Non instructing, low hour time building jobs
 

Hi all,

I'm a student at Kent State University enrolled in the aviation program. As it stand now, I'm an instrument rated PPL who is about to get my Commercial license. By the time I graduate in spring of '12 I'll have about 250 hours with a Commercial license and multiengine rating, as well as a CFII. I was wondering what my job options are at that point aside from instructing.

Obviously I'm not talking about an airlines job or anything with those hours ( unless the projected hiring boom and supposed minimum hours slashing makes that possible). I'm just wondering what a guy can do besides instruct to build hours. I'm not opposed to instructing, it's just not that enticing to me at the moment. Mainly I'm just trying to scope out all the possibilities for a person with that amount of time and those licenses/ ratings. I'd appreciate any help. Thanks in advance.

Your question almost to a word has been asked and answered many times here before. A friendly suggestion is take a minute and search some of the older threads using the search window at the upper left.

There used to be a number of options, but in this economy with so many pilots in teh hiring pool, even pipeline patrol is gettin to be a 1000 hour job. Unless you find a local place that tows banners or does skydiving, i would say instructing is yoru only hope.

Probably your only option will be to instruct. You would be extremely lucky to find a job at 250TT.

you'd be lucky to find a local instructor job too...

hey skiermws, I just saw that you go to kent state, I have been considering for a while about possibly getting into the flight technolgy program there, I got some information last fall when I was thinking about it. Anyway I was wondering if you could tell me what you think of the program, good, bad, any insight from a current student would be great. From the information I had it sounded like they almost guarantee you a cfi internship as a student and after graduation. It also seemed like they had a lot of other internship possibilities with some airlines. So I was just curious, I'm still trying to figure out what career path to take. Do you feel like going through the program has given you any additional opportunity as opposed to going through an FBO. Do you think it is worth your investment thus far. anyways thanks

Yeah, should've been more specific with the wording I guess. I had looked some stuff up but didn't find a whole lot of recent posts about it, just wondering if things had changed recently. But the info definitely helps put things into perspective.

As said before, other low time flying jobs are few and far between. I had students that I have stayed in touch with that refused to instruct after their commercial...just waiting on the perfect job to roll around. And two years later, still waiting...

Just go instruct...you will be a much better pilot for it.

Come on guys...we've all had those instructors who couldn't care less about instructing and were just doing it to build time. You know them without even talking to them. They couldn't care less about you or how well you learn, as long as you're passing stage checks/progress checks/checkrides, they're content with you. Do we really want skiermws to be one of those? (Skier, you may think you wouldn't be, but if you don't want to instruct, you will be.)

Realistically there is very, very little on the job market between 250 and 500 hours. At 500, you can probably nab a entry level job (read: skydiving) to build you some time and get you towards your favorite bottom of the barrel regional or 135 job.

I appreciate all the help so far guys. But I would like to think I'd be a good instructor, and I'd definitely put forth care and effort for my students, I've had good ones so far and appreciated it a lot so I wouldn't want to screw up any future up and comers. I do have a few decent bones in my body lol.