I am a chief flight instructor at a part 61 flight school. I learned to fly there 3 years ago and got all of my ratings except for multi. The airport is a ma and pa type of place with a short field, too short to operate a twin. Here is my dilemma. I currently have a total of 930 hours, but only 7.2 hours of multi. I have been averaging about 65 hours a month. I am only one endorsement short of applying for the Gold Seal. I also have a 4 year degree. I have been looking at Great Lakes, and Piedmont thus far, but haven't been applying for others such as Expressjet and Skywest because I am afraid they would laugh at my multi time. There are a couple of options I am thinking of.
1. Keep applying for regionals and somebody ought to pick me up.
2. Resign my current position and start looking at working at a flight school with a twin operation (not at all desirable since I truly enjoy working here)
I am very lucky to not have any loans. Yes I definitely bragged about myself in this post, so I apologize for that. However, I am afraid that my "qualifications" won't suffice a hiring department at a regional due to my extremely low twin time. Any advice is appreciated.

 

You earned all of your ratings except MEI? If that's the case, and you are serious about airline flying I would suggest finding a flight school to build a little multi time while you earn your MEI. Then work for them for a few months in their twins to gain experience. Without recommendations and/or a great personality and face-to-face meeting with regional recruiters, I doubt they would look twice at you for a turbine twin FO job. I know there are fast track schools that will hire you to instruct almost immediately after earning your MEI with them. I was in your shoes once, with high SE PIC time and very little ME time. Its my personal opinion that the more your SE PIC time as an instructor out weighs your ME PIC time, the harder it will be for you to train and work together as SIC in a crew environment. Go get that twin time, don't wait for it to fall into your lap. Good luck.

 

Getting close, at this point you probably need 1500.

Almost irrelevant to the airlines. They want 1500, 100-200 ME, and a college degree.

Most likely.

You are in the classic ASEL CFI dilemma. This is why I advise people to attend a flight school which has significant ME training activity so when they get hired there they can eventually move up into the twins when they have seniority/experience.

The good news is that you only have 1000 TT. I have seen people in your shoes with 2700 TT / 7 ME.

The reality is that you have reached a career plateau that is limited by lack of ME. In order to advance you need to fix that. Options I see...

1. Find a side job flying twins. This is going to be real tough with 7 hours. To even freelance as an MEI you probably need 50-100 ME for FBO/club insurance.

2. Best bet is probably get the MEI and be prepared to move to wherever you can get an entry-level MEI job. Your previous CFI experience will help.

3. Buy some time.

4. Try to get on with a 135 op which will let you fly as an SIC initially and then move up. Or 135 PIC ASEL and then move into twins.

 

Thank you gents. It's time for me to work on my MEI...

 

There's an added advantage to building extra ME Pearl, using the excellent advice given above, which is that if you have say 200 hours of ME dual given you can choose a better regional to work for. With about 200 hours the selection looks a lot rosier. You can choose one of the better regionals to work for, say ASA/XJT/Skywest to name a few. If a regional is posting higher ME minimums, that would seem to indicate they are more serious about culling those applicants from the pile who are not ready to fly faster airplanes. It's to your advantage to avoid any regional (GLA/TSA to name a few) where they are playing fast and loose with pass/fail rates, because they are too cheap to spend 5 bucks on training. Even after you start fly the line, QOL will be somewhat better also.

 

Thank you Cub, yes, I am very seriously thinking about pursuing my MEI and then eventually moving on to another flight school with a twin or better, twins. I am just not enthusiastic about spending more on training, but I came this far, and if this is what it takes then, I should seriously pursue it.

 

Not sure where you live but there is an operation in liberal Kansas that is looking for a flight instructor/right seat guy. They are a 135/91 operator with multiple turbine aircraft and a jet. These guys will give low time guys a chance and you will work your butt off for the experience. Maybe an option let me know if you need more info

 

my two cents.

I was recently in a similar situation to you in that I was high total time for a cfi (1300tt) but low multi time (25) without access to a twin where I was working. I made the decision to suck it up and pay for my MEI and also buy a block of 25 hours of multi time with some money that I had saved over the last 2 years of instructing. I also got an internal rec from friend working at a regional around this time and the Multi time I had build (though still low) and the MEI got me an interview and eventually a job.

The MEI and Multi doesnt just boost your resume either, I went into the interview much more prepared for questions about Multi Engine flying which was a big part of the interview (vmc, systems, aerodynamics all were covered), so I would deff say that without getting myself at least a little more expierience I would probably not have gotten the job.

so my advice is if you really are itching to get to a regional and out of instructing (like I was) its worth the risk to change your situation to get that MEI and multi time. good luck

 

Thank you. Yes. I just got off the phone with an MEI who also works nights flying freight in a twin. He is willing to give me instruction at night for a very good price. At this point this is a good deal for me so I am going to go for it.