How I Wish I Got To 1,500 Hours

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supertrooper2002

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supertrooper2002
I'm a newish pilot with ~350 hrs of single engine time and a CFI. I'm trying to figure out how to get to 1,500 hrs for an ATP. Assuming free access to a 172, what are flying activities (actual IFR, cross-country, Class B touch-and-go's, teaching, etc) that I should pursue that get the needed hours but also teach valuable skills that might be useful as a professional pilot and look good on a resume?
 
Cross countries to places you’ve never been. Stretch on airspace complexity, terrain, etc.

I also like doing “airport tours”. I plan a flight to 8-10 airports, and land or touch and go at each one. I mix in towered and untowered. The closer together you make them the better for exercising your arrival departure skills and it forces you to plan so you can stay ahead of the flight. You may have to reduce the number of airports, or repeat some depending on where you fly. In Florida I can hit 8 airports in 100 mile radius, not as easy out west.
 
Teach the fundamentals and get paid for it. Drilling holes in the sky with the wings level isn't worth much to me, especially if you have to buy the gas yourself.
 
I'm not commercially rated and dont plan to be. But my read is that there is not much one can do in a 172 to stand out apart from others. I bet it is other time that is more important, multi engine, prop, jet, along with connections made along the way.
 
Last week I was listening to two pipeline guys talking about their days, on air.
7-8 hours days being logged sounds like the fastest way to 1500hrs to me.
(with no comment on the quality of those hours)
Anything else, like cfi work, is going to take at least 2x longer.
 
I have a CPL and have never used it. I have flown quite a bit as a means of travel to where I needed to be for work or because of where I worked. Lots of long cross-country in a slow four-seater. No autopilot. :(
Loved every minute of it.
Even got stuck overnight because I could not self-fuel while flying home while fighting an awful headwind. Still enjoyed it.
Tennessee to Upstate NY to Wisconsin to Washington, D.C. to Tennessee over a two-week stretch. Great cross-country experience. 1/4 of it was actual IFR. Repeated trips from Tennessee to Kansas & back. Lots of night. Tennessee to Orlando & back. Good, solid trips.
I would hope that trips like that would mean more than hamburger runs.
 
What is your end goal? Are you wanting to fly airliners? Then, get the hours as quick and cheap as you can. Working as a CFI or pipeline checks that box. When the regionals need pilots, all they care about is min hours and fog a mirror.

If you want an ATP for personal satisfaction only, then go play around with different types of aircraft and enjoy the ride.
 
Florida Flyer said:
Flying 1000 plus hour in the patten teaching is the last pilot I would consider for a job. 1000 hours in your own plane flying cross countries to different airports and airspaces is the pilot I want!
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Usually, probably yes. But I saw a flip side once that really made me scratch my head.

Years ago, I had an instrument student. Had about 1000 hours of VFR flying-around time when he decided to get his instrument rating. However, this guy's spatial awareness, ability to hold a heading, and ability to hold an altitude were practically non-existent. Heading would get 30, 40+ degrees off and altitude by hundreds of feet before he'd even notice (even without the hood on). Navigation was a real challenge. Multi-tasking was a real problem. Basically, I couldn't figure out how this guy had flown for 1000 hours and actually got anywhere. I'm not sure what he did during those 1000 hours. The impression I had was he just wandered around the sky and eventually ended up somewhere. Comm wasn't great, either, I don't think he ever used flight following in those 1000 hours.

I'd take a CFI with 1000 hours of laps around the pattern over him any day.

So not all 1000-hour XC-flying pilots are the type you'd rather hire.
 
RussR said:
Basically, I couldn't figure out how this guy had flown for 1000 hours and actually got anywhere. I'm not sure what he did during those 1000 hours. The impression I had was he just wandered around the sky and eventually ended up somewhere.
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The Art of Zen Flying...

Similar to Zen Driving: "I get behind someone who looks like they know where they are going. I never end up where I was going, but I always end up somewhere I wanted to be."
 
It looks like there are two schools of thought forming in this thread:
A. Stay in the pattern
B. Go someplace.

