' to Benidorm. Rightly so, didn't the bible did predict that 'the meek would inherit the earth'? or cheap air fares anyway!

For my part, I truely hope that my son will NOT follow in his fathers foot steps. ( Unless he stays in military service for a full career ).

Southerskyze, I have been applying but as I wont buy my way in, Im no use until there is a shortage, that is part of my gripe. I was willing to go out and earn my stripes by starting at the bottom and working my way up.

I wanted to get my pic time, even if it was on multi piston, then turbine, but at least I earned it and now feel in aviation I would make a good F.O. in an airline/corporate and work my way to captaincy.

I have been making command decisions, flight planning, understanding what is required to conduct a safe flight knowing the buck stops at me and Im responsible.

I also dont want to be part of the crowd dragging down our T's and C's. I could have bought a type rating as well and joined RYR, Easy etc but I dont feel that is right (just my opinion) until you have actual experience conducting smaller less important flights so you actually gain real worl exprience.

Someone mentioned earlier that BA, Virgin etc all ask for 500 on type bfore they hire you. The reason they do that now is because the 20 year old 200 hour hero was impatient, all started buying there way in, thus our flight pay has plummeted and now that they know they can make us pay, they do!!

Before, it was experience that counted, regardless of what or where you went to fly, you still had to do a type rating, be trained and all the rest, but at least your first job was not an A320 doing .82 with no real worl experience or understanding of what is actually happening.

Virga and a few others are merely trying to state like myself, experience counts, be patient, learn your trade, get an understanding an appreciation for what is going on and progress properly and safely, nothing wrong with that.:ok:

Oh, another thing just to clarify, I dont expect an airline/ corporate etc to pay for everything and a pilot can just leave when they please.

Im very open to being bonded through service agreements of 3 to 5 years depending on cost, type etc, even deductions from your salary.. just not buying your way in through type ratings or pay to fly.

I wish other pilots would think and consider the industry as a whole before doing some of the things they do, as one day, you will be the experienced guy/gal with your T's and C's in the gutter due to the next lot buying into everything!!

I do hope we all have that 1500 hour rule soon like the US before you can join an airline, with 500 multi PIC... The industry will drastically improve then!!:ok:

The 1500 hour rule would spell the end for lots of wannabes.

In the US there is a GA industry that can provide employment for the large number of low houred pilots. In the UK there is not.

Imagine how hard it would be to get the job on the Kingair if we had that rule. There would be hundreds of applicants and a large portion of those would be willing to pay for the priviledge. It would make things worse.

The people getting the jobs would be foreigners from countries that have large GA industries such as Oz, USA and millitary pilots.

If this ever does come to Euroland expect to see 0-1500 hour P2F courses for £200,000+. They would probably be queing up to do it as well.