de727ups,

Good Reply!

Clarification on my part -- my 30% comment was that 30% (just a swag, so it's wrong) of the people in the US getting a pilot license are those folks (Europeans, Sings, etc...) sponsored by an overseas airline. At the local school here, everyone in training is on an overseas sponsorship and is not a US citizen. Sorry for the poor wording on my part. I agree that the percentage of US citizens in a similar program is low. Since there is a ready pool of folks here, there is minimal reason for an airline to do it (whereas in Europe/elsewhere the costs are too high).

I agree that flight time is flight time, but I have trouble with the infernal that a successful CFI will be a successful airline pilot or a successful military pilot and vice versa. We all have stories about this - in my case the one guy from my primary class of 12 at VT-27 that got booted was a 2200 hr CFI/banner tow guy, he was by all accounts a great stick, but he could not adapt to flying in a structured environment (NATOPS, which is just the Navy's OPSPECS). All of us with 0 flight time at the start of the program did fine, as we didn't have the private paradigm to break and they taught us what we needed to know (just and example, there are many more folks with prior flight time who do just fine). How many folks do UPS, SWA, FedEx, Cathay, etc. pick up with just CFI time? Not many, so you should jump to the 121 world as fast as one can to build relevant experience, if that is one's goal.

In light of that - if someone is looking to get to the airlines in a shortest amount of time on the GI Bill, it does not make much sense for someone to CFI for 2 years outside of one of those programs, and they'll get hired just the same, or even easier due to the tie-ins/training standards. One is giving up too much seniority and 121 experience to fart around being a CFI just because it's the "noble" thing to do.

If you don't get hired, fine, go instruct at a part 61 school.....

Spongebob