Any Commercial Pilots On Here?

[Anthony W.]

Well, it's looking like in the next 4 to 6 years, I'll finally be getting that degree and going into the aviation industry as a commercial pilot

I'm just wondering - what all aircraft did you guys start out on - I mean - I know they won't stick me in a 747 flying the San Fran - Honolulu route - but will I start out in Cessna Caravans, maybe small jets? Also - how are the benefits? And how long does it usually take to make Captain?

Thanks

[Lord_magerius]

I do believe you'll want to talk to GoldenRivet :03:

[GoldenRivet]

Oh the long and weary road of an aviation career.

my story:

I was a first semester architectural design & Drafting Student when i went to college.

Drafting and architectural design had been the only class i looked forward to through every single year of high school. Hand drawings, CAD Drawings you name it. Nothing got me more excited than to sit in front of a drafting table with my pencils and straight edges and whip out a luxurious ranch style home drawing right down to the last etching of brick in the elevation drawing.

nothing except of course, airplanes.

All my life i was a flight sim enthusiast, aviation nut job and all around model airplane builder.

One of the best Christmas gifts i ever received was from my aunt. A green hard cover book i still have within arms reach right now entitled "American Warplanes" by Bill Gunston. When i was 8 years old, all the toys and obligatory clothing was brushed aside, and hours turned into days and days into weeks of digesting the information about every single aircraft ever concievably used in military aviation. Those weeks droned into months and even years of using that publication as a reference source whenever information was needed - for any reason be it model building, or just curiosity.

By the time i was 9 years old i could identify virtually every single type of airplane ever used by the US Military up to the date.

My life was dominated by aviation books, models, movies and video games.

So, when my father approached me one perfectly clear October afternoon about going to the airport and flying an airplane - God help me - i jumped at the chance.

I never in my wildest dreams ever considered aviation as a career. But a friend of my father had sent his son to flight training and within a year or so he had been hired by an airline. Apparently, pilots were in demand to some extent.

So on October 13th, 1998 i grabbed my best pair of sunglasses and we headed out to the airport. I completed the pre-flight inspection with the guidance of a flight instructor and we climbed aboard the 1999 model Cessna 172R Registration # N2625C the airplane was factory new and labeled as a 99 model even though it was still 98 for 2 1/2 more months. The engine had so few hours on it that they were still running the manufacturer's recommended mineral oil. I flew everything from the initial takeoff climb - to short final.

It was 30 minutes of flying time that i will never forget. ever. I enrolled in the local FBO's private pilot program immediately upon return to the ground.

The next semester, leaving all of my architectural instruments in a drawer and any dreams of design drafting careers in the past - i was enrolled as an aviation major.

Things went along smoothly enough for the next few years. I started my aviation training in earnest in the fall of 1999.

At the time i was nearing graduation, any wet behind the ears student turned flight instructor with little more than 400 hours could walk into any regional airline job anywhere in the country flying CRJs and SAABs and metro-liners here and there with paying passengers aboard.

The flight school i was attending was placing something like 90+% of the applicants. and it seems like you didnt have time to make friends with other students, simply because they were out of class and into a cockpit with a part 121 airline in the blink of an eye.

The prospects were exciting because one of my last training flights toward my Commercial Pilot Certificate with Multi-Engine privileges took place on September 10th, 2001. I would rest and study on the 11th and 12th, and take a check ride with the FAA examiner on the 13th.

Fate, being the fickle bitch that she is, had other plans.

My sister called me up on 11th in a panic. I could hardly understand anything except "turn on the TV".

I sat in stunned silence with the rest of my countrymen and watched the disaster unfold. i guess it was later that day, or perhaps it was the next day the flight school called and canceled all flights until further notice.

I had absolutely no plans of being a flight instructor. I was going to do like the hundreds of other students and walk right into a job flying as an airline pilot.

I finished my training the next month and though i was proud, i knew my certificates and ratings had almost no worth in the wake of what had happened to our country, and the airline industry. I spoke to the USAF and Navy about their aviation programs - but they both frowned on my history with LASIK surgery.

I sat in my room and struggled with my options when a friend of mine who had finished training shortly before 9/11 had called me on the phone. Apparently, he was sitting in the multi-million dollar full motion flight simulator in training with his new airline gig when the instructor's station phone rang on 9/11 - the instructor finished the very brief conversation. ended the training session and politely informed my friend that the airline had no further need for his employment. - he was calling me up to ask about the two of us enrolling in a flight instructor course together to save living expenses and perhaps get a group discount.

