Lowtimer77

I have a large collection of Flying from the 70's and 80's and there seems to be many advertisements for 727/737 ratings included in the flight school ads. Was it possible back then to go straight to a major instead of having to fly at at a regional beforehand. I do realize that the "regional" airline concept was not totally in existence at this time, but I am just curious because it seems to me that this would mean that a lot of guys back then had it a lot easier because they could get to a major a lot earlier and with a lot less time. If this is true, then should they really complain and view their younger regional counterparts of today with such contempt based on the fact that the regional pilots of today have to work in a crappy job for atleast several years instead of going straight to a major? Like I said, I am not sure about the facts surrounding this and am not trying to start a big fight or disrespect older pilots. Thanks for any input!

rickair7777

Based on conversations with folks I know who came up in that era, it was MUCH harder to get that first commuter airline job. I think there just weren't many available in the pre-RJ era. Guys talk about needing 3500+ with lot's of twin and 135 time to get a commuter job.

But once you got into commuters I think the next step to the majors was easier, since there were lots of mainline planes and only a few t-props.


Today it's the other way around...300 hours to get that RJ job, but then you are probably stuck there for life unless you know someone.

BoxFlyer

We have a family friend who got hired at United with 0 flight time. Era was early 70's, Vietnam War, etc. A time when the majors only hired young, military gusys. The airline needed pilots so their mins. where very minimal. Timing is everything. He spent 30 years at United.

Old Coastie

When I was in college in the late '60s there were ads in Time, Newsweek from United for pilot jobs. The minimums were zero time. All you had to do was pass the 1st class physical. They would do all the training from ppl on. The catch was that if you could pass the 1st class you could easily pass the army physical and pretty soon you were wearing the greenies. Those that made it to United, TWA, etc usually had some kind of deferment from the draft, not that easy. Two weeks after graduating from college I was drafted into the army. I applied to the AF and got OCS and then UPT. Spent 4 years flying C-130s around SouthEast Asia. Some of the best and scariest flying of my life.

ToiletDuck

Commuters were around back then? What were they payscales like?

Roll Inverted and Pull

I resigned my commission in the USMC in September `66, went to work at Delta the next month.3 years of college and 1385 hours, mostly in fighters. Never saw an ILS, didn`t even know what one was before Delta (Tacan, GCA only).I believe my initial class had 33 guys, about half Marines, the other half devided up from the navy and the USAF. One Army chopper pilot, 3 civilians (two of which probably didn`t have a thousand hours between them). There were, to my knowledge, no commuters around then. About the nearest to commuters were Southern Airways and Piedmont. My first copilot job, after a year and a half as a switch monkey was on the Convair 440, a 44 seat plane. I guess we were out own commuter.In the early 70`s appeared "Air South" an airline with at most a half dozen beat up old planes. I think they were old Eastern Martin 404`s, can`t remember for sure. That`s my report from the distant past. That was then, this is now....out.

bintynogin

How is that possible. Zero flight time???? So you're saying he/she started at United as a student pilot? Be a little bit more creative man?

fireman0174

UAL did indeed have a "zero-time" program. From around 1965-1967, maybe even into 1968. I was one.

You took all of the tests, including the infamous "stanine". If you passed through all the "hoops" and tests, you had up to one year to get your commercial pilot license. When you started UAL school at Denver you immediately went to an FBO - Clinton Aviation was the one I went through - and you were on the payroll while you got your instrument rating. UAL paid for all of the instrument training.

Everyone started as a S/O back then, my whole class was assigned to the DC-6.

One other item. Back then, even though you were going to be a S/O, you still went through an abbreviated DC-6 co-pilot schhol first. I say abbreviated because systems knowledge taught for this portion was minimal, just enough so you have an idea as to what was happening with the airplane.

The flight training portion was virtually the same as for a regular F/O upgrade.

tomgoodman

In the late '70s, ex-military guys flooded the airlines with applications, so it was hard to get a job--almost impossible unless you were under 30 with lots of turbine time. Comair was just getting started, with the new "Bandeirante" turboprop on order, so there weren't yet many regional jobs. After deregulation kicked in, lots of airlines disappeared, and if a pilot was still young enough to get hired elsewhere, he became a Second Officer again. I was a S/O for seven years, and considered myself lucky not to be unemployed. There was virtually no hiring for several years. Right after that came the infamous "B-scale", a 50% reduction in career earnings for new hires (in its original form, which was later eased).

So yes, the '80s were a golden age---if you could get a job and keep it!

Typhoonpilot

Things didn't really take off in the 80s until American started hiring in 1984. Priot to that it was very difficult to get a job at a major. USAir and Piedmont took quite a few of the Braniff guys between 82 and 84, Piedmont alone took around 400 of them. USAir and Piedmont combined hired 3000 pilots between 1984 and 1989. American hired close to the same. United also hired a lot. Most guys only stayed at the commuters for 2 to 3 years back then. The only civilian people who bypassed the commuters were the ones who qualifed for United's non-white guy employment practices in the late 80s.


Typhoonpilot