Depends on who is doing your interview... you need to decide whether paying for your job now is worth the risk of someone who does know better interviewing you for your dream job down the road.

My Brand New F.O. Program:

Fly as SIC in a B55 Baron Part 91!! Log super-duper ultra high performance and amazingly complex cross country multi-engine time (which is uber valuable to airlines) time, wash and wax the aircraft... live the great life of being stuck at super boring cities for days on end. The gear handle is on the right side, so the aircraft MUST need a SIC no matter what the FAA says. This will put you waaaay ahead of all those hardworking CFIs out there! Just imagine for the low price of $19,900 you could have 10 'SIC' hours in a B55!!!

What you will get:

Instruction in how to program routes in a GPS and work XM Radio!!!!
Instruction in how to close the door properly!!!
Instruction in how to put the gear up/down!

possible upgrades may include:

Working the comms!!!
Turning on the tail strobe at night!!!
Monitoring CHTs, EGTs, and Oil Pressure/Temps!!!!


Imagine this on a resume!

Remember this is really competitive... so we won't select just anyone with the money!


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before I get a crap-ton of serious PMs... it's just a joke

ryan1234 you have a PM.

Lakes is better
 

I would think that working at Great Lakes is ten times better than PFT. (No, I don't work there) First year pay is absolutely terrible, but at least you aren't paying for it! On top of that, they pay you to fly in the right seat where you can legally log SIC turbine time.

There is no gray about it: SWA is Pay For Training. SWA pilots have helped lower the bar for everyone else in the industry, and that's how I and many others will always see them. Just because it's a major airline, and people are "happy" to work there, doesn't make their PFT right. It is wrong, and always will be.

You may feel its wrong but I bet 90% of the will get to a left seat faster then the CFI guy. If you have the means to purchase a program I say go for it. You need to position yourself now for the next hiring wave in a few years. Once they cycle through all the furloughs, a mass hiring could take place. Retirements will be increasing which should free slots at the regional level. world wide airline which are expected to take deliveries of 1000's plane and many of the will come from the USA. This world wide demand and low flight school enrollment rates at flight schools will start a hiring frenzy like we saw a few years ago. Go pay for you turbine time and I bet you will be ask by your old CFI friends to help walk in their resume. mark my words 2-3 years they will be hiring 1000's to replace the age 62-65 guys and the others who jump ship to Asia or middle east. And my prediction doesn't even take into account domestic growth as the economy recovers. I would rather have 500 hours of PFT turbine time then BE-76 time when they start hiring.

If anyone disagrees please let me know. I research this information daily and this is my opinion. If anyone has articles that say another story please feel free to PM them to me. lets face it, its bad now but making the right steps now will put in in front during the next hiring wave.If I was a HR rep I would rater call a guy with 500 hours in a Falcon 10 then the 172 guy.

I think SWA is PFT because we made it that way. I think the 737 type was a requirement in the beginning to attract pilots who were already typed, thus decreasing the possibility for washout during training. Because we pilots realized that SWA was a good place to be, we CHOSE to pay for training to qualify ourselves instead of going to work for another operator who flies 73's first and moving to SWA. They have never said that you have to pay for your type, they just said you have to have one.

You may be correct. The fact still remains: No other U.S. airline requires a new pilot employee to show up on the first day of indoc with a type certificate in hand.

As I understand it, during the last several years that SWA was hiring, they ran out of applicants with 737 types, so they agreed to interview and hire someone, as long as that person showed up with a type in hand on the first day of indoc. If this isn't a PFT scenario, I don't know what is.

As long as new-hires agree to do this, nothing will change.

As bad as hiring is right now, I can't see that as a reason to justify PFT jet programs. It's my opinion that the money and time required to find and get into a program would be better served in building time through traffic watch, et al, followed by getting on with a 135 outfit. People used to do that, and it worked out pretty well for them. Nowadays, I think many pilots either forget or just want to skip over working for a 135 carrier. Whether it's charter or cargo, the time is good, it's usually in a turbine aircraft, all-weather flying. Most just don't want to get to 1200 hours anymore.

I find it interesting that in the US, PFT and/or cadet programs are frowned upon, whaereas in Europe, Africa, India, the Middle East and some developing countries, we (Americans) embrace the concept. Why is that?

My belief is that what is meant for me to attain in this industry/profession, I will get whether I'm flying 91,121, or 135. Nothing, absolutely nothing, will stop that from happening whether someone else takes the CFI/135 route or the PFT route.

JMO.




atp