Jet time vs turbine prop pic time
 

Greetings to my friends,

I am currently in a regional airline and have been in the regional flying industry for about 2 yrs now so I am still fairly new compared to all of you who are in the main lines and legacy carriers. Id like to get some advice on my career progression and I hope it will help me make a decision. Eventually I will like to go and fly and retire from a legacy/mainline carrier and that is my final career goal as flying is what I love and I cant see myself in any other profession besides it. As you know with the new FAR 117 and the pilot shortage is hurting alot of regional airlines. In all of your experiences and going forward in this industry, do you think it will be good to have RIGHT SEAT Jet Time since most jet regionals upgrade time is about 4-5 yrs or it would be a better option to go to a prop airline and upgrade there in less than 2 yrs max and build the 121 Turbine PIC time. I have these options right now and since I would like to join a major carrier, I have been hearing many different views on going for a jet regional for glass time compared to going to a Prop regional for the PIC time. In your experiences besides extra skills and personality type as far as the flying background, in the future do any of you see mainlines or majors hiring right seat time guys only with High TT or still Turbine PIC would have an edge?

mainlines....?

Go for the glass jet. No guarantee on upgrade times on the tprop anyway. Plenty of guys gettn hired with sic jet. Good luck with it all.

Turbine PIC without a doubt. With 1000 TPIC you tick a very important box. At that point you can leave to get some jet time if you feel it's absolutely necessary. Even more valuable IMHO is getting the TPIC and them becoming a check airmen while you apply. I personally know many tprop drivers that have already been hired at legacy recently. I also have friends that have 8 years jet sic time staring over at gojets, compass, and republic bc it's all they can get.

I have the same stats in the opposite direction- Again- there is no guaranteed upgrade time anywhere. No correct answer here, just luck of the draw. Suppose you go to piedmomt hopin for a "quick upgrade" and it shuts down- all u have is sic tprop time- pretty useless. Glass jet is where its at these days.

Your post seemed to indicate you were presently employed. In that case, probably the best place to work is wherever you are already working.

In this day and age, there is rarely any reason to hop from regional to regional chasing a shinier jet or quick upgrade. Stay put, get the time be it Jet or T-Prop, network, get your apps out, and all will come in due time.

TPIC definitely. Get it as soon as you can. You mentioned that you're already two years in at a regional. That probably means you have two years SIC jet time anyway. Round your resume out by getting some TPIC asap. Doesn't Colgan/Republic have a two year upgrade on the Q400 now? I'd be all over that if I was trying to build TPIC 121 time.

Oh, and the recommendation about being a check airman if you can........absolutely. Very good advice.

^^^ excellent advice^^^ chasing a quick upgrade will only cost you time- the guys telling you to leave havent a clue about the certainty of a 2year upgrade. This last genius mentioned Colgan-lol. Theyre out of business and Pdt looks like its soon to follow. Pm me if you need bro.

Yeah at JetBlue, Virgin, and Spirit. If you want a job at one of the main lines then take the first turbine PIC job you can get. Delta so far has not hired any civilians that I am aware of that had no turbine PIC time. Not sure about UAL and AMR, but I'd bet they are the same.

I may agree with you on the glass jet stuff right now. The way things are looking most guys will get mainline jobs because of flows from regionals. I would still bet that we won't see guys going to DAL, UAL, AMR, FDX, etc with no t-pic for awhile. Now around 2020, you might see 1500 hour flight instructors coming to Delta and starting out flying CR9's or E-175's.