Do airlines care how you build time?

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godawgs695@reddit

Depends on the hiring environment when the time comes. 3-4 years ago, they did not care at all, last 2 years, yeah they care because they can. If you were an employer would you rather hire someone that putzed around in a 172 for 1500 hours flying to go get burgers or someone who flew professionally and showed they could teach, communicate, maintain a schedule, etc for whatever job they did? Not saying airlines think being a CFI is something super special, but flying around in circles burning gas is especially not special and your competitors will have better experience than you off the bat.

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Mrs_Fagina@reddit

Can we stop with this nonsense?

Part 135 yea, but let’s stop overweighting the experience of a 23 year old CFI that only few on clear days around the pattern, did the same 53nm XC route, shot the same approaches, and went to the same practice area.

Literally none of that transfers to our job at the 121 level. And don’t say teaching. New FOs are all borderline retarded whether we time built or were MEIs.

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KITTYONFYRE@reddit

Literally none of that transfers to our job at the 121 level. And don’t say teaching. New FOs are all borderline retarded whether we time built or were MEIs.

… uhhh… so they could use a captain that’s a good teacher? lol.

don’t want to come across too far on the pro CFI side or anything! you can be a fantastic teacher without being a CFI. you definitely don’t NEED to be a CFI to develop these skills. sure, if you somehow land a 135 job with a wet comm ticket that’s almost certainly going to look better to an employer. but this statement is just funny

(and we’re talking about time building vs cfi here, not cfi vs other flying jobs)

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ce402@reddit

As someone who did LOTS of OE at a regional when we were eagerly hiring anyone that could fog a mirror, the difference between someone who built time working as a pilot and someone who flew around for fun for 1200 hours was abundantly clear.

The guys who spent time flying an airplane to new airspace and weather on their schedule for fun were without a doubt the worst students who struggled the most with standardizing, shallowest depth of knowledge, and struggled the most with following training and progressing as opposed to the new hires who had spent the last few years working and training new pilots.

After a while, I wouldn’t even have to ask what their background was. It was obvious from the start.

As soon as we could become more selective, it was pretty much the first filter we’d put up to screen applicants.

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Mrs_Fagina@reddit

And that’s where the frame of reference differs. You’re looking at training and I’m looking at actual line flying.

When the CA Upgrade course needs to start with the disclaimer that “Your FO will be the first to lose you your ticket”, it’s not a glaring endorsement of the right seat, CFI or not.

And from what I’ve seen, that’s true. Countless stories of CFIs unable to handle flying in weather of any kind. Being extremely nervous doing anything out of the ordinary. Thunderstorms, ORD, etc.

Most are undoubtedly very good, but I keep hearing anything tougher than button pushing a straight line and many are not mentally there.

Would a time builder be worse? Maybe, or maybe they’re used to being in weather or out of sight of their home field. Or talking to ATC outside of the same two frequencies.

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ce402@reddit

I was a CKP.

I did their OE on the line for the better part of a decade.

Like anything else, were there good pilots that paid for their hours and did fine? Sure. Were there weak CFIs that struggled? Also yes.

But the vast majority of the time builders never made it out of training, and many that did struggled mightily on OE and never made it to the line because they just couldn’t adapt.

Regionals aren’t in the business of turning away candidates out of spite or Reddit hate, they look at who reliably has the best chance of making it through training as cheaply as possible, and that’s who they’ll hire.

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Mrs_Fagina@reddit

Yea, but who are the time builders and what were they doing beforehand?

The argument I'm making isn't that VFR straight line time building is beneficial. The argument I'm making is that time-building in a serious manner provides a larger knowledge base than the last 1,000 hours of flight instructing when it comes to transitioning to a 121 environment.

Now, are these time builders failing because of an inability to adapt to a crew environment? Are they failing because they can't fly SE?

Or are they failing because they can't even get through procedures because they're not studying?

I think there's a third bucket that we're just not seeing these days, and that's time building outside CFI that's serious in nature.

Because time builders are not taking it seriously (i.e. not doing anything challenging and just piddling around VFR), they're likely running into difficulty with training (which is what you're seeing).

HOWEVER, because that bar for current time building tendencies is so low, it makes CFI look somehow "professional" and we don't tack on any other requirements other than "dual given" to these guys. And when they can't operate in an unfamiliar environment, we just say "yea they're new" rather than "did they get the most out of actually being a CFI".

