I am trying to build hours and I have a couple friends that ask me a lot of the time to be their safety pilot when they shoot instrument approaches.

I have been logging a lot of hours this way and I am wondering if regional airlines will count all these hours that I have been logging. Would you log a lot of these hours?

Also, does anyone know if regionals except safety pilot time for the 100 hours of Multi-Engine Total Time required?

Thanks,
EP

 

I would guess that would depend on the airlines. We all, myself included logged some of that time while time building, but it think like anything else too much of a good thing...you get the point. It is legal time however, I dont think I would show up to an interview, with nothing but safety pilot time in my book if you know what I mean, do some different things, take some family members for a ride, log the time and put the money to good use flying some real cross countries, dont just fly around the patch. Utilize the aircraft to its full potential and get some good experience out of it, that is what its made for. No need to just log time flying back and forth between the same two airports...get out there and have some fun with it since your paying for it anyways.....I took my wife in a 182 to N. Georgia for a weekend getaway when I was time building for commercial..we had a blast..Have Fun and Fly safe....

 

Thanks for the reply. I agree to mix it up and become a well-rounded pilot. I have flown from San Diego to Utah and San Francisco. Those were fun times and learned a lot from it! I plan on doing some night inst. approaches soon to give myself some more experience in that area. I think it is probably best that I don't log too much more safety pilot until after I get my multi rating and could really save some cash by logging it with a multi partner.

 

well if you dont have a multi rating...you cannot log legal PIC time until you have the category class license.

so if all you have is a priate ASEL you cannot be a legal safety pilot nor log legal safety pilot in a AMEL until you receive at least a private AMEL.

hope you haven't been doing safety pilot in a multi without the rating.

 

We had a career fair (if you could call it that) at our school a couple months ago and the only one at the time who was considering hiring in the near future was Eagle (go figure). The person there said we need 500 hours and 100 multi time. She said of that 100 multi time, they do not like to see more than a few hours safety pilot (10 max) and about the same "$100 hamburger." She said they really want it to be MEI time or time logged through some sort of work (flying checks, etc).

Mind you this was back when Eagle was considering hiring...

 

SP or $100 Hamburger time is not a bad thing, it's legal and better than no time at all.

However, professional flying experience is always better because they know you had to balance conflicting needs: Mx, Wx, The Boss, The Customer, the FAR's, etc.

I have known people who got regional jobs with nothing but recreational flying time.


IMO, here is the break down from most to least desirable:

Space Shuttle (yes, some guys go to the airlines)
Military Tactical Jet
Military Transport
121
135
91 corporate
Turbine Anything
MEI
CFI/CFII
Traffic Watch, Pipeline, Etc.
Diver Driver
SP
$100 Hamburger
Dual Received

Basically faster, more complicated airplanes and more complex missions are better.