A321gal

Well being a pilot hasn't always been my dream. When I was young I was very much "go big or go home," if I couldn't fly the 777 right away I didn't want to have to work through the regionals and all. Even more so when I learned how horrible the pay was.
Now I'm seeing (particularly AMR subsidiaries) offer decent wages and bonuses for pilots on account of the shortage, and many even offer cadet programs that work you up from CFI to ATP hours in a partner academy then pay for your ATP when you hit the minimums, giving you a couple grand in tuition reimbursements along the way. My question is here, how quickly and cheaply could I expect to get from zero to the CFI level? I can roughly figure costs, though I see varying hours for CFI requirements and can't find a solid source. So, at least to get to commercial, I know I'd need 250 hours. Of those, probably 40-50 would need to be with an instructor, the rest could be done solo. I'm still legally a military dependent (evening student at the moment, after this semester, I'll have 8 credits left to an associate's degree, though in a non-aviation field, which I could take online if forced to move, which would be the case as none of the AMR partner academies are located near Boston) so I have access to the aero club on base (part 141,) where the prices listed for Piper Warrior, Arrow, and Aztec are $50/hour solo, $84 with instructor. So by those maths to get to a commercial licence, the flying alone would cost about 14K. I have no idea what they charge for classes, their website doesn't list them,. but they do train up to the commercial level. I could go elsewhere for a CFI, which I've read an average cost for that course is about $4000.
So I have a rough idea about costs, I don't know about time though. What's generally considered an appropriate amount of time to go from zero hours to CFI? I'm already well versed in principles of flight and such, have simulator time (most of it is home simulator, but I've flown full cockpit sims of a Cherokee and a 737-800 before) so it's not like I'm totally green, I just lack the logbook. I'm worried that if this takes too long there won't be any spots left in the cadet programs (particularily Envoy's, the money is best there, the domiciles are more agreeable than other AMR airlines (Ocean City? Harrisburg? Come on, Piedmont! Chicago and Dallas are solid choices, not to mention I've family in the former and a friend in the latter who I could crash with for a couple of weeks while I apartment shop, where they are dirt cheap in Dallas,)) or the airlines will have stopped hiring. I think this is the right move for me, so I desperately want to get it right the first time. Any and all input is greatly appreciated, even if it's to say you're absolutely mad it can't be done.

Thanks in advance,
321gal

Oh, another little question; do regionals have height restrictions? I know CRJ operators tend to restrict FAs to 5'11" due to the 6' ceilings; I'm 6'3", whenever I fly them I have to stoop to move about the cabin and nearly always hit my head on the door jamb. The one ERJ flight I was on was worse. Envoy fortunately flies the E175, though I doubt I'm likely to get right on there, as it's probably the most in demand considering AA flies the E190 mainline; it's a good transition flow to the majors.

Sliceback

I did it in 10 months. Averaged 25 hrs per month. It's basically all I did.
I think the flight schools plan on it taking about 12 months.

6'3" is not too tall for a pilot. The tallest I've known was about 6'7".

A321gal

Is averaging 25 hours per week realistic? Would that cut it down to more of a 10 week thing? I could definitely fit 5 days of flying 4 hours a day, or 4 days of 6 hours of flying into a week. At least timewise, money may be different. May need to negotiate a deal with family for loans that the tuition reimbusment money from Envoy would go it.
Tobe honest doing it all in 3 months would be ideal, but I've accepted that it'll probably take more.

I meant for the regionals, specifically. I've never seen it written out on an application page that there's a height range, but having to stoop down to get out of your chair and to the loo, or to get off seems like airlines might restrict height that or greatly prefer shorter pilots, as long as they can reach the rudder pedals and overhead panel.

Sliceback

Too tall? Airline pilots don't start as airline pilots, they start in other jobs first, often in smaller a/c.

Flight training 25 hrs a week? That's not happening and is unrealistic. You can only learn so much in a given time.

A321gal

Well yeah, but a Beech 58 or whatnot doesn't really have a cabin that's meant to be walked around a bunch in.
So if 25 hours a week is unrealistic, what is realistic? 20? 15? 10? the faster the better to be quite honest. I like to pride myself on catching on quickly, so I wouldn't think massive info dumps would cause me too much of a problem (though I could be totally wrong when it comes to it.)
In the end it's probably up to how much my instructor wants to put up with me and what they think is realistic, I guess.

Sliceback

I averaged 6.3 hrs per week from start to comm/inst/CFI/MEL. It took ten months of flying.
Solo'd in 7 hrs. PPL at 44 hrs.
Comm/Inst at 201 hrs. (minimum was 190 hrs). It's hard to get it exactly in the minimum time.
Added CFI and MEI by 252 hrs.

Can it be done faster? Sure, but it's not easy.

There's only so much your brain can take. Think a new driver has the ability to compress all their student driving hours into one week? A new driver can't process 8 hrs of driving, every day, when they're brand new and training to learn. Flying is no different. Two flights per day is about the limit. The only time you can really crank out hours is when you're doing cross country flights.

Rama

Figure about 5 hours a week. Anything more is too much to intake depending on where you are in the process. Instrument is the toughest, takes a lot of time and effort outside of the cockpit. Commercial is pretty easy-mostly fine tuning your skills.
CFI is actually fairly tough also.
After this you can look into 135 flying. A fair amount of right seat in small a/c flying is out there to build hours until you hit the magic 1500.

A321gal

I'm hoping for the CFI cadet program, preferably with Envoy, but I'd take PSA, Piedmont, and I think Republic has one as well. If that fails I'd try CapeAir's 135 operations, think they require 500 hours though. Figure there's someone flying some small singles or twins flying cargo up in northern Maine or Vermont, I'd be willing to move a long way if there's some relocation incentive; as I've learned from being a military kid, moving can get expensive when someone else isn't paying for it.
I'd say once I get past one cert and have to build up hours before I'm ready to test for the next, I'm not exactly "learning," but rather committing everything I've learned in previous steps to memory. Would I be fair to assume that? If so I could just fly to grind; in that case I'd think it'd be better to fly more hours.

Sliceback

There's learning throughout the process. Four private pilot licenses aren't the same thing as having a single commercial instrument license even though the amount of flying time would be the same.