Originally Posted by
Ken88
Question:
So I had completed my PPL a year prior and after leaving the military decided to go to a prominent accelerated flight school to get my ratings quickly and boom 4 busts in record time: IR oral, IR flight retest, CMEL(initial)x 2. I decided to leave this training establishment after these bust due to finances because there was a lot of delays with weather, and the busts didn't help either. I have been working maintenance side for the past 1.5 to 2 years (I am also A&P ).
All my checkrides have been with the same examiner including my PPL which I passed first time. I ended up having to get another examiner for my final recheck for commercial multi. I didn't have much say in DPE choice, the school just set you up how they wanted to and availability in the area. I could go into details on all these busts but that's not why I am here. I have learned from them despite how unfortunate. I am just seeking some advice on if it makes sense to even try to fly for a living. Would getting my ASEL add on, CFI, CF-II without failure make me more marketable? or would it make more sense to just build some time and try to get on right seat with a Part 135 operator or something like that? I don't have an issue with the airlines, but the end goal for me is more like being the captain on a G-VI or Global flying around the world. Or do I need to give up, fly for fun and just be the best mechanic I can be?
Honestly... airlines (majors) are frankly looking pretty grim for you right, for the mid-term, any that hire will have their pick of fully experienced airline pilots with multiple types, and few or zero busts.
The retirements are still out there, so they might loosen up standards in 5-8 years but it's also possible that the covid carnage will drag out for so long that it nullifies much of the retirement bubble. I think the later would be the extreme case, more likely that there will still be some retirement-driven hiring mid-late in the decade.
Corporate might make more sense for you, that tends to be somewhat more personality driven (who you know) as opposed to being filtered by a computer from a stack of 10K applications. Also.., any aviation profession knows that it's possible for a young person to struggle with initial training for any of several reasons, but still go on the acquire lots of professional experience and a very solid track record with all necessary lessons learned. Corporate will likely hire someone like that (I would personally). Majors on the other hand are concerned at the HR and legal level about how your past record (which can never be erased) will appear in the media and courtrooms in the event of a serious accident (reference Colgan).