Originally Posted by
FlyJSH
There still are freight jobs. Mountain Air, Ameriflight, AirNow, Flight Express, Star Check, and others still occasionally post job openings. Not many, but more than any of the regionals. You probably will end up living in Toad Lick, Arkansas and wont be able to commute. They pay better and have higher standards because they need Captains who can (or could) hand fly an NDB in non-radar environment , not "captains in training".
You keep asking where are these 135 jobs. How many aviation job boards have you joined? I have been a member of Climbto350, Avianation, WillFlyForFood, FindaPilot, and US PIlot at various times. How many FBOs have you gone to and passed out resumes?
And you said the only offers you had were "crappy" CFI jobs. Crappy how? not many hours? Low pay? Old ratty airplanes? Well, guess what.... that is what many of us had to deal with.
Sorry if I sound unsympathetic, but it can be done if one works hard enough.
Here we go again with the "I did it this way so you should too".
And talk about a waste of money, those aviation job boards are useless.
And yea, the CFI job compared to the regional job was craptacular. Old airplanes, shoddy mx, low pay, the whole shabang. Would I have taken the job if I had nothing else lined up?... yes. But I did, so I didn't and I'm thankful I didn't have to go through it. Would I have learned a couple of things doin patterns and steep turns in a 172 all day? Maybe, but I've learned much more where I am today. And I know all the naysayers out there are gonna say, "LEARNED? you shouldn't be just learning things when you're at a 121 with pax in the back!!!!" BULL, you learn new things almost every trip no matter how many hours you have, and I'm not talking about the basics like how to pick up clnc at an uncontrolled field. By the time you have your CFI or commercial you should know that (hell you should know that before you have your private) and if you don't that's where the training department should come in and kick your asz to the curb.
Just the other day a captain gave me some pointers on how to land without a yaw damper in a gusty crosswind. Now, would I have learned that CFIng it, or flying some checks around in a Baron? No. And it's a two way street, I showed him that there was multiple ways to identify the FAF on our LOC approach when the VOR was out (seemed kinda obvious to me but I guess even with his 10,000 + hours of experience he didn't know that there was).
All I'm saying is that from my perspective it doesn't make sense to put a minimum number of hours to sit in the right seat 121. It should be left up to the carrier's training department with strict oversight from the FAA on who gets to become and stay an airline pilot.