How to Build 500hrs

[magyar]

Can you tell me how a newbie pilot can build his first 500hrs. I have heard of things like banner towing, skydive drops, aierial photography, pipeline patrol, instructing, etc but consider the hundreds of pilots that are getting their CPL in Canada, surely i can tell you there are not millions of banners that need to be towed. So what are some more ideas on how newbies can build their initial hours.

[767]

pilot can build his first 500hrs. ///// instructing, //// build their initial hours.

If you want to instruct, dont worry about the hours you build. Just teach. For the other options, fly for the hours if you want.

[Sulako]

Go north or instruct.

[Adam Oke]

Glider towing is a great option.

[MJC]

Whatever you do, please do not instruct just to build hours.

[iflyforpie]

Whatever you do, please do not instruct just to build hours.

Why not? I suppose if you are going to do a half-assed job it is better to do it towing banners or gliders or pipeline patrol.

Just because you don't plan on spending the rest of your life as a flight instructor doesn't mean that you can't do a good job and build hours too. After all, how many of us had ab initio by career instructors?

[2R]

We learn by teaching.

You might be suprised at how much you learn trying to teach someone what you think you know.Try teaching a lump of wood how to do a chandelle or eights around a point .Pivotal altitude or some ground reference manuvers.Low level bad weather circuits/patterns .No matter how hard you try you will learn something every flight.Even if you do not want to.Resistence is futile .Pay attention and learn.
Most of the instructors who worked for me are all doing really well .You get out of it what you put in most times.
The most important thing to learn is to know when to shut up and enjoy the comfortable silence watching someone learn in spite of anything you are doing.

or try the BIC/Parker route

[mattedfred]

what licenses do you currently hold?

what are you building time toward?

my first commercial job was flying a champ on floats trapping minnows. i had just over 300 hours when i got hired.

[...]

Some now a days use this tool (pictured below) early in their careers to get that 1st, 2nd and sometimes 3rd job before moving on to AC.



Note the symbolism of using a fake Mont Blanc...

[Just another canuck]

I was gonna post last night but was too tired so I crashed.

what are you building time toward?

Ask yourself where you want to be in a few years, then take the most practical route in that sense. If you really want to fly floats, get on the dock. If you want to start bush flying, try to get into a 185 or 206 somewhere.

Whatever you do, please do not instruct just to build hours.

And don't listen to this nonsense. I would say don't instruct because there's quite a few companies that may not hire you for having been an instructor. I've seen instructors with 1000 hours on the ramp and I've seen them get turned away as well. Now, they shouldn't be on the ramp... that means they just don't want to look too hard for a flying job.

Anyway, if you want to instruct to build a bit of time, go ahead. What MJC said is just stupid... I mean, are you supposed to instruct to be a career instructor. Who the hell wants to do that?

Personally, If I had to do it again, I would go to a fair sized float company, who also does a lot of ski work in the winter. By mid-summer, you'll probably be on the 185 and hopefully can stick around for the winter. The following summer you're a full-time float pilot and maybe ski the following winter. Then if you want to transition to wheels, whatever the operation may be, it's no problem.

[Doc]

At the risk of starting a "debate" here, which is not my intention. I'd instruct. It's the fastest route to 500 hours. Or to 1000 hours for that matter. It'll also teach you a hell of a lot about flying. If you "go north" you will most likely end up on a ramp somewhere for a year or so, and be no closer to 500 hours, than you are now. Things "up north" have calmed down a little, making the ramp option harder to avoid...instruct. But, treat the job with the respect it deserves.

[MJC]

Whatever you do, please do not instruct just to build hours.

Why not? I suppose if you are going to do a half-assed job it is better to do it towing banners or gliders or pipeline patrol.

That was my point. If you want to instruct and will do the best you can, all the power to you. Just don't do it for the hours. You wouldn't be doing any favours for you or your students.

[magyar]

k. thanks for the replys people. The focus of was post was not whether or not i should take the ramp or instructing route but to give a better idea and direction as to what is really out there for people who are looking for a first job, more specifiaclly what the ratios are of newly liscenced CPL pilots to actual available flying jobs that people can get with 200hrs(because we all graduate with approx 200hrs NOT 500.)

It seems like even if you are on the ramp, skydive dropper, float pilot..etc people are still gonna generally want more that that 200.

[Hedley]

don't instruct because there's quite a few companies that may not hire you for having been an instructor

Sigh. I'm not sure that anyone here has a clue, but
we are heading into probably the deepest economic
turndown since the so-called "great depression" of
the 1930's.

This means that you could spend years and years
futilely working the ramp, "paying your dues" (ie
being taking advantage of as slave labour) without
ever seeing an airplane.

This is a bad time to start a career as a pilot. This
is a worse time to start working the ramp. If you
choose to work the ramp, in two years you very
probably will still be there. If you chose to instruct,
at the end of two years you will have a chunk of PIC
time in your logbook - if you can even find work
as an instructor!

Your choice.

[iflyforpie]

Think of all the aviators that started during the Great Depression (John Cunningham and Russ Bannock just to name a couple off the top of my head) and all of a sudden the current situation doesn't look all that bad. They didn't know how to flight depression back then. Everybody thought the early 80s or 1987 or 9/11 was going to be the start of another Great Depression and it wasn't.

The best time to be a pilot is right now. Just refuse to whore yourself out by flying for free or ridiculously low wages, buying PPCs, and working the ramp. I've never worked ramp, do all my flying below 60 and I do alright for only starting a few years ago 100% on merit.