I agreed and was enrolled in February 2002. I received my flight instructor's Certificate on my birthday March 23rd 2002. as the ink on my certificate was drying, my cell phone rang - it was an FBO owner in my home town who had heard through the grape vine that i was working on my CFI certificate. His CFI had moved to another part of the state, and he had students on the line with no instructor. I explained to him that i just finished the check ride not an hour ago. He asked me if i could be at work at 8:00 in the morning and without hesitation i told him yes.

Thus, my "career" in aviation started on 24 March, 2002. the day after my 23rd birthday. i have a star drawn in my logbook on the entry that states "First paying flight as a commercial pilot!"

I instructed for what seemed like centuries. I met a great number of interesting people while bouncing around the traffic pattern in the sweltering Texas heat day in and day out. Some of my students went on to be pilots for the US Army and US Air Force Academy Instructors, others went on to be weekend warriors, a couple quit outright. Over the course of my instructing experience i had flown about 50 different types of general aviation aircraft over most of the United States. My logbook was filling with hours every day, but a watched pot never boils as they say so it seemed like it took an eternity just to get 750 hours!

I had heard that the competitive minimums after 9/11 were insane for a low time pilot. I was gunning for 1,500 hours total time and at least 200 hours multi engine experience. eventually i got close and sent resumes to a couple of airlines, interviewed with both, and received job offers from both.

My interview was something eerie. The company has just resumed hiring. They had photographs of all the "classes" on the wall with the dates. Before the interview i took note of all the smiling faces in the photographs that lined the hall way... and how those photographs abruptly stopped in late August of 2001 and didnt resume until October of 2005.

I was hired in January 2006 and by March i was through training flying the SAAB 340s out of Dallas Ft-Worth International Airport. within 14 months i was number one on the first officer seniority list for my aircraft type. But i was quickly becoming disenchanted with it all.

Pervasive union / management politics, rotten schedules, the constant letters from upper management basically berating us for earning what little income us pilots earned and being called into the chief pilot's office to explain my actions (along with many many other pilots having to do the same) every time i made a customer service decision.

One example of what i had to explain was the following decision i made: Our SAABS were not suitable for docking up with the jet bridges at the time. So we had to let down the stairs let the passengers walk off, then up the steps leading into the jet bridge and into the terminal. This was standard operating procedure, but for security reasons there had to be an "Escort" before we could allow anyone off the plane. We parked at a jet bridge one hot summer day, the air conditioning cart was broken, the airplane was getting hot in a hurry and there was no jet bridge escort no matter how many times we called operations requesting one. finally I got out of my seat, told the flight attendant to open the door, i stood ramp side and acted as a security escort ensuring nobody wandered off into the airport wilderness. Almost every passenger walked by me with a "thank you". Management saw it differently, those escort positions are a union protected job and i was not to do that sort of thing any more. :doh:

add it onto the late arrivals at the overnights, where we were scheduled for the legal minimum rest every - single - stinking - night, and the insane number of times being extended into days off to work because of short staffing, the frequent visits by the FAA inspectors who would do cockpit ride alongs to ensure compliance with various regulations, the recurrent training every 6 - 12 months that - if failed for any reason - even if you had just come off a long trip the day before and were just exhausted during your 5:30 am Simulator evaluation - was grounds for termination and top it off with a 9 year time frame for an upgrade to a captain seat... to me, it just got to the point where dealing with all of it wasn't worth the $1,600 per month they were trickling into my bank account.

I did the math, at their pay rates... there was no way i was going to slug it out for a decade earning under $28K a year. One of the last straws was when the news paper had a story about pay raises for the city garbage men... I was flying warm bodies around the sky at 300 miles per hour and these guys were bringing in a good $10K a year more than i was picking up trash.

At the time i resigned, we were hemorrhaging 60+ First Officers per month to resignations. Almost all of the hiring was simply for the purpose of replacing the swath of resignations.

I packed up my stuff, turned in my keys, badges, and publications and went home to spend my anniversary with my wife.

The airline lifestyle wasn't for me. I viewed it as somewhat self destructive and a bit of a dead end to be honest.

Aviation is a rough lifestyle. Its a life of sleeping short overnights in motels sometimes little better than a motel six next to railroad tracks, going to bed hungry because your schedule left you little or no time to eat. Its a life style of missing birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays at home because the plane has to go regardless of whether or not it is Christmas morning. its a lifestyle of fast food and vending machine dinners. its one day after another of handling life's emergencies large and small via telephone. If sewage is backing up into the house - good luck, you have to tell your wife what to do from a hotel room telephone hundreds of even thousands of miles away. If you make a mistake on the job, you and a lot of other people might die or millions of dollars worth of equipment might be damaged and thats just the way it is.

