career advice
 

Well i know this question seems a bit pointless but I would like to invite anyone who can give me some reassurance.Regarding flight hours

I would post this on the wannabes forum but I would get shoyt down and be told to stop complaining , however I am in between being a wannabe airline chap and a contract pilot to pay the rent!

I know that airlines like certain amount of types and time on your licenses
I hold a SA ATPL I dd instructing only on single pistons after having gained 1600hours on cessna 150/Cherokee stuff, to get out of that I managed to convince an operator I wasn't a nuisance in a cockpit and I could be trained on something else managed to get a job on Grand Caravan flying around Central Africa a truley amazing experience 1000hours I got with that.

Then I was able to get a couple of hundred hours on twins but the king air broke and I was without a job. So I am about to finish the JAA IR over here in the UK as I would like an Airline career - always have . In order to top up the bank account for the rest of the license plus the weather for the cpl bit is not brill at the moement, my old company wants me to go back for a couple of months on Caravan - again more single hours, the money is well needed.

I am aware that there are plenty who have no job at this time so I seem a little un-greatful but having 'all' these single hours is makeing my logbook way to heavy on the single engine piston and single engine turbine time.

Should I stop logging the hours? I know it sounds peculiar to say and by the way anyone who has done ANY single pilot IFR over the equatorial regions is quite a lonely and sometimes frightening and challenging experience but what to do I do ? Lie and say I have 1000 hours total then it makes my twin turbine time stand out or what?. I sometimes like to play down how many hours I have which seems also wrong. Ultimately if someone should take me on where you log 800hrs of twin jet or twin turbine a year; after my JAA conversion down the line then I guess this conversataion becomes irrelevent.Anyway any advice, tips and pointers welcome airline people

DD:ok:

Keep logging the hours! If you're in command of the aeroplane, it's a legal requirement for a start!

1000hrs flogging around Central Africa in a Grand Caravan: I'm impressed. You know all about big-time weather and terrain, then, not to mention a few other 'local' difficulties in that part of the world.

Say in the future you join an airline. After a year or so, there's a sudden expansion and commands going. You'll kick yourself if you fall short of the necessary hours by a few hundred, which you failed to log.

Keep logging the hours.

none
 

:) Well thanks for that staright forward encouragment much appreciated. I certainly will rest easier with the command a little thought for down the line.
Flying is flying I guess and ultimately I would hope an employer like any employer looks at what you have been doing as opposed to what you have not been doing and siting on ones laurals!

Some hours are probably more valuable than others. May I suggest that 500hours instructing in a 152 is worth 50 in a Grand Caravan (if you are the boss!). Either way, you must log the hours. But what counts is your level of responsiblity and the type of operation you work in, not the missing engine.

Your CV can simply state that you have "x" hours experience of which "y" is gas turbine time. As "y" is a significant proportion of "x" you will be more attractive to an airline than somebody with only piston hours. (Not of course that gas turbine engines are anything like as difficult to handle as big piston engines!)

P.P.

thanks for those thoughts
 

Thanks chaps for that and certain ly the point about the way you can 'dress' the cv up to make it more marketable:ok: :ok: