Do light turboprops get you Major mins?
 

I've been looking at some of these single pilot, cargo operations, such as Mountain Air, and wondering if they can get me the hours I need to get on with the Majors.

SW calls for 1000 turbine PIC, but does Caravan or King Air time count?

Turboprop = turbine unless they specify turbojet as far as I know. I think it's BS that jet time is placed seemingly on another level apart from turboprop time. The 'stuff happens faster in a jet' and 'jets have a lot more automation/systems to handle' arguments to me are just ridiculous. Tprops have turbine engines, operate on extremely short and thus fast-paced routes and require a high degree of airmanship to operate. Any monkey can be trained to handle an fms and in reality modern tprops have those as well. In addition the increased time spent in and around the soup give tprop pilots a leg up (imo) when it comes to decision making regarding wx. Sorry for the excess hot air appended to the answer to your question :-P

I know many guys/gals that were hired at the majors with only t'prop time. Unfort, that was back in the late 90s before the RJ became so popular.
Nowadays, when hiring does resume, I don't think t'prop time will be worth jacksquat, unless they run out of guys with jet time. I just dont see that happening.

The problem as I see it is the majors are not going to be doing any hiring anytime soon...... At the current rate growth is at the regional level.

You sure SWA asks for 1000 turbine PIC and not 1000 Turbojet PIC? I remember looking at their mins years back and thinking I was underqualified. I had a 737 type with 6,000+ hours on the 737-200/737-800 and 3,500 PIC on E-120/C-130, but not qualified to be an f/o since I had the stink of a turboprop on me.:rolleyes:

Agreed, it'll be a long time 'til a major hires again. Get whatever job you can to keep food on the table.

I know of only one hired at DAL in 2007 with no 121 time and mostly all PIC King Air time. But it was also as a missionary pilot in the third world. My guess is this is very rare without something else making it unique. I know of another Part 91 pilot hired at DAL in my class but he was also a Marine pilot before that.

Also, watch the logging of PIC time on Part 91 aircraft. Log what you want, but before you tell an airline you have X amount of PIC time make sure the numbers you're giving them are when you really really were the guy that would get in trouble if something happened to that plane.

No - Southwest always required 1000 Turbine PIC, that's it. I don't know any major/LCC airline that requires turbojet time.

Now to be competitive - last hiring cycle I think some turbojet PIC was needed to get an interview.

I don't know about SW, but in my new hire class at DL (in '08), there were several who had flown only TPs. One had flown 1900s, another had flown 1900s and Dash 8s (although he also flew helos in the Army). Several others had flown C-130s, P-3s, etc in the military.

I have heard, though, the many airlines don't really consider Caravan time since it's a single. A regional might take it, but majors will probably want you to have at least multi TP time.

More important is the type of flying you're doing. Military and Part 121 experience is obviously highly prefered, although we did have a couple of corporate guys in my class.

Some require Turbine PIC 121 time. It makes you competitive but it is not required here at DAL.

didnt sound like hot air to me man
respect