Otterbox

If you can afford the pay, go to the regionals if you want to be a major airline pilot...

Tester130

No need for one of the Rotary Transition programs that Envoy, Piedmont or PSA is offering for you. With 500 hours of King Air time you should have all your fixed wing ATP requirements met (250 FW PIC, 100 FW PIC cross country, 25 FW PIC night). This is a good thing as you can pick which regional you want based on base locations, QOL and other factors vs the average helo bubba that needs all his fixed wing quals. Hopefully you went to the FAA and got your MEL while you were current in the C-12 added to your certificate.

Others have said it, but I wouldn't even look to the ISR gigs. I think some of them have contracts that tie you down for a couple of years. Right now, regionals are not paying that much less than the ISR and you are gaining 121 jet time.

Pick your regional, get hired and start flying. As soon as you have your fixed wing ATP start farming your application out to the majors. As a helo guy with some C-12 time you really are not competitive to go straight to a major. Once you have some 121 time and your ATP then the military background might help, but you are still competing with guys that flew fixed wing military for 1000s of hours. It is a good time to making this jump so hopefully it will not take too long for the phone to ring.

I'm taking a similar path. I'll have all my FW ATP requirements met prior to separating in a few weeks. I'll start with a regional's CTP course three days after my last day in uniform and be double dipping for two months while on terminal leave. Hopefully the phone call comes sooner than later, but if not, I've picked a regional that I would be happy working at for the long hall. As a backup plan the regional that I'm heading to does have a flow if a call never comes.

Otterbox

Most ask for 12 months... And pay 2-3x starting regional pay.


But we do agree... I wouldn't consider an ISR gig that asks for anything more than 12 months and doesn't pay 100k+ a year.

DROCK

I just need to take my ATP check flight and I'll be ATP complete. So I won't need the regionals to cover my ATP. At least that would prevent me from having to sign a contract with them for the cost of the ATP.