Aviation is also a tough nut to crack in the sense that to get a decent job other than banner towing or flight instructing you have to have the experience... but how do you get the experience if almost nobody is willing to hire you without it?

its a catch 22

Aviation is also one of those industries that can cost $150-200 thousand dollars (or more) to get an education in... then once you are educated, you will be working for decades paying back those school loans. Unlike becoming a doctor or a lawyer, where the return on investment is initially pretty good... as an example, the airline was paying me $23 per hour to fly. that means i was only getting paid for the flying, nothing much else besides the $1.55 per hour per diem rate. Considering i was frequently "on duty" for 14-16 hours per day the pay actually worked out - very very frequently - to about $7-8 per hour by the end of the year.

Our mantra as young pilots was "Things are going to turn around soon."

I got tired of hearing that.

If i had it all to do over again... i would change pretty much everything.

I would have flown as a hobby, or flight instructed while my main career was something else entirely.

I wish you the best of luck in your career. Its a long hard road and you should be aware that the Boeing 747 has - for many pilots - turned out to be nothing more than a 280,000 lb carrot on a stick.

[Anthony W.]

I wish you the best of luck in your career. Its a long hard road and you should be aware that the Boeing 747 has - for many pilots - turned out to be nothing more than a 280,000 lb carrot on a stick.

Then I shall pray my connections to senior staff, former high ranking staff (most retired Boeing 747 pilots that started off in the early days of commercial jet travel) and management in United and Continental pay off, haha

I've been dreaming about flying for a living since I was 5. I'm gonna give it a shot - here's hoping its changed now that 9/11 isn't such a fresh memory - even tho I refused to fly commercially till ATA shut down some 7 years later, and I still have my minor apprehensions before any commercial flight.

This summer I'll get current on everything, and I'll keep building up my hours for the next year.

The program I'm looking at is a 2 year bachelors degree - the director said most of his students already have job offers by the time its up, but that most stay on an extra 2 years training students that are in their first 2 years.

You say you went straight into flying passengers? I wonder if it's any different flying cargo - I've been told thats where the most money is now

[Sailor Steve]

My, how times have changed.

I've never been a pilot, and only handled the controls of a plane once. My dad, on the other hand, flew for United Airlines for 36 years. He grew up in a different world though. He and one of his six brothers wanted to start a trucking business from Dallas to Mexico City, and decided that they would figure out a way to hire a driver and fly to meet the truck at the other end of the line. Silly idea, but it ended up with my dad getting a private pilot's license. Then their plans fell through.

My dad was wondering what to do next when his mom showed him an ad in the Dallas Times: Pilots wanted. If you can make your way to Denver, UAL will test you and fly you back home. If you pass we'll put you through flight school. My dad passed, and however many weeks it took later he was hired as a commercial pilot. United didn't fly into Dallas, so when I was two years old we moved to Los Angeles.

My dad started off flying DC-3s up and down the California coast. He did that for awhile, then graduated to Convair 340s. DC-6s came next, and then finally the Boeing 720. Then he finally made Captain, and was back in the slow slow world of piston engines. He spent the last few years of his career flying as little as possible, as he was tired of it. When Pan-Am went bust, United picked up their Hong Kong and Tokyo routes. I asked him if he was going to fly those, and he said "I'm senior enough that I don't have to sit in that seat for fifteen hours at a stretch." He would keep himself on the reserve list and spend his time playing golf, only flying when his number came up.

I once asked him what it was like to fly a DC-10, and he said it felt like a flying office building. I asked him what his favorite airliner had been and he told me he really missed the Convair 340-440 series. He retired in 1988 and hasn't flown since.

[CptSimFreak]

Commercial? ATP is what's required.

[GoldenRivet]

Then I shall pray my connections to senior staff, former high ranking staff (most retired Boeing 747 pilots that started off in the early days of commercial jet travel) and management in United and Continental pay off, haha

eventually they may pay off.

I'll recommend that you chase your dreams whatever they are.

I'll also recommend you do everything you can to stay informed and stay realistic about your situation.

