This thread and the thread titled "Type Rating Effect" should be combined as they ask the same basic questions.

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.....

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.

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:)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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!

airman13
Tell me where is that company????
I will aply instantly...

Best Regards