Airlines' Flight Time Order
 

Does anyone have a good resource for how each airline prefers/requires to have one's flight time organized--both on the resume and from an Air Force AFORMS/SARMS (Form 50)/Flying History Report? One's in particular are Southwest, Continental, FedEx and UPS? Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

I had the same question and then I finally decided to just do the resume on my own. One suggestion is to go onto the SWA pilot application website and lay it out the same way the application does. SWA has you fill out a bunch of questions before you can do this to see if you meet their qualifications. If you don't, it won't let you access the site. Answer all the questions yes and you can see what they ask. Just log off without saving. Or, you can call their Human Resources department and ask them. Ask for Rebekah Krone at 1-214-SWA-5150.

A couple of my buds here in the 58th (3 actually) just got hired by SW. One told me that all he needed to bring for his military time was his SARMS printout with the totals (the Flying History Report) and any logbooks to cover his civilian flying.

As far as the websites go, the FAQ section will usually cover the conversion factor; SW allows you to add .3 hrs per military sortie while FedEx only allows a .2 hour/sortie factor.

I'm no expert on this by the way, but if you have any more questions, make sure you ask them; I'll pass them on to my friends and get an answer if someone on the board doesn't get to it before I do.

The way I filled out my online app was to count my primary and instructor time as PIC and my secondary time as SIC. Unless you have your own logbook of military time with your "A" code time annotated, there is no way that we military can extract our Aircraft Commander hours from our SARMS info. The way I figured it, there is a bunch of my "Other" time that was A-code time while some of my Primary time was not A-code time; after 16 years of flying the hours would balance out and in the end my Primary/Instructor time would match what my PIC (as defined by the FAA) would have been.

The big picture: be conservative and whatever you do, be honest! If you even give the appearance that you were trying to inflate your times, you may not make it out of the interview alive. Call the individual airlines and ask the questions if the online FAQ's don't give you the info you need.

Good luck with the job hunt.

I've been posting mine similar to DaveP2. Just be careful with the whole "other" time which is basically considered worthless according to the FARs. I just listed my total time right off the SARMS product. When it came to PIC I subtracted my "other" then took 50% from one plane and like 80% from another to be conservative. Just like DaveP2 said there is no way to figure out the A code time so I just came up with a conservative guess. If this sounds dumb or anyone else has a better way don't hesitate to post.

Great ideas and info--certainly agree with the notion of being conservative and then let the airline do their magic!

I've had several guys tell me that for PIC they have simply taken 90% of the MP time listed on their AFORMS printout. Basically you know roughly how frequently you have the A code when going out to fly so you're pretty much on your honor to use that number. Probably the best bet is to try to get enough hours so that even if they thought you were off in your calculations it still would keep you above the mins....just my 2 cents

Why not keep copies of your flight orders and 781s to show A-code time? I'm early enough in my career that I can have a column in my excel logbook for A-code time on each flight (that is, I don't have to go back through years and years of flying to figure it out).

Chad

I am a HUGE supporter of keeping a copy of 781s. I havn't heard of anyone keeping the actual orders though. My 781 copies have saved me many hours that would have been otherwise lost in the sytem. I had to reproduce a full quarter's worth of flights one year at the annual revew. I tell all the new guys to do the same.

I didn't do it this way, and wouldn't recommend it. I heard of people getting told to leave interviews for this exact reason. The reason is that most airlines want PIC time as defined in FAR Part 1 (Signing for the aircraft) not as defined in FAR Part 61.51 (Sole manipulator). Primary time is the 'sole manipulator' time. 'A' code time is 'signing for the aircraft.'

What I did (and is recommended by most airline recruiters) is to take your MP/IP column and add the primary and secondary times (then take about 90% of that). Add to that all of your Instructor time. That will be your FAR Part 1 PIC time. Take your MC Pri and Sec and add that together and that will give you your SIC time. Throw out all 'Other' and 'Student' time. An argument can be made that 'Other' time can be counted as SIC (In the FARs, part of the definition of SIC is 'required to be there by regulation.' So if you had to be an augmented crew, say, you were required, by reg, to be on the airplane, you are logging SIC time even if you were in the jumpseat [or bunk, more than likely]. To me it wasn't worth the couple of hundred hours, so I tossed it.)

When I was hired at UAL back in 2000, I went way overboard dividing my time up into pre-checkride, post-checkride times and it was probably closer to what they wanted, but a pain. With my recent airline hire, I just used the method described above, and there were no questions.

I hope this helped.

Wow, that seems a bit harsh. It seems like a reasonable formula, though. It seems like I need to ensure I track A code time and fight for less other time.