kittyhawk

I'm a private pilot training IR. The goal is to become a career pilot. Took a very long (3 years) break from training before picking up on the private. Inevitably I piled up quite an impressive amount of hours before taking the checkride since I had to re-learn everything.

So now my focus is to not only get my ratings and licenses but to get them with the bare minimum hours required and hopefully not overshoot the 250 minimum for a commercial license by too much.

I spoke with people where I train and they told me it doesn't really matter how many hours someone spends getting the private or any other rating what matters is the fact that they do have them. The more hours the better. One instructor said he didn't go for his ATP til he had like 3000 hours. But the way I see it there's a difference -- it's one thing BUILDING the hours after getting whatever rating or certification in order to get the next one, it's a completely different thing to PILE UP hours training to get the rating or certification.

I know they (potential employers) sniff through your logbook. I just don't know how they do the sniffing. So for my sake I say just do the bare minimum and then worry about time building later.

A friend of mine is a captain at a foreign airline. He says "Yes, employers do sniff thru logbooks, it gives them a good indication of how 'easy' you can be trained. We do that for pilot recruitment at (xx airline) too.
Type conversion is expensive and it is not to their advantage to get someone who has a track record of taking a long time for their various endorsements, it's that simple."

Seems like he is the only one who is viewing this the same way I do.

Please give me your thoughts on this and if you've been recently grilled at an interview please share your experience.

I'd like to also verify with you nice people that Sim time in a Frasca cannot be logged PIC nor Total flight time. They can only be logged dual received?

Thank you very much.

Sperl0863

When you go to interview at various airlines, the resume that you give them is mainly what they are looking at. The resume has a breakdown of all your hours which include things like total time, PIC, multi, x/c, ect. The interview does involve the panel to look through you logbook, but they do simple calculations such as single engine TT + Twin time= TT. On the flipside, a buddy of mine did United Airline interviews for a number of years and could care less about your logbook. Personality, attitude, knowledge of aircraft systems, and internal recs play a much bigger part once you have finally been selected to go interview.

To answer your second question, you are correct. Sim time can only be logged as dual given and simulator. Nothing else. Hope this helps.

boilerpilot

Well, first off, Frasca time can only be logged as FTD time, NOT simulator time or flight time. Second, you're right about the hours. Nobody cares, because nobody will probably even bother looking back as far into your logbook to see training flights for your PPL. Now, there's plenty of reasons why people take longer times, whether it be for economic reasons or personal reasons.

For right now, though, it's almost a moot point, because the way the regionals are hiring (or aren't hiring), you're going to HAVE to have more than 250 hours anyway. When you come in with 700 hours to an interview, half of which is instructor/banner towing/whatever, they won't care if it took you 50, 100, or even 200 hours to get your private.

Luckydawg

I used to be part of an interview team at my "regional" airline a few years ago as well as having interviewed at several carriers. I'll take a stab at a few of your questions:

- Your time to commercial won't be an issue at all. If you overshoot nobody will notice. If you have way too many hours of "dual" someone might question that but your after your first real job (flight instructing, banner tow) it's water under the bridge

-Take your ATP when someone else is paying for it. For example; your an FO at a regional and now it's time for an upgrade (type rating). This ride is to ATP standards anyhow and now your issued both a rating and a certificate (ATP). If you get your ATP when you hit the 1500 hours and don't have quality time to back it up it doesn't do you much good anyhow.

-I sniffed through logbooks and looked for holes. I had a guy that flew 100 hours as a "safety pilot" in a Piper Apache. Not quality time but legitimate until I ask him some basic system questions on the Apache. He had no clue...next. My last interview my logbook was picked over from start to finish the entire time, about 4 hours. That was really the only interview that someone had scrutinized it in such a manner. It does happen but is not the norm.

-Your friend hit the ease of training spot on. That is a huge criteria. That is why military pilots have a leg up on civilian pilots. They have already proved themselves in a proven program.

- Frasca time? I wouldn't log Frasca time at all unless it is specifically for a rating or certificate. I have a separate column for full motion simulator time that does not get included in any other totals. I never trained in a Frasca. I used to fly one all of the time but it never went into my logbook. It's worthless as far as "total" time.

