Recency requirements
 

Greetings. I just hit 20 years active-duty USAF and thinking seriously about disenrolling from T6 PIT (the 3 year commitment is daunting) to retire and to go to the majors. I have 3000 hours + ATP but lack recency. A colleague of mine was hired two years ago by AA after being out of the cockpit for three years with no issues. I’m struggling to find recency requirements online… Can anyone shed some light on this? Many thanks in advance and pardon my ignorance if a thread covering this topic already exists.

Seriously? What a lot of retirees who have been flying a desk do is take a short stint in a regional. It’s another type rating, currency, and an introduction to the 121 world. And the pay - while not great - is fine since you’ll have a pension and won’t be there all that long anyway. Start putting out apps after six months. You may get an offer immediately, you may be there for 18 months. My guess is under a year, maybe less if you network aggressively with old squadron buds already in the industry.

I’d recommended what the above post suggests. Apply to all the majors you would want to work for right away, but plan on going to a regional to bridge the gap. Bail on the regional the second the first major calls.No way would I take a reserve gig... If I had my active 20, my chair would be spinning, but that’s your call.... there are pros and cons of staying in...

Most regionals, at least any decent one, will want to see recency of experience as well. Many wont hire without at least 100 hours in the last year.

Lol, no. They'll hire the OP immediately.

For reference, I spent my last year and a half on active duty on a pointless, non-flying staff tour. I applied to two regionals, got two interviews within 24 hours, and got offers at both right away. Started training with one, and got hired by AA while in training.

It depends on the person and the background (and the regional). If you haven't flown anything in 5+ years, and are low time based on number of years flying, it is pretty hard to get hired at a decent regional. Somewhere like Mesa or GoJet...no issues. But at a decent regional, it is hard to get hired with no currency at all.

If you have over 20yrs military and haven't flown in the last 5+ yrs, you either didn't like it, or weren't very good at it, or both.

Are you serious? The USAF was in the process of sending him to instruct brand new second lieutenants in jets. He was going to get three landings (or quite likely a takeoff, a landing, and two touch and goes) for currency, four days to read the training syllabus, and be back at work on Monday. as a supervisor.

Any regional - decent or otherwise - will fall all over themselves to hire him, even knowing he’ll probably be gone before he’s off probation. Compared to everyone else they’ve got coming in the door he is as close to a zero training risk as they’ve seen in a damn long time...

I disagree. Anyone can get sidetracked into “career broadening” jobs, service schools, joint service assignments, drone flying, and any of a number of other things rated officers are ordered to do. And for whatever reason, once you get past about 15 years the tendency is to just put up with the cr@p and leave at 20. Not to mention those gung-ho idiots who won’t leave before it’s obvious EVEN TO THEM that they’ll never make chief of staff.

And yes, Zoomies are seriously over represented in that latter category.

derp......