Connections are great, and often pay off.... but you will still have to meet Continental's hiring minimums.

and about being informed your connections in Continental and United are now one in the same (http://www.unitedcontinentalholdings.com/)

The program I'm looking at is a 2 year bachelors degree - the director said most of his students already have job offers by the time its up, but that most stay on an extra 2 years training students that are in their first 2 years.

DO NOT major in aviation unless it is a minor. For example. Major in business management or some other field and have Aviation as a minor.

When (not if) things get bad, you may need that primary degree for a field of work that has you stuck on the ground.

You say you went straight into flying passengers? I wonder if it's any different flying cargo - I've been told thats where the most money is now

No i went straight into flight instructing and remained there for about 4 years before i had enough time built up.

Yes, money is great in cargo, but there is a catch.

so i can provide you with additional help, why dont you fill me in on what your plan is.

thanks

[Sailor Steve]

I'll recommend that you chase your dreams whatever they are.
That is the best advice you'll get anywhere. If it's what you want to do, make it happen.

[Anthony W.]

Well, I would take the aviation flight courses, and do political science as well

I plan on finishing my studies and going into the field as quick as possible - preferably cargo because apparently thats where I'd get the best starting pay

I'd love to work for FedEx because they have a major hub here in town

Not really sure about the rest yet

[GoldenRivet]

Well, I would take the aviation flight courses, and do political science as well

good plan

preferably cargo because apparently thats where I'd get the best starting pay

What company do you have in mind to start with? Have one picked out?

[Platapus]

Oh the long and weary road of an aviation career.




Awesome post. I think it helps any one considering to enter a new industry to read stuff like this. Not saying that every single pilot experiences what GR did, but his experiences are worth considering.

It would be nice if every industry had a website "So you think you want to be an XXX, huh?" where people working in that industry can share the good, the bad, and the ugly about their industry.

[Anthony W.]

good plan



What company do you have in mind to start with? Have one picked out?

Well, I mentioned FedEx, and, assuming our stable relations with the UAE hold out, I'd love Emirates Cargo (I can dream, haha), or UPS

[Tchocky]

Well, I mentioned FedEx, and, assuming our stable relations with the UAE hold out, I'd love Emirates Cargo (I can dream, haha), or UPS

Almost every Emiratees SkyCargo pilot I talk to on frequency is American, you should be ok there ;)

[Anthony W.]

Almost every Emiratees SkyCargo pilot I talk to on frequency is American, you should be ok there ;)

And I hear a lot of the women that work for them are gorgeous haha

Wouldn't mind coming home for the holidays with a pretty little Persian girl on my arm :smug:

[UnderseaLcpl]

Loved the story, GR:salute: I had no idea things were so tough for new commercial pilots. Makes me feel somewhat less like complaining about railroad life.

[GoldenRivet]

FedEx and UPS are among the most sought after companies for pilots to work for... Add United, Continental, Southwest and American to the list.

With the United and Continental merger both companies are pretty "fat" on pilots right now and "reviewing their staffing needs for pilots, and are not hiring at this time."

see here > http://www.continental.com/web/en-US/content/company/career/pilot.aspx and here > http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6867,51564,00.html

additionally Southwest airlines has acquired AirTran - and their staffing needs are being evaluated even though they will collect resumes and hold them for the future if you send them one.

Dont get me started on American Airlines - They have not hired a single "new" pilot in 10 years relying instead on their list of over 2,000 furloughed pilots being recalled one by one to fill staffing needs.

FedEx fortunately is hiring... they are planning on hiring about 100 more pilots in 2011 - but, being one of the only major carriers - and probably the highest paying carrier out there that is actively hiring pilots means that things are very very competitive right now.

FedEx has published hiring minimums of:

1,500 hours flight time as pilot in command of a turbine powere aircraft (turboprop or Jet) this is the minimum they will require in order to accept your resume.

The actual competitive flight time minimums are statistically closer to 5,000 hours total time with 2,000 hours as Captain of a turbine powered aircraft and prior part 121 airline experience. (I really started flying regularly in late 1999... I have been flight instructing, charter flying and spent about 3 years at a part 121 airline and i just NOW after 12 years have just over 4,000 hours flight time. so building that type if time takes years and commitment)

of course to meet those competitive flight time minimums for FedEX you will have to slug it out working at a smaller regional airline as captain of a turbine powered airplane until you have reached 2,000 hours of flight time as a captain at some FAR Part 121 airline somewhere.

to get that much coveted captain time will require you to work for anywhere from 5-8 years as a first officer (depending on the company you hire into) before you can qualify by seniority for an upgrade to a captain seat.

