a fan wrote: ↑Sun Jul 09, 2023 9:56 pm
old salt wrote: ↑Sun Jul 09, 2023 9:43 pm
youthathletics wrote: ↑Sun Jul 09, 2023 8:43 pm
The pay and hours must be really bad. There has to be 100’s of military pilots each year leaving the Service for civilian life. You’d think that’d be an easy transition opportunity.
It's never been this easy before. The 1500 flt hr rqmt for an ATP rating is reduced to 750 flt hrs for former military pilots.
The accredited BS degree programs reduce it to 1000 hrs, the AA degree programs to 1250 hrs.
Most military pilots fullfill their military service obligation by age 30-35. That leaves 30+ years for an airline career with mandatory retirement at age 65 (soon to be 67). Plenty of time to advance to Capt & gain the seniority necessary to better control your sched, reduce days away from domicile base, & enjoy the benefits of the job. Advancement is much faster now due to the increasing number of retirements. Many military pilots keep flying in the Reserves or National Guard, earning a second retirement. The military is scrambling, offering more bonuses & assignment perks to retain pilots.
It's not worth pursuing, unless you really love to fly.
Pay :
https://atpflightschool.com/become-a-pi ... alary.html
So the FAA is reducing how many hours you need to fly commercial? Are there different requirements for different planes? I'm guessing (have no clue) that the requirements go up based on how many souls are on board? Or am I just makin' stuff up that has no basis?
For a scheduled airline (operating under FAR part 121) the requirement for the Capt (Pilot in Command) has always been, & remains 1500 hrs for the ATP rating. For aircraft > 12,500# (virtually all sched airlines) a FAA type rating for that model acft is also reqd. The training for a Type Rating in each model aircraft is quite extensive. It a requires a separate, recurring FAA check ride for each model flown.
The bottleneck now is the rqmt for new hire First Officers (copilot). It used to be just a commercial pilot cert with instrument & multi-engine rating. By the time of the Buffalo crash in 2010, the pilot shortage had forced the Regional Airlines to hire pilots with as low as 250 hrs & forcing the pilots to pay up to $10k for their company flight & simulator training to get a job paying $20k/yr at entry level. It was a way for new pilots to gain the necessary experience to be attractive to a major airline. The Regionals became the primary farm team for the expanding major airlines & a reducing number of military pilots.
After the Buffalo crash, both Capts & FO's had to have a 1500 hr ATP, making it increasingly harder for the Regionals to hire 1500 hr pilots to feed the majors. Mandatory retirement age was increased from 60 to 65. Then the ARP Restricted rating was established, based on the reduced experience listed in my post. The Regional Airlines want to further reduce the R-ATP hours requirement, giving more credit for airline pilot simulator hours & FAA approved structured training programs. I agree with this reduction. The 1500 hr ATP FO requirement was overkill. There are few paying opportunities for a new non-military pilot to get from the 200 hr to the 1500 hrs. Pilots who couldn't get a rare job flight instructing were partnering to purchase clapped out small general aviation aircraft, just boring holes in the sky, time building, in pursuit of the 1500 hr mark. A structured program, teaching dual pilot cockpit crew ops, with access to high quality simulators, which can simulate emergencies, systems failures & all weather conditions are much more valuable than "time building". European airlines have long done it this way.
https://www.raa.org/raa-testifies-at-ho ... -training/
The pilot's union for the Major Airlines (ALPA) opposes any measure that increases the number of qualified job applicants.
They like the pilot shortage just fine... they got theirs.
https://www.raa.org/alpa-pilot-shortage ... he-record/
https://www.raa.org/wp-content/uploads/ ... -2022_.pdf
see below -- path 3 allows the reduced hrs already in place for the R-ATP rating.
payhs 3+4 are used by foreign aitrlines.
https://clearedtodream.org/become-an-ai ... come-pilot