Bridging the gap
Hello,
I'm new here but have lurked for a while around the forums.
I have a few questions about filling in the gap between a Commercial Multi ticket with ~300 hours and a Job with Corporate/135/Fractional.
That gap is quite a large one, including some rather exotic equipment requirements (1500-3000 TT, +100 Turbine, +500 Multi) for me anyways. This kind of time I certainly haven't the money to buy, and work experience is part of what makes that time valuable. But how can that be done?
I have currently been flying for 7 1/2 years (I'm 27), two of which now have been in difficult pursuit of CFI. I'm at the point now where I can parrot what my Instructor wants, and produce a lesson plan biased on a pre-made outline, but I just don't feel like a CFI. I remember things funny (more sort of pictures than words) and don't have that drop of the hat confidence on supplying the subject matter to a student for PTS knowledge (you know, that perfect textbook rote that I've always gotten from all of my Instructors.) I just don't seem to think like a teacher.
If I do manage to finish my CFI I may be able to get a job as an instructor at KSU where I'm studying now. If I do that where does the Turbine time come from? Kent sure doesn't have one, and it seems like the only way to get a job with turbine time is to already have a lot of turbine time. And I'm not interested in Kent's Budy-Budy Express Jet agreement.
If I can't manage to get CFI what else is out there? To my perspective Cleveland seems like a wasteland for jobs, there's almost no banner, or parachute, or crop duster operations in the area, and really none of that gives you Turbine and Multi anyways (except in rare instances which don't seem to apply here in NE Ohio.) In the current environment is there even an alternative to CFI for establishing a jet career?
Thanks for any help in advance.