The big thing throughout your career is to enjoy the ride. Don't get to caught up worrying about flight time or keeping up with Jonses' logbook. Some of the best pilots that I had interviewed were single pilot types early in their careers. They were forced to make PIC decisions early on since they had to rely on only themselves.

Good luck

rickair7777

These guys have all given sound advice.

However, I would probably not log frasca as dual received. The reason for this is accounting...many employers will want to seperate out your dual received from PIC flight time, and it will be harder if you havde to search out and subtract every frasca session in your logbook.

You could seperate your similuator and FTD time, in which case the frasca would be FTD. Otherwise just log it as simulator only. Sim/FTD time is understood to be dual received.

More advice: Start using pc-based logbook software now. You will still need to keep a paper log, but eventually you can go all-electronic when you are done with training and working for an established company.

kittyhawk

Thank you for the responses.

So from what I have gathered reading your replies:

I should not worry about the total time to commercial but it's still to my advantage to get it ASAP, and then build hours as a CFI. For argument's sake it is NOT TRUE that it doesn't matter if you have 3000 hours and 2000 of them are dual. Right? Otherwise it opens you up to potential questions of having too many "dual instruction". Therefore someone who is "difficult to train". Who knows if I might just get that one in a million sniffer.

Of the very impressive amount of hours I have piled up for the private they're mostly dual of course since I was a student. That is why I am concerned about the logged time. Because I already have a LOT of dual. Nobody will look back to the PPL but the dual will forever be in the total dual received. I'm counting the hours so I will only log another 15 dual that is required for the instrument. Hopefully.

The plan for me is to make sure all IR training flights in the plane are xc so I don't log non-xc dual and then have to build all the xc on my own.

About the Frasca time. I should stop logging them then? Gonna go over the approaches in it my next lesson maybe log that and then no more unless I'm in the plane. And whenever I practice in the Frasca preping for the checkride I should just not log those too. The FTD hours I've already logged can I not count them towards dual received? or do they have to be counted because.. well.. they're already logged.

de727ups

You can count them as dual received and log it in the sim or ground trainer column. I wouldn't log it as "total time", as that's assumed to be flight time.

kittyhawk

Was typing up my post when you posted. Sounds good. I'll just wite-out the frasca time in the dual received column.

I will look into the e-logbook. Thanks!

One more question for y'all -- can someone tell me about the percentage of women pilots the airlines are required to have? I was told (by the instructors where I train) that just by being a lady I have a slight advantage because even with less time I am more likely to be hired or even go from fresh FO at regional to majors faster. Not that I'm depending my life on it, especially given the problems in the industry, it sounds sweet though :P

Thank you!

de727ups

I don't know of any such requirement to hire a certain percentage of women. I think people should be hired based on their quals and not based on whether they are male or female.

kittyhawk

Oh I absolutely agree. The instructors were telling me about this with a very specific scenario -- given that two equally qualified pilots, a male and a female are both interviewing for one job. Say the male pilot has 3000 hours and the female has 2500. If the company is in need of female pilots she would get the offer although he has a few more hours. Like I said I'm not depending my life on it, just curious what the deal is. Here's what I found googling:

"According to Time, Korean War pilot Marlon Green sued Continental Airlines, winning a favorable ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court in 1962 that opened the door for black pilots to work for commercial airlines. But the fight was not yet won. In 1973 the U.S. Justice Department won its own landmark case against United Airlines when a federal court found entrenched discrimination and ordered United to hire blacks at twice the percentage of black applicants. American Airlines also was affected; it subsequently dropped its 5-foot, 6- inch height requirement which had nothing to do with flying airplanes, but did leave many women in the wings of the profession. And, USAir agreed to drop its nepotism requirements that also left many women out--because they weren't members of the boys club that was the traditional pilots community.

Despite these rulings, enforcement lagged. In 1988 the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission went back to court against United on behalf of hundreds of rejected African Americans and women. United responded, recruiting minority pilots and paying for their training to boost their numbers from 2.6 percent to 8.1 percent of the total. In the female pilot category, United increased its numbers from 1.5 percent to 5.5 percent."