While it may be good advice for many to not rush into a right seat job, I did so with barley 250 hours and am glad I did. The company I work for has a PIC under supervision program in place, so I simply gained 100 of the PIC hours I needed at work, and that left me short 20 hours PIC (you can only log 100 PIC hours as PICUS). I was more than happy to rent a 150 for $75/hr over a summer and go for joy rides with friends and family for those 20 hours to make the 250 PIC time for the ATPL (130 from training, 100 PICUS, 20 rental hours).
Within a few months of obtaining my ATPL, my company quickely upgraded me, as I had over 2700 hours on the 1900D with our company.
As anyone will tell you in this industry, there are 1001 ways to progress through your career, none is the 'correct' one. As has been said here, definitely consider your plan before pursuing a particular position, but it is not definitively an incorrect move to take a right seat job with minimal PIC time.
Question about upgrading to Captain
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the goal is soul
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Re: Question about upgrading to Captain
The world is changing…but Canada will be one of the last places to be affected.
In the US, the people coming out of the XYZ Academy with 250 hours and an RJ course get hired right into ExpressJet, Pinnacle, Colgan, etc. The airline gives them training, but stops short of the type rating, and they go onto the RJ, Saab, Embraer, whatever. You need to be 23 and have 1500 hours for an ATP (250 PIC), and once you’ve got that and your number comes up, the upgrade would be yours to lose. A big difference with their ATP requirements is that your SIC time gets accumulated towards your ATP requirements at 1:1.
A lot of people in the US feel that the ‘1500 hour rule’ is too great a knee-jerk reaction to the Colgan accident (The ‘knee-jerk’ part comes from the fact that both of the Colgan pilots met the proposed requirements when they crashed). The rule goes into effect in August, 2013 unless it gets altered or offers further alternative means of complying; as it stands, regionals have pilots flying now who will not meet those requirements next year.
Obviously Canada is much different, and I think that as we move forward, it is in large part what experience employers value (and can get), and the two-crew ATPL requirements of the types they operate that drive minimums instead of a ‘magic number and combination’ of hours that makes a good, safe pilot (feel free to disagree).
The US Regionals have already gone as low as they are legally allowed to, and the Europeans just recruit them from the start and train them for a specific job. It may never get quite that far here, and the change may be slow, but it is happening. Smaller operators are getting bigger airplanes, and it is much less common for low time and even entry level guys to go into Dash-8s and ATRs. I think in general though we all know that companies don’t NEED to hire these guys, but they choose to, for a variety of reasons. Are they doomed for a life of stunted career progression? Not all of them, even though our 2:1 SIC contribution to ATPL requirements can make our progression slow to a crawl as compared to the US. I work with one who is in the left seat and has never worked on anything other than 705 aircraft…everyone was geared up to hate the guy, but they can’t because he’s a really good guy, and a really good pilot. (We also have pilots with lots of time, ATPLs, and who are career FOs).
Lots of people fly 703/704 for a few years, upgrade for 500 hours, then go to Jazz and AC…sitting back in the right seat for the next 5-8 years.
You can’t argue with most of the points made here: you need to be strategic about your career; the industry is one big game of Frogger; you are likely to advance quickly if you can tick off more of the boxes on the application than the next guy, and the more time you spend in the left seat, the better off you'll be financially. Having said that, Flight hours aren’t the only indicator of experience and capability, Canadian ATPL requirements may be becoming anachronistic as the dynamics of the industry change, and the good people always seem to make it without too much trouble.
“Don’t hate the player, hate the game”
In the US, the people coming out of the XYZ Academy with 250 hours and an RJ course get hired right into ExpressJet, Pinnacle, Colgan, etc. The airline gives them training, but stops short of the type rating, and they go onto the RJ, Saab, Embraer, whatever. You need to be 23 and have 1500 hours for an ATP (250 PIC), and once you’ve got that and your number comes up, the upgrade would be yours to lose. A big difference with their ATP requirements is that your SIC time gets accumulated towards your ATP requirements at 1:1.
A lot of people in the US feel that the ‘1500 hour rule’ is too great a knee-jerk reaction to the Colgan accident (The ‘knee-jerk’ part comes from the fact that both of the Colgan pilots met the proposed requirements when they crashed). The rule goes into effect in August, 2013 unless it gets altered or offers further alternative means of complying; as it stands, regionals have pilots flying now who will not meet those requirements next year.
Obviously Canada is much different, and I think that as we move forward, it is in large part what experience employers value (and can get), and the two-crew ATPL requirements of the types they operate that drive minimums instead of a ‘magic number and combination’ of hours that makes a good, safe pilot (feel free to disagree).
The US Regionals have already gone as low as they are legally allowed to, and the Europeans just recruit them from the start and train them for a specific job. It may never get quite that far here, and the change may be slow, but it is happening. Smaller operators are getting bigger airplanes, and it is much less common for low time and even entry level guys to go into Dash-8s and ATRs. I think in general though we all know that companies don’t NEED to hire these guys, but they choose to, for a variety of reasons. Are they doomed for a life of stunted career progression? Not all of them, even though our 2:1 SIC contribution to ATPL requirements can make our progression slow to a crawl as compared to the US. I work with one who is in the left seat and has never worked on anything other than 705 aircraft…everyone was geared up to hate the guy, but they can’t because he’s a really good guy, and a really good pilot. (We also have pilots with lots of time, ATPLs, and who are career FOs).
Lots of people fly 703/704 for a few years, upgrade for 500 hours, then go to Jazz and AC…sitting back in the right seat for the next 5-8 years.
You can’t argue with most of the points made here: you need to be strategic about your career; the industry is one big game of Frogger; you are likely to advance quickly if you can tick off more of the boxes on the application than the next guy, and the more time you spend in the left seat, the better off you'll be financially. Having said that, Flight hours aren’t the only indicator of experience and capability, Canadian ATPL requirements may be becoming anachronistic as the dynamics of the industry change, and the good people always seem to make it without too much trouble.
“Don’t hate the player, hate the game”
Re: Question about upgrading to Captain
When you get to lets say AC, do they still look at hours, or is it basically promoted to Captain based on seniority? At this point everyone has a few thousand hours under his/her belt, and ATPLs are all checked off.
Pilot 1: Hired 1 year ago, 4000TT, 3000 MPIC the rest SIC, ATPL
Pilot 2: Hired 5 years ago, 3000TT, 500 MPIC the rest SIC, ATPL
Who would get the promotion first?
Pilot 1: Hired 1 year ago, 4000TT, 3000 MPIC the rest SIC, ATPL
Pilot 2: Hired 5 years ago, 3000TT, 500 MPIC the rest SIC, ATPL
Who would get the promotion first?
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just curious
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Re: Question about upgrading to Captain
Seniority number 3578 provided they bid for it. At the ACE level it is based on seniority.
Last edited by just curious on Tue May 29, 2012 9:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Stupid auto-correct on my phone
Reason: Stupid auto-correct on my phone
