Originally Posted by
gmcman30
I am currently working as a flight instructor and I'm interested in getting a Citation type rating. I know which planes are covered by each type rating, what I would like to find out is which type rating would make me most marketable. I know the 525 covers a newer generation of the CJ models but I don't know if thats a good thing or not since there might not be very many of them in service. Any information or suggestions would be appreciated.
I used my GI Bill to get a CE-500 type rating after I finished all my CFI ratings. The owner made me a deal and I got the CE-525 type as well. I had about 350 hours at the time and I thought the types would make me more marketable. I found plenty of places that needed type rated co-pilots but NONE would touch me until I had at least 1500TT. I got hired on at skywest before I got to 1500TT.
Like everyone else has said, it's a waste of money unless you have a decent amount of Total time and won't do much good unless you have time in type as well. There are lots of pilots with tons of time in type that are unemployed right now, so you'd be competing against them for the very few jobs available.
IF you decided to get one, I'd recommend the CE-500. It seems like there are more job openings for that type. I'd also recommend getting your ATP at the same time as the type rating, since it's the same checkride.
I made some good connections at an AOPA flight instructor refresher course. It might be worth going to one of those just for the networking.