Originally Posted by
Bellanca
This is the biggest issue right here.
There are fewer time building jobs all around. The number of students has really dropped off in the last ten years, and continues to drop off. Also, the number of people looking to get only private/instrument has fallen off drastically with $6/gal 100LL. So now the instructing profession is like a ponzi scheme. For an instructor to get 1500 hours they are virtually going to have to take 10 other pilots from 0 hours through commercial. Then those 10 wet commercials need another 100 pilots to get themselves up to ATP mins... It is unsustainable. Not to mention, getting 500 hours of 50nm cross country is going to be quite a feat for most people doing most traditional time-building jobs.
Fortunately for me, I'll be close to ATP mins by the time the law goes into effect, but for any wet commericals/CFI's the low-time job market is going to become completely stagnant.
My only personal concern is about the new ATP training that was discussed in the NPRM. It appeared that the ATP cert was going to require quite a few hours of high level (expensive) sim time, and was going to be way more involved than just buying some hours in a light twin and taking a checkride (which is already pretty expensive). I'm not sure I'll be able to swing it on my CFI pay if I have to drop another $5,000-$10,000 +++ on my own flight training in order to go to the airlines.
The 50NM requirement is does NOT apply to the ATP. the 500 hrs is point to point. I forget the exact wording in the FAR but under the subpart of 61 that pertains to the ATP it says it in there. Very similar to this is the "Solo" cross country requirement for the Comm. cert. it is not solo in that you are the sole occupant of the airplane, it means solo as in not dual instruction. The only definition of solo found in part 61 is under the subpart for student pilots and the definition states "For this subpart only"
So for the 500 hours of cross country time for the ATP, ANY flight that you had where you landed at another airport regardless of distance between the two is a cross country flight