Flight Time Translation
 

Hello,

I'm a 135 Guard guy, and have been on active orders for three years. I've been living within commuting distance to my home base for the last four, but my wife just recently got a full time job three hours away. We've been looking to make this transition for a while now as I've owed her an opportunity to pursue her own career after years of supporting my full time Guard commitments, and we'll be moving closer to friends and both our families. So, within the next year I'll be looking to start a professional career either with a major carrier or cargo legacy. I'm an aircraft commander in a heavy with around 1300-1400 total time, all from pilot training and heavy time in the tanker, with the exception of around 90 hours single engine years ago when I got my civilian license. Here's three questions I'm looking to get answered.

First, will I be competetive with only the written portion of the ATP completed?
Second, how does my "primary" and "secondary" time in the military translate to the airlines? Someone in my unit, a furloughed AA pilot, said he thought that any "primary" time, or time at the controls, in the military translates as PIC time to the airlines, even though we can log it in either seat and qualified as either an aircraft commander or co-pilot. Is this accurate?
Lastly, anyone have any insight on going to CAL as opposed to FEDEX? My wife is is openly concerned about both, but fears I'll be gone more and more regularly working my way up the totem pole with an airline. My father is a senior AA captain, and she sees even now that he has a pretty rough schedule (just three years shy of retirement).

Thanks for any thoughts and ieas.

Here is a post I found helpful. I couldn't find it again, but had copied and pasted it into a word doc, so I could figure out my hours. The answer came from Sluggo_63, and the thread had a lot of useful info. I just can't find it right now.

Question

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!

Answer

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.

The rest of the threads said to dump the other time also.

I'm an Air Force guy transitioning to a civilian job. From what I'm learning, as I apply to the airlines, PIC time is the all important time, especially PIC Turbine. Alot of airlines have a conversion factor for military pilots, you have to look at their website to get exact numbers.

Your primary and secondary time will only count as PIC after you have upgraded to Aircraft commander. All your time as copilot only go to total time. All the airlines specifically state the time at the controls is not PIC time, it's the time you sign for the aircraft as the captain/aircraft commander.

Southwest is a little different. All the other airlines also count other time after AC upgrade, since like they said, it is the time you've signed for the aircraft, however, SW makes you subtract other time. So while I have 1600 PIC time with most airlines, I only have 1300 with SW.

Don't forget that copilot time is SIC turbine/multi-engine in the -135, which looks a bit more impressive than to just hide it in your total time. As said above, unless you're designated "the boss" (A-code), it should not be logged as PIC.

CAL's mins are posted on this sight (1500TT, 1000 turbine, 1000 ME, 1000 PIC or 500 PIC and 500 SIC in a jet). If you're a relatively new aircraft commander, you're pretty close to all those mins EXCEPT for the PIC time. I'm just taking a WAG, but I'm assuming you haven't been an AC for very long with 1300-1400 hours, considering UPT gives you about 300. So, you may be looking at a regional job for a while.

Don't be shy or scared to add each company's military conversion. The reason it looks like they are cutting us a good deal adding 0.2 or 0.3 per sortie or a simple 1.3 multiplier to total time, is because civilian flying time includes ground time (taxi). Sure we get the 5 minutes axtra after the full stop, but that's not even close to what we really do.
If you remember in any GA aircraft, there is a HOBBS meter that is running anytime power is applied to the aircraft. The FAA considers this time as being in control of the aircraft, so it is logged. If you think about it, we are actually not getting enough credit for all the time we spend on the ground taxiing, or sitting ground spare, or holding on the ground for reciever/tanker slips. Don't get me wrong, I'll take the conversion, but just remember how those numbers are not exactly generous.

Military Time vs Airlines
 

Thanks, guys, that's all been helpful. One thing I'm a little confused on though... As an MC, I may not alway be carrying the A code for a flight. So, is my primary time as an MC, if I'm sitting the right seat still count as PIC time to the airlines?

I upgraded to the left seat a little over a year and a half ago, and flight time at our unit isn't too hard to come by, but most operational missions come in at under 3 hours. So total time and most importantly now, PIC time accumulation has been slow. I just started another year active tour and hope that in that time I'll accumulate enough left seat time, and possibly upgrade to insturctor, so that I'll be reasonably competetive for a few hiring airlines or cargo carriers.

Any thoughts? And thanks again.

It doesn't matter what seat you're in. Rule of thumb is take your total Primary, Secondary, and other time after upgrading to AC and times that by .9 (90%). Then add in instructor and evaluator time and that should generally be your PIC. If you were an MC, no matter what seat or what you were doing, it should not be logged as PIC.

Rememeber, PIC is not necessarily Pilot Flying.

What is the purpose of the 90%?

Conversion
 

Does anyone know how to find out what conversion a particular company uses or wants to see applied when totaling your hours? Of interest in particular would be Continental Airlines or FedEx. And Lizard2Barney made the case of throwing out any 'other' or 'student' time. Do the airlines not care to see that 300 + hours from UPT, or other time for that matter, as part of your total hours? And how about simulator time? Are those hours included in PIC, SIC and total time the same as flying time?

Thanks again.

These are from each company's website:

Southwest: Add .3 per sortie
FedEx: Add .2 per sortie
JetBlue: Multiply total time by 1.3
Continental: Approximately .3 per sortie, which is automatically calculated by a tool on the website when you submit your application. No preflight addition is required, just the time and the number of sorties from your AFORMS
AirTran: I have seen both 1.2 x total flight time AND .3 per sortie reported

Looks like you can add it into your total time, but not in any PIC time. 300 hours from UPT?! I only had 206 hours...