Please don't take this as a personal attack, it is not meant to be. I'd lose the "anything to fly an airplane" attitude. That leads to what we refer to as "shiny jet syndrome". The simple fact is, if you are still serious about wanting to follow this career path, you will work hard. You will work real hard. The bar has been so low for so long that I think many of us tend to forget that at the end of the day, WE ARE WORTH IT. We are worth a living wage to put nutritious food on the table for our families, to put a safe home over their heads, the put ourselves in a position to provide our families with educational and recreational opportunities and to be able to enjoy enough time away from work to enjoy all these things with them.

So, if you are serious, work hard, remember you are worth a living wage, time off, and don't sell anything out just for the chance to fly an airplane. Stepping over dollars to pick up pennies is management's forte, leave that to them.

 

Forget Horizon unless that's where you want to spend your entire career. They have F/Os with 10 to 12 years seniority. To move up to a "big" airline you need PIC time and you won't get that at Horizon for over a decade.

Set your sights more on a Great Lakes kind of airline. You want a quick upgrade, get your PIC time and get out.

 

boilerpilot -

That was an excellent post and very informative to many on the forum.
Thanks for the insight.

USMCFLYR

 

There is no place that offers quick upgrade anymore. For an FO to upgrade, CAs need to go somewhere.... and CAs aren't going anywhere.

 

Well when the time comes, you'll need 1500hrs and an ATP written. Colgan requires you to have an ATP written before you show up for ground school.

 

And rumor has it if one does not have an internal recommendation, 1800 hours is about the minimum.

 

For what it is worth Colgan upgrades are running at around 2.5 years.

As FlyJsh said, Colgan likely will not hire anyone now without 1800 hours unless they have a rec.

The good news is you have TONS of time to do some research. When half of us started the best regionals are no longer the best, the worst are no longer the worst and half of them have or will have new names and logos on their tails.

 

Just curious, are you married or have children?

You will find that when you have people depending on you for their livelyhood that pay and benefits become important. Don't sell your services cheap just to fly. If you are currently single and able to live cheaply don't lower the bar for those that are actually trying to earn a living.

This used to be a worth while profession with significant rewards for the effort put in. Until new entrants start valuing thier skills it will just be another job that lets you scrape by.

Stepping off soap box now.

 

Really? That is pretty optimistic. I am looking at more like 3 1/2 years.

 

A little outdated, (alot?), but you get the idea.