Why not both? Get yourself a student and fly the pattern. Then x-c the balance of your day, assuming “free access to a 172”. Buddy up with another time building pilot and your free 172 will cost half as much.
 
EdFred said:
I got to 1500 hour with the VAST majority of it being on my own dime. I've seen all 48 contiguous states, but apparently Russ would rather fly with a CFI than me.
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If you are like the pilot I described, then you are correct. I would much rather fly with just about any CFI than him. The guy showed very minimal piloting "skills". Really, truly bad. It was like riding on a roller coaster.

But I doubt you're like that. I got to about 1000 hours same as you, and most of us learn something about aviation in those 1000 or 1500 hours.
 
Personally I've enjoyed racking up ~800ish hours over the last ~5yrs while spending on my own dime and going to destinations of my choice.
What I enjoy about it is that I am the one doing all the planning and flying; every one of those flying hours after the PPL check-ride is real time at the controls making all of the decisions (helps that I don't have an AP so I can't just take off and zone out :D ).
I also see value in going to new places. New airports, new airspaces, fly around new terrain and talk to new controllers. Just encountering new experiences and situations is valuable IMHO.

I could be mistaken - but that seems a lot more useful than riding right seat with a rotating cast of newbies. I would *hope* that IRL as a professional ATP that your primary job is not supervising the captain and grabbing the yoke when he's about to kill you both, while flying the same approach and landing at the same airport for the 1000th time. Then again it seems most pilots take the CFI route and our collective air safety record is pretty solid, so maybe there's something to that method of development.
 
The majority of my ~1650ish hours were done on my own time and dime. A good two-thirds of it was XC time trying to build good experience going to unfamiliar places. Only about 200 hours of it is CFI time, but arguably some of the most valuable time I’ve received.

If I were you, get your CFI for the opportunities and experience you’ll gain, but do try to get as much XC time as you can. That’s where the real world experience comes from.
 
ArrowFlyer86 said:
Personally I've enjoyed racking up ~800ish hours over the last ~5yrs while spending on my own dime and going to destinations of my choice.
What I enjoy about it is that I am the one doing all the planning and flying; every one of those flying hours after the PPL check-ride is real time at the controls making all of the decisions (helps that I don't have an AP so I can't just take off and zone out :D ).
I also see value in going to new places. New airports, new airspaces, fly around new terrain and talk to new controllers. Just encountering new experiences and situations is valuable IMHO.

I could be mistaken - but that seems a lot more useful than riding right seat with a rotating cast of newbies. I would *hope* that IRL as a professional ATP that your primary job is not supervising the captain and grabbing the yoke when he's about to kill you both, while flying the same approach and landing at the same airport for the 1000th time. Then again it seems most pilots take the CFI route and our collective air safety record is pretty solid, so maybe there's something to that method of development.
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There are valuable things to learn both ways, and airline flying seems to have resemblances to both. I used to know one airline pilot who retired as the senior pilot in 747s, and he spent the last 20 years of his career flying between the same two airports.
 
1500 wasn't really a thing in my day*, but I instructed in college and did both that *and* dicked around by flying anything I could weasel my way into. I wrote some code back then too, so that helped pay for a Duchess I'd use to take girls to dinner when I had some extra cash. The various cross countries on my own terms were a ton of fun, but instructing was really valuable (I did mostly instrument and multi), and I'm glad I did it.

*the industry was in the toilet, so if a job required an ATP, it also required a hell of a lot more than 1500 hours. That said, you could also be a regional FO without the ATP - not that you wanted to at $20K/yr. :p
 
RyanB said:
Only about 200 hours of it is CFI time, but arguably some of the most valuable time I’ve received.

If I were you, get your CFI for the opportunities and experience you’ll gain, but do try to get as much XC time as you can. That’s where the real world experience comes from.
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Teaching is incredibly valuable to a point. In flight instruction, I would estimate that anything up to 500 hours doing primary flight and Instrument training is well spent. Past that, you would need to branch out into specialized instruction to keep making significant gains in experience.
Just my humble opinion as a non-CFI, but having spent years operating and teaching the operation of nuclear reactors.
 