What we overlook is that CFIs are working the same areas, signing off on the same student flight plans, and doing the same 1.6 every day. That's not any more "professional" than any other type of flying outside of the first 200 hours as a CFI.

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godawgs695@reddit

I don’t disagree with you. As my comment states, there’s nothing super special about a CFI, I don’t think it sets you up to be an incredible airline pilot. But what it does do is show that you can communicate and know stuff well enough to be able to teach and apply it. But more importantly, to answer his original question, having basically any paying flying job at a minimum is better than flying around for the sake of building hours.

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sennais1@reddit

You're not being paid or hired to teach and apply as an FO. Nothing states that in the hiring requirements.

Now if there is someone else with real world charter and commercial considerations in their prior job flying the same if not more complex planes in a more complex environment that a flying school they'll get the job ahead of a CFI whose prior experience was being a student 10 times out of 10.

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godawgs695@reddit

You’re missing the point here. This whole post is talking about the difference between buying a plane and flying around to build hours vs instructing (or some other flying job). I’m not talking about the difference between instructing and flying charter, cargo, etc. I’d agree that is more valuable experience

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whydidilose@reddit

But what it does do is show that you can communicate and know stuff well enough to be able to teach and apply it.

How do you know that a CFI can effectively teach? They don’t publish or track pass rates for the students of each CFI do they?

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sennais1@reddit

The sub hates being told that being a generic student to CFI doesn't make them special. I've been in a hiring position and if you've got bush time, charter, freight, even RPT you're ahead of the rest. It's a no brainer. More relevant experience to the job in any game gets you ahead of the rest.

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Snowboarding_Pilot@reddit

Depends on the hiring manager. Some want to hire someone who sat right-seat while a student flew the pattern for 2 years? Some want to hire someone that spent 2 years actually flying an airplane into new air space and weather?

My buddy just got hired at an airline and was told they avoid CFIs. Another buddy was told they only hire CFIs.

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sennais1@reddit

The rest of the world being a CFI without charter or real world time is a red flag. CPL to charter (doing whatever) to CFI gets you hired. Not skipping the step in between.

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Anthem00@reddit

think about it this way - if you were an airline recruiter - do you hire the guy flying a 150 for 1000 hours to cross the requirements off, or someone who was actually training someone for those hours ? Also any company along the way isnt going to look at your time favorably, over the cfi either.

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Long-Positive3156@reddit

It depends how they are time building. Flying across the country on instrument flight plans, getting actual time(or sim with safety pilot), doing approaches and staying profiecient both flying and maintaining a strong knowledge of approach plates, SIDs, and STARs can’t look bad to recruiters.

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dodexahedron@reddit

Yeah. I'd think doing more than what you usually do as a CFI would be a lot more indicative of real-world experience - even for a II. Perhaps if you had a ton of MEI dual given you might have a leg up because of all the multi time.

But other than that, being CFI to 1500 is more kf a "just crossing it off the list" approach than doing your own flying, unless you just did like 50000 laps in the pattern or something useless. As a CFI, half the time you logged is exactly that kind of stuff, on good weather days.

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KITTYONFYRE@reddit

CFIs build soft skills/CRM skills in addition to plane skills

what do you think a captain is? a mentor and teacher.

you don’t have to CFI or anything but being a CFI gives far, FAR more value than if you flew solo and flew the exact same flights. you aren’t just beating up the pattern, you’re teaching someone else to beat up the pattern. don’t discount that experience.

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Ok_Witness179@reddit

But as a cfi, you're showing you can hold a job, and can work in a few environment. Those are two things the airlines care about a lot.

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dodexahedron@reddit

If you can afford to fly yourself for 1500 hours, theres a preeeettttty good chance you have a job.

If not.. Man, you'd have to be terribad with money lol.

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Ok_Witness179@reddit

Well for one: I've met my fair share of rich kids who can just fly their dad's airplane around and swipe his card for gas.

And two: even if you have a job, there's experience that comes with it being a flying job. Rich kids just fly whenever it's convenient and the weather is nice. Paid pilots fly when it's legal.

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JSTootell@reddit

I can't speak as an airline recruiter.

But as a professional in other fields (including 10 years military), I would definitely not favor a CFI.

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Arata_Takeyama@reddit

From my interaction with recruiters during outreach programs not really. Big thing they care about is the quality of the flight hours like ME/PIC but how you get it, be it via CFI, flying clubs, your own plane, etc, they really don’t factor it.