of course... to qualify for a job as a first officer, you will have to meet the minimums of the regional you seek to be employed by which often required anywhere from 500-1,000 hours total time with 100-200 multi engine flight time to consider you for a first officer position.

to get that time, most guys flight instruct to build hours.

therefore the logical course of your career is as follows:

1. Graduate school with the degree and the necessary licenses and ratings.

2. Find work as a flight instructor to build hours in Cessnas and Pipers etc.

3. Once you have collected up about 500 hours of flight time (assuming you have the multi engine experience as well) start sending resumes to places like Colgan Air, American Eagle, Skywest, etc. and continue to build time. Send them resumes at 200 hour intervals until you get a response this may take you quite some time until you have close to their competitive hiring minimums. (Collecting the required time as a flight instructor to get a regional FO job can take anywhere from 1 to 3 years depending on how busy flight training is where you live and how many other flight instructors you have to share the airport with) in the mean time you will probably want to get a part time job delivering pizza, working at best buy or wal mart etc because flight instructing alone - unless you shack up with your folks - will NOT cover your living expenses.

4. Once you are hired by a regional carrier like the ones listed above, you will enter training as a first officer on a CRJ, ERJ, SAAB, Dash-8 or some other similar equipment. Do not count on the airline basing you in the town where you live - bases and equipment are picked by YOU based on seniority from a list of what aircraft and bases are available, and seniority is granted by several methods to new hires but if you are low man on the totem pole - you get last pick of base and aircraft.

5. Fly for the regional carrier for as long as it takes to get the upgrade. The lowest upgrade time i have heard of in a part 121 air carrier lately is about 4 years. This can increase or decrease overnight... so anyone reading this article in 4 years might say "yeah... more like 8 years" or "Wow... its 2 years now" you just dont know. on average though, this will take about 4-5 years for most carriers. (because upgrades are done by seniority, you wont get a captain seat by brown nosing the chief pilot, knowing a "higher up" or flying the airplane REALLY well... you will get it because it was your turn to get it and thats it). unfortunately - all that time you fly as an FO you will make almost no money and will almost certainly have to live with your folks or marry a wealthy woman or get a second job because you will average slightly less than $2,000 per month. This is not adjusted for location... which is why in LAX for example, where the cost of living is outrageous, it may be to your advantage to get a "Crash Pad" which is the cheapest apartment available shared with up to 10 other pilots at a time, bring a sleeping bag. (yes really)

6. Once you upgrade to the captain seat at Skywest (or wherever) you will basically be starting over at step 3 here. Fly as much as possible until you get enough hours to compete with other applicant's at FedEx, this will be at least 2,000 hours captain time which will realistically take 2 or 3 years to accumulate. Most of your competition at FedEx or UPS will have 5,000 hours total flight time and most of that will be turbine captain flight time at some airline somewhere. assuming you nail the interview and simulator evaluation, and the captain's board approves your application - you will be given a date of hire at FedEx.

keep in mind that during all of this process, nobody is safe from furlough or termination if the airline you work for is in a bad state of economic health. If you get a job for Skywest and they go tits up - you get to apply at another regional and - even if you were a captain - you have to start over at the very bottom of the new company's seniority list as a first officer.

it sucks but thats how it is.

so in short, be aware that nobody "starts" at FedEx... it takes years of building hours and experience to be considered for a job there, even if you have a man on the inside. The hiring process is set up so that no one man can hook another up with work... about the most anyone on the inside can do for you is write you a recommendation letter and put in a good word with a chief pilot etc. While this tends to increase your odds of getting hired, there are never guarantees.

we always joked about a lot of these major carriers hiring minimums... "Oh FedEx? yeah, you have to have 5,000 hours total time, 2,000 hours jet captain experience and like 3 logged lunar landings in the last 6 months before they will look at you."

lots of truth to that sarcasm.

It can be done, just be aware of what you are getting yourself into. It is a long hard competitive road to try and follow, you never know how it will work out until you try, but the journey - i assure you - is perilous.

think of it like this: getting a job at FedEx or some other major carrier is like building a sky scraper.

when you graduate from your flight program you are only just then barely starting to pour the foundation.


EDIT:

check this out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKQJx3L_CDQ

[Anthony W.]

This is awesome information - I'm documenting this thread so I'm not lost when the time comes

[yubba]

Too many passions and so little time, started out as a poor dirt farmer, loved running machinery, then got into the trucking industry didn't care much about the driving, seen to many sad stories so, I turned wrenches. Got involved in a little bit of railroading, then worked the docks in Port Canaveral and others, been to sea, loved working around, and on the ships, learned how too run the gantery cranes and all the other monster lifts, maybe some day I'll get some flight lessons in, alway wanted to be a pilot, I sure fly the hell out of the computer.