Airlines don't care if you CFI or tour the country. Its all about dem hours.

Also no one is getting hired at a regional or legacy at 1500 anymore. Them days are long gone. Only thing Delta is hiring is Flight Attendants.
 
According to one video I watched an airline executive was asked who was most likely to pass initial training. The group with the highest pass rate were people who spent their entire time in the 141 world and the group with the highest fail rate were people who spent their time flying their own planes and looking for a second career.

I don't think 141 pilots are better pilots but just more prepared for the classroom work and more motivated by 100k in student loan debt.
 
soarohio said:
According to one video I watched an airline executive was asked who was most likely to pass initial training. The group with the highest pass rate were people who spent their entire time in the 141 world and the group with the highest fail rate were people who spent their time flying their own planes and looking for a second career.

I don't think 141 pilots are better pilots but just more prepared for the classroom work and more motivated by 100k in student loan debt.
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People that own their own planes and did 1500 hours that way on their own dime are probably older than the people that went 141 zero to hero. As you get older it's generally harder to drink from the fire hose.
 
ArrowFlyer86 said:
I could be mistaken - but that seems a lot more useful than riding right seat with a rotating cast of newbies. I would *hope* that IRL as a professional ATP that your primary job is not supervising the captain and grabbing the yoke when he's about to kill you both, while flying the same approach and landing at the same airport for the 1000th time. Then again it seems most pilots take the CFI route and our collective air safety record is pretty solid, so maybe there's something to that method of development.
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I did like you for years. Flying where I wanted, flight planning, building cross country time going here, there and everywhere. As far as gaining real world experience, it was a rock solid way to build time. That said, I can tell you that doing CFI work has been tremendously beneficial, more so than one would think. I think having the combination of both worlds has made me a better pilot all around.
 
soarohio said:
According to one video I watched an airline executive was asked who was most likely to pass initial training. The group with the highest pass rate were people who spent their entire time in the 141 world and the group with the highest fail rate were people who spent their time flying their own planes and looking for a second career.

I don't think 141 pilots are better pilots but just more prepared for the classroom work and more motivated by 100k in student loan debt.
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They also haven’t had as much opportunity to forget the fundamentals that @dtuuri mentioned in Post #3. It never ceases to amaze me how difficult people find it to operate a jet like it’s an airplane.
 
supertrooper2002 said:
I'm a newish pilot with ~350 hrs of single engine time and a CFI. I'm trying to figure out how to get to 1,500 hrs for an ATP. Assuming free access to a 172, what are flying activities (actual IFR, cross-country, Class B touch-and-go's, teaching, etc) that I should pursue that get the needed hours but also teach valuable skills that might be useful as a professional pilot and look good on a resume?
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Go to faraway places! I learned a lot by getting far away from home (500+ miles), seeing different terrain, different weather, and working with different controllers.

And seek out additional training opportunities. One of the best I've had was the mountain and backcountry flying course at mountaincanyonflying.com in McCall, ID. So, I'd recommend that. Then, fly to Alaska and get a seaplane rating, fly to Marfa, TX and get a glider rating. Hit both coasts, high and low airports (I have both the highest and lowest in my logbook), dirt, gravel, grass, asphalt and concrete, just get the widest variety of experience you can.

Also, be sure you get lots of instrument time and do lots of IFR (not in the mountains though).

Once you have well over 1000 hours, sell the 172 and buy a twin. Multi time isn't easy to get these days, but it'll make a big difference in what jobs you're able to get.

And, do some teaching too. You'll learn from it as well.

NorthEast Ohio said:
It looks like there are two schools of thought forming in this thread:
A. Stay in the pattern
B. Go someplace.

Why not both? Get yourself a student and fly the pattern. Then x-c the balance of your day, assuming “free access to a 172”. Buddy up with another time building pilot and your free 172 will cost half as much.
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XC that you can do in half a day isn't gonna be worth much. You need to go on much longer trips to really get the value from XC.
 
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