Originally Posted by
Hacker15e
"Literally" nothing to do? Or nothing to do that you can think of in the limited stovepipe of the CFI-to-regional-to-career-airline pipeline?
There are zillions of interesting things you can go find to do in aviation that don't require an ATP but will still be interesting work and will continue to advance your airmanship and development as a professional aviator. This is an opportunity to go off and explore those things without worrying that you're squandering away that precious seniority number that drives young pilots to take the shortest course possible to a regional right seat.
Go get an A&P. Go get a seaplane or glider rating. Tow banners, live on the beach, and get a bunch of taildragger time. Go up to Alaska and learn bush flying or fly old heavy cargo. Go to Vegas and fly Grand Canyon tours. Find an air tours operator and give rides to tourists in a biplane.
The options are only limited by your willingness to get out of your comfort zone and your imagination, which you'll have to open up to both seek out and find interesting and different flying jobs.
100% agree with you. I was telling all my buddies that are looking at furlough or are reaching ATP mins but have no regional to go to to look into applying for a cargo job up in the Dakotas with me.
All of them said, “hmm. I don’t think I can handle living like that. I’m gonna try my luck elsewhere.”
A lot had the impression that the furlough would be short and they would get the call back soon.
None of them are flying now and all of them are gonna be sitting for a while with no flying ahead of them. I mean, our place is shutting down once UAL gets the green light to push the 145s to C5.
It may feel like pure luck that I got a SA227 pic seat, but it really wasn’t. I was willing to move and pick up everything for it. I did the same thing when choosing a flight school and I did the same thing with goin up to Alaska and flying 135 ops.
I’d suggest to the OP the same thing as above: try something creative. Go look for a 135 gig in western Alaska. It is dangerous but it’s PIC time, and I’m not talking CFI PIC time. A lot of the guys I flew with up north respected that type of flying cause it’s still pretty pure. Not flashy, but necessary.
I really wish you some luck man. Good luck.
I have a CFI friend I’m trying to tell to take a 135 SIC SE Caravan gig right now... his response? I’m gonna wait until 1500 and I am not gonna leave my hometown to pursue it. Wow. Just absolute wow. So it’s still out there man.