[rigpiggy]

Think of all the aviators that started during the Great Depression (John Cunningham and Russ Bannock just to name a couple off the top of my head) and all of a sudden the current situation doesn't look all that bad.

Russ Bannock, DSO, DFC**

"I grew up in Edmonton and Edmonton was always known for aviation in those days. I was fascinated by the famous Canadian bush pilots Punch Dickens and Wop May. Wop May is actually the person who gave me my first reference to get into the air force. I went up to Yellowknife and got a job (prospecting) with an excavation crew. I came back to Edmonton for three months in the winter of 1938 and got my private pilot's license, and took a couple of mining courses at the university."

He had a commercial pilot's license by the following April and got a job with Yukon Southern Air Transport. In September, 1939 the war started.


Most of the guys back then started out doing something else. MacConachie, started with the CPR, and worked up north during the various layoffs.

[Strega]

Whatever you do, please do not instruct just to build hours.

Why not? I suppose if you are going to do a half-assed job it is better to do it towing banners or gliders or pipeline patrol.

Just because you don't plan on spending the rest of your life as a flight instructor doesn't mean that you can't do a good job and build hours too. After all, how many of us had ab initio by career instructors?

When you do a half assed job of towing a banner, it does not carry over to the future pilots you would be giving half assed instruction to.

[Strega]

Some now a days use this tool (pictured below) early in their careers to get that 1st, 2nd and sometimes 3rd job before moving on to AC.

You can fool everyone, your boss, your friends, your wife.. But in the end, you CANNOT fool yourself, edited by Doc.

[Hoov]

Some now a days use this tool (pictured below) early in their careers to get that 1st, 2nd and sometimes 3rd job before moving on to AC.

You can fool everyone, your boss, your friends, your wife.. But in the end, you CANNOT fool yourself, another edit by Doc.

Wow you're a real class act, that is quite the accusation there.

[Hoov]

Didn't think it would take to long to edit that one out.

[767]

Once again.... Do not instruct to build hours. If you want to build the hours only, go elsewhere. grrr

[Just another canuck]

Once again.... Do not instruct to build hours. If you want to build the hours only, go elsewhere. grrr

Once again, there are very few career instructors out there. I would guess very close to a hundred percent are there to "build hours". If the instructing side of aviation only had career instructors there wouldn't be any out there. To quote Doc " treat the job with respect". That's all.

[THEICEMAN]

don't instruct because there's quite a few companies that may not hire you for having been an instructor

And who might these companies be??

[Just another canuck]

Well, I'll say again say ask yourself where you want to be in a few years. If you want to get in to bush flying say, in the mountains up in the Yukon, instructing would probably a poor choice to start.

That said, one of my old bosses exact words "When an instructor shows up here looking for a job, I have a hard time not laughing him out of the building." He would add that if he has a good attitude, he can work the ramp like the rest of the 200 hour guys. He and a few others I've spoken with have had bad experiences with instructors coming from instructing to bush flying. They spit out rules and procedures that should have been left back in the circuit where they came from. I flew the Caravan overseas myself in one of the most challenging environments out there. We flew it two crew and when I got FO's who were ex-instructors, it nearly drove me mad at times. It actually became a liability at times because they would be getting nervous or maybe angry with my decisions... and not because I was unsafe but because I was doing things that might not be acceptable in some other areas of aviation.

There have been guys on the ramp at Tindi with 1000 hours... all instructing. Why are they on the ramp?

Here's another point to think about? If a guy with 1500 hours and ATPL, which was achieved from instructing, showed up on your door to fly your Caravan, would you hire him? Maybe... if it was sealed runway work, but what if your in grass or gravel strips? I would rather put the rampy who's been flying around with me into those places in the left seat, even though he may only have say... oh 700 hours.

There's nothing wrong with instructing, but some operators don't respect it... I mean, you're not even flying the plane close to 100% of the time. You know the Air Law really good though.

[kevinsky18]

I'll pipe up as the 1% out there that loves teaching.

I'd be a career instructor if I could make a living at it. I really truly love teaching. So much so that I still teach part-time even though after fifteen years of flying I have a great paying job and my own plane which I can fly anytime I want.

Maybe 40-50% of my time over all these years is instruction the rest was split between flying up north, on the prairies out on the Pacific Coast and BC interior.

I would hire an instructor. They do have positives. No matter how you look at it a 500-1000hr instructor is going to be sharper than a 200hr gradute. They've spent every flight practicing emergency procedures, making mutiple landings and basically hammering in all the basics over and over again. Instructors tend to be a fair bit quicker on the up take when learning to fly new machines do to the strong base skills and the bag of learning techniques they have perfected. To those who think they aren't flying the plane much the exact opposite is true. Instructors are flying the plane twice as much. Instructors are mentally flying the plane in their heads as it should be flown and also flying it from the students perspective in order to anticipate any wild any crazy maneuvers they might make. Of all the flying I’ve done, teaching required the most concentration and skill, after all it’s much easier to recover from your own mistakes than from someone elses.

That said I've bumped into a number of instructors that have made me just shake my head and feel embarrassed to admit I belong to the group.

If you become an instructor and then go up north to get a job here’s the formula for success: First shut up, second watch, third listen, and then after about six months you can open your mouth but make sure it's not to the chief pilot, practice on a rampie first if he gives you a funny look then go back to above mentioned procedure for another month or two.

I'm not saying that Instructors need to unlearn and forget everything. They learn lost of good techniques and skills. They just need to realize that these skills and techniques are only 20% of what there is to know about flying and opening their mouths with the attitude that they know everything only makes them look foolish.