CFI/CFII advice
 

Thanks for your time and your advice I really appreciate it. I graduated with my masters degree back in June and decided to move to San Diego to peruse a flight instructing job. Since then I have logged 1,050 tt and only 20 hours of multi. I'm paying my college loans, so perusing my MEI is a little tough. Also someone told me to split cost with another student, but I don't feel like dropping $8,000 to get the magic 100 of multi that airlines want. I've always wanted to fly for an airline, but I got some financing that is working against me. Any career advice that will help me be more competitive?

Get yourself to 50 hours multi and see if anyone will hire you. Might as well get your MEI on the way to 50 hours.

IMHO, you're going nowhere without 50 hours multi

Yes you need to buy your first 50 hours. Get your MEI- that's the deal everyone faces. Do it on your credit card if you must, but you will not need a time builder package after that if you get your MEI and actively shop it around. It's one of those things you just have to buy to get into the business, an MEI. It's hard to swing, I agree- but there are many gates in life and an MEI is one of them. An MEI is kid's play as far as flying complex aircraft is concerned, just an introduction. Ideally, an MEI is followed by 200 hours of dual- given in twins, although not many people get that many hours before landing paid positions.

I've been debating about going the cargo route to get my multi time up. I just wonder how airlines feel with pilots getting multi time as a safety pilot. Lol kind of a toss up decision I have to make.

I remember years ago waiting nervously in a room with other interviewees for my first regional airline interview. There was some polite discussion about background and flight experience, and one guy in particular was talking about all the multi time he had. He had done some time building program with another pilot and split the "safety pilot" hours and PIC hours. When they reviewed his logbook and asked about the massive amount of recent multi engine hours, he tried to explain the program, but they literally laughed him out of the room.

Other times they may be so desperate for pilots that they don't care.

Food for thought

Yeah I'm not sure. My parents said they would be interested in investing for my multi engine time. But I don't want to be laughed out of any rooms. I know with the new ATP rules might be hard for regionals to pick and choose. But if I get my mei might take me along time since not a huge demand here.

I have heard of a few places that frown on ME time-sharing programs, but most regionals are OK with it.

Basically the idea is one pilot flies simulated IFR (hood) and the other is SP, which is legal per the FAR's.

A couple of gotchas...

- If you go IMC while doing this, the SP is no longer a legally required crew-member. It would be really dumb to log IMC and SP at the same time.

- SP time is only valid when the hood is actually being worn, so both pilots cannot log the entire flight. The pilot flying logs the entire flight, but the safety has to subtract some time for taxi, runup, TO, LDG when the hood is obviously not worn.

That last one can be a real problem...the folks selling this kind of time will want you to log all of it, but if you pay for 100 hours of split time you can legally log only 90-95 depending on taxi time from ramp to RWY. But you don't actually need to pay a school for a Safety Pilot time...just find somebody with a twin and make a deal to rent a block of XC time. You can probably get a good rate if you do a lot of flying in a short period of time (high utilization, plus XC is easier on the airplane than local training).

There are a lot of flight schools such as the one i work at that will pay for your MEI. How much of your ME time is PIC? Any good part 141 school will have to standardize you in the ME course anyways. You then only need to pay for your check ride. If you dont have any PIC time they may ask you to pay for 8 hrs or so. Plus with your total time you are looking at needing another 500 TT before you are competitive.

Oh and dual given is look upon much higher then safety pilot time.

Can not emphasize enough how this is a bad bad idea. Credit cards and student loans are not the same thing. It WILL lower your credit score but putting those large charges on there, which increases your debt/available credit ratio and a 2% monthly minimum payment will be tough while being on a fixed income.

I mean, come on. The OP is trying to be responsible with paying his current loans and you're suggesting to use credit cards as a way to finance flying?

To the OP, don't listen to that advice