[CCIP]

All of this makes me want to start up my flight sim with FSPassengers and try to 'roleplay' a flight career on, say, a 1:20 or 1:50 flight time scale.

I've always loved aviation, but my life took me into another pursuit that's close to my heart (teaching/academia), which turned out to be as difficult and heartbreaking as a career. It's like a lot of these things - you get into it for the love of it, but then get there and realize that you have to wade through a pile of political bull, customer service (yes, education is all about that these days too!) and nasty economics, and still have to somehow pay the bills - all while trying to be honest to what you actually do. I still have the pipe dreams of flying and I still have the inane amount I spend on my ultra-modified flight simulator, but the further I go the more I realize that I can't have everything. Maybe someday I'll have had enough of it and drop everything and radically change my career, but I fear that even now I've already passed the age where I could easily start something like aviation from scratch.

Awesome thread, though :yeah:

[GoldenRivet]

This is awesome information - I'm documenting this thread so I'm not lost when the time comes

Here are some other good sources of information.

Go to http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/ and register. Talk to the guys there, there are plenty of pilots at every conceivable stage of a pilot career who can give you advice, and im sure many of them will 100% verify most of if not all of the information i have given you here.

Tell them what your current flight experience is, what your plans for an education are, tell them what your career plan is and be honest about what you expect out of your aviation career.

they will cut the BS out of the equation and tell you whether or not your goals are realistic, and offer tips and advice as to what you should focus on to make those career goals a reality.

Also:

You can look up pilot salaries here > http://www.willflyforfood.com/airline-pilot-salary/ to find out what you will likely be paid to fly. keep in mind - after flight instructing for a few years you will be starting out in the "National airline" AKA "regional airline level" so to be realistic, you should probably take a look at the hourly pay rate and multiply it times the "guarantee"

the guarantee is the guaranteed number of hours you will be paid for minimum. the average guarantee is between 70-75 hours per month of flying time. Once you are a more senior pilot you can bid a schedule flying perhaps as much as 85 - 90 hours per month. This will increase your pay, but not by a great deal.

so the equation is: hourly rate X guarantee = approximate pre tax monthly pay

be realistic when calculating pay, understand that this is pre-tax, also look down the road 3 or 4 years to find out the highest dollar figure you will earn in your course to a captain seat.

using skywest airlines as an example $22.00 x 75 = $1,650 per month before taxes will be your average income. (compare this to a 19 year old kid working at taco bell 40 hours per week at $8.50 per hour.... you are literally out earning a fast food worker by a scant 200-300 bucks a month.)

When you begin to close in on an airline interview you will want to look at what is called a "Gouge". a gouge is where other pilots have interviewed and posted a description of their interview process for others to "practice" or know what to expect when the time comes for them to interview.

most airline interviews consist of an HR interview, a Technical Interview, a Written Exam, a simulator evaluation and some include a medical evaluation.

You must pass all of those interviews to be recommended for hiring to the "Captain's board" not all airlines use a captains board, but those that do - usually one of the people interviewing you is on the board, and is prepared to give the other captains on the board a briefing on their opinion of you.

if you pass this myriad of tests, you get a phone call asking you to report to class.

Interview gouges are arranged by company and can be found here > http://www.willflyforfood.com/pilot-interviews/

when reading the gouges - take note of the experience level the poster has (be it 5,000 hours or whatever) and pay attention to whether or not they were offered a position with the company they interviewed with.

this way you can formulate a pattern and draw the conclusion that nobody with less than X hours has been hired by Y company.

[Anthony W.]

using skywest airlines as an example $22.00 x 75 = $1,650 per month before taxes will be your average income. (compare this to a 19 year old kid working at taco bell 40 hours per week at $8.50 per hour.... you are literally out earning a fast food worker by a scant 200-300 bucks a month.

So - side jobs if you have time aren't a bad idea?

And - thats about enough to rent a 1 room apartment and go on maybe 1 or 2 dates per month... Team up with another person and that + side jobs is maybe a 2 room apartment?

I should take a course in tax law - I hate the feds with all my heart. Requiring small block engines, "environmentally friendly" emissions requirement, social security (which it doesn't look like will be around when I retire), that socialist health plan, taking about 60% of my income... Ugg