I feel the whole bias is just reddits head fiction because most of us realistically cant reliably build hours other than CFIing. Just like how this place demonize cadet programs, 141, accelerated programs, etc. it’s better to talk with recruiters directly because in the end they are the one picking you.

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KITTYONFYRE@reddit

Big thing they care about is the quality of the flight hours like ME/PIC but how you get it, be it via CFI, flying clubs, your own plane, etc, they really don’t factor it.

except dual given IS higher quality hours than putting around in your own plane.

but you don’t need 1250 dual given, either. total time is total time, and time building in your own plane does add SOMETHING. just not as much as being paid to fly in some manner

unless you own a twin, then yeah that’s pretty sweet and adds good value I think

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TravelerMSY@reddit

Yes.

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minfremi@reddit

Anything but pencil-whipping is fair game.

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xXgnhubnature@reddit

You can build time in a glider, totally underrated and you can get all your hours so much quicker. I’ve seen guys go 121/135 in less than two years solo to first day in the job. All for under 20k.

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spacecadet2399@reddit

Yes, they absolutely do and I'm telling you this from experience. Pilot jobs are competitive just like any other job. My airline hiring manager (who was also one of their chief pilots) actually told me a story about a guy who applied that had literally done the ATP requirements and then built all the rest of his time just flying around the pattern in his own plane at his own local untowered airport. Do you think he got the job? No. That was the question and answer the chief pilot actually gave me. He had the bare minimum of everything and had almost no experience flying to different airports under different conditions and different terrain with different people. He was just not a competitive candidate.

You don't need to be a CFI or military, but those are just two of the avenues that give you the kind of breadth of experience that makes you competitive. There are other types of flying that will do that too. But you can't just buy a plane and fly around locally on your own and expect to compete against CFI's, military guys, aerial firefighters, cargo pilots, etc. (In my hiring class, we had one pilot who flew multi-engine, single pilot cargo around Alaska. Good luck competing with that by flying around the pattern all day in your C172!)

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Affectionate_Aspect4@reddit

135s want multi time, 121 want PIC time at a multi company. So unless you have 200k spare to build hours, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

My situations a little weird, but where I'm at getting 50 hours of instruction time a month is tight, so to mitigate this I plan to fly 50 hours on my own dime split with someone else, until I land a part 135. Yes it'll cost about 45k out of pocket to hit 1450 hours by year 1 of instruction, but it's a lot better than it taking 2-3 years of instruction to hit 1500. Plan on doing it this way until 1500, about 1 year, then I plan on paying 25k for 200 hours of multi time (safety pilot/split) to give me a slight edge over the 50 hour competition, because in this industry money talks and everyone's competing with each other.

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MangledX@reddit

If you worked for a major airline and it was up to you to hire a guy who's NEVER had a professional paying job in aviation, are you taking the guy who taught, sought additional ratings and has collected a paycheck of any sort in the industry or the guy who's flown the same hour 1500 times in a VFR only 150 to fly to the same three airports?

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UNDR08@reddit

Airlines no. They turn you into the type of pilot they want you to be.

Part 91/Part 135’s tend to rely on your already established skills and experience. So they care more than part 121 does.

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Classic-Event3805@reddit

I’m in a cadet program and the recruiter literally said they don’t care. CFI is just a way to not pay for hours, stay proficient knowledge and sharing the passion of flying. Other than that. I think going a flying across the country, experiencing different kind of weather, flying approaches down to mins, getting actual time, make real decisions having to divert etc is 100% better than CFI. If your able to stay sharp on your knowledge. Because I’ve really had a CFI who did his instrument 141 tell me he never flew in a cloud for more than 10 seconds, good luck with that. I had a friend who bought an airplane and flew it everywhere we built almost 500h in a year. He had his CFI tho.

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Go_Loud762@reddit

For GA purposes, no.

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sennais1@reddit

Having hired in GA roles I'll take anyone who has done it off their own bat and done charter with real world commercial requirements than a student who became a CFI. It's just how it is when times are rough. You need an operator to get the job done.

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Apprehensive-Gift-36@reddit

Last year while at PAPA the Ceo of GoJet gave a speech on the hiring environment and forecast. He said they were looking for pilots showing a progression of experience steadily flying more advanced aircraft. He also said a priority was hiring pilots that had significant experience in class B environments and the indoc success rate was higher with pilots with substantial experience in SoCal, Phoenix, central Florida, etc.. 1500 hours flying in North Dakota produced pilots that were too easily task saturated with ATC.

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