Virgin Recruitment
 

Virgin have started recruiting ex military for their holding pool.

"Great!" I hear you cry. "sign me up for hot and cold running hosties!":}

They say - "If coming from a military background you will need to have 3000 hours which should include at least 1500 hours Fast Jet or heavy experience. "

"Still Great!" say the Zoomy and Fat boy fraternity whilst the helicopter gods are bent over once again.:mad:

They then go on to say - "You must hold a current Class one Medical and a full JAA ATPL licence (UK issue)."

Suddenly only the heavy guys say "great!"

Seriously, how many jet boys have a full JAA ATPL?
:confused:

So it appears that the helpful suggestions provided to the scrubbed RAF Trainee Pilots ("just join the airlines") might be a tad optimistic?

The point is, its a start.

Watch what happens from this point onwards. RYR dont have enough pilots. BA are due to lose loads due to retirement over the next few years (timeframe tba).

Lets not forget one fact: the airlines are about to start fleet renewal, something that is essential for their business models bearing in mind the price of oil.

Did you know Boeing/Airbus offer up a certain number of TRs as part of the package when purchasing an aircraft? Do you know how many A380/A330/787 are coming onstream for the airlines in the next 5-6 years? Its lots. With manufacturers including TRs in the contract, it doesnt cost Virgin/BA/Lufthansa etc a penny to get non-tr but experienced chaps through the door.

Mark my words, Multi engine FRI by 2016. So short sighted its untrue. Question is, who is going to stay on with them about to rape our pension? I would personally prefer to temporarily emmigrate to the ME on good coin than get rammed up the @rse by an ungrateful nation.

Wholeheartedly agree.

Training credits for Type Ratings MAY be offered, but at a price. The purchasers/lessees don't always take up the offer (and do benefit from a price reduction if they don't), it depends on their own training capacity and commitment. For instance Virgin are gaining some initial type ratings and A330 operational experience with Thomas Cook, they will probably build on that to expand their own training schemes.

Sorry to dampen expectations.

Mega! Bye!
:ok:

If you're considering civil flying, best you understand the significance of their terminology!

Obviously airlines are commercial enterprises, not charities. So if the choice is between an AT pilot with thousands of hours of worldwide route flying and a pilot who hasn't been above 100ft aal for years, the choice is pretty obvious....at the moment.

But the number of ATPL-qualified RAF pilots leaving for civil flying is, in airline terms, quite small. Any QSP will be a pretty good prospect for a civil employer, but right now the airlines can still afford to be choosy.

By the way, Virgin Atlantic isn't the airline it once was.....

...but it still beats being in the Military!!

3000hrs total is a big ask for a FJ mate these days. I suspect most of us will be waiting for the bar to be lowered a bit...

Easy,

It was hard when I left too and we used to fly 300 plus hours / year on the F3. Were I you I'd keep a mil and civil logbook and log exact flight times from start of taxi to parking in the civvy one. Forget the factoring just log under both sets of rules in separate logbooks. I didn't and it delayed a subsequent command a tad, its amazing how much time is spent on the ground taxiing about particularly when operationally flying. I remember a time at Sig where we held on the deck for 55mins and trust me that time is no different to sitting in a 345 at LHR. Most airlines don't give a toss as long as it can be reasonably demonstrated it actually happened and the book gets stamped. After all how much of the time flown by banner tow aircraft up the Florida coast has been double or even triple accounted for by the wannabees.

Absolutely - I've been advising people to do this for about 10 years now! Civil logbooks are very simple and accurate 'chocks-chocks' flight time recording is essential.

Although military pilots are generally honest, one ex-FJ 'parker pen' pilot was once rather annoyed to find himslef lagging behind ex-truckie co-pilots in the seniority stakes, so had amended his record of flying fast jets. But the aviation world is relatively small and a few discrete enquiries were made.... The result was that he had to leave the airline - and would have had extreme difficulty at future interviews. Other 'east coast of Florida' wannabes have been tempted to inflate their flight times when flying together - such dishonesty renders them unemployable.

There's a shock - a pilot expecting somebody else to clean up after him....:hmm:

Reads pprune thread on iphone.
 

...puts down 'RAF Opinions Survey - your views are really important to us'

...picks up laptop.




....leaves mugs.

As much as I wish this were true both for my own career progression and for that of my ex-colleagues in the services, I wouldn't hold your breath. All the guys who were fortunate enough in age terms to benefit from the change in CRA to 65 don't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon and they've still all got a long way to run until 65. The only way they seem likely to go anytime soon is if EASA get their FTLs on the statute books. Also, if it's future career progression you're interested in (achieving a command on LH before retirement for example) then there's one heck of a bulge of cadet FO's from the mid to late 90's waiting to start the stagnation all over again when our captains retire. Overall, movement in BA is very sluggish at the moment and, whilst we're recruiting for expansion at the moment, it's not huge numbers and it won't take much more of a peak-oil intervention for the 744s to be heading back to Victorville sharpish.

Sorry if I sound unnecessarily pessimistic - I've some good friends still in the RAF who I'd love to be able to give more solid news to, let alone my own selfish interest.

MrB

In my experience in bizjets, employers are less interested in the total number of hours than they used to be. More important is a type-rating and (ideally) a ticket for London City, Lugano, Sion etc. Also, number of sectors flown is also of more interest than thousands of hours of cruise time.

FJ types with not enough hours for an ATPL might be better looking at investing in a light-jet rating and (say) an LCY check to stand out amongst the other type-rated pilots applying for the job. With a logbook full of shortish FJ sorties, plus those qualifications, you would be more attractive than somebody with 5000 hours spent mostly in the cruise.

Time to command is also much shorter than in airlines - you can get command in less than a year if you are good. Even better for ex FJ might be single-pilot aircraft like C510 or C525 - I have a mate who left FAF FJs and went straight to single-pilot on C525 on private ops.

It still wouldn't be easy, but could be an easier option than airlines if you are FJ and are desperate to get out.

F.R.I.??? :confused:

One TLA that has passed me by I'm afraid....:E

It's an abbreviation, not an acronym, of the term Financial Retention Incentive.

TLA is also an abbreviation, not an ancronym.

Ah, mystery solved BEags, thank you! :ok:

:=
initialism |ɪˈnɪʃ(ə)lɪz(ə)m|
noun
an abbreviation consisting of initial letters pronounced separately (e.g., CPU).
• an acronym.

Abbreviations
 

Actually, FRI is an initialism, if you pronounce it F-R-I. If you were to say FRI as in 'fry' then that would make it an acronym.

An abbreviation is a shortening of a word or a phrase.
An acronym is an abbreviation that forms a word e.g. BASIC, RADAR etc.
An initialism is an abbreviation that uses the first letter of each word in the phrase (thus, some but not all initialisms are acronyms).

Anyway, back to Virgin, would they consider guys in the 2000+ bracket with an ATPL ready to go?