Good morning all!
As a tranisitioning Navy guy I have been unfortunately stuck on staff duty as my last tour. I have not been flying "full time" since the end of 2011 (with a few hour sprinked in here and there since then as good deal back seat hops). I have over 3000 hours and lots of IP and multi-time. What I am worried about is that the airlines might not like the fact that I have been out of the cockpit. So I went and got my mil-comp CFII cert, but now I don't know how to actually start instructing! How does one go about starting to fly with a flight school or club? I mean do I just go down to the airport with resumes in hand and start knocking on doors? I probably sound like an idiot here, but I could use the forums help. Thanks!

 

I'm not sure how transitioning mil guys do it, but knocking on doors with resumes in hand was exactly what I did when I was looking for a CFI job. I don't think flight schools these days are able to hang on to CFIs for long and as such, it shouldn't be difficult for some with your quals to get hired.

Have you looked into applying at regionals? I think that would be a position more commensurate with your experience and i keep hearing a few of them are having trouble filling classes. I'd venture out to guess some might waive the recency requirements if they are really that desperate.

Good luck on your search!

 

Snickers, thanks for the quick reply.
I've thought briefly about the regional, but honestly all I was looking for was to get some currency in the air, I would hate to join a airline and bail within 6 months because I (hopefully) got hired by a major. I don't know how many hours I need to be considered "current" but I hoped I would not need alot given my total hours and hours within the last 5 years. I figured that I could do that on the weekends part-time while I was still on active duty.

 

First - I've seen 100 hrs in the last year as the measure of currency.

Second - Lose the sense of loyalty when/if you get into this business. You are an employee that provides a needed service. When they don't need your service anymore, you'll be on the street. The loyalty you feel like you should have is one way. If the regionals respected you, they would pay more.

If you can't get current another way, don't hesitate to get on at a regional. You'll get the currency and the 121 experience will beef up your resume while you await the call from a major.

 

FB,
I hear you...I guess I'm still a product of my military environment...I guess to me flying is still a "brotherhood" where loyalty is the most important thing you have, and you don't bail out on someone who needs your help. I know I know....enough of that BS....I just need to get my butt in a plane and log some hours....and hopefully make a little beer money as an added bonus!

 

I hate to see this and agree with it - but Boyd is right.
It was very hard for me to let go of the loyalty issue, but I was in a similar position for a time. I was at a job that I loved and enjoyed the hell out of, but it wasn't a career destination. When the current job came along I delayed as long as I could accepting it but I knew that day might come. All of my civilian peers and even ones just out of the military told me the same thing that Boyd is telling you - civilian means taking care of your needs first.

 

T45,
As prior military myself do not think for a minute you won't be furloughed a second after they don't need you your dreaming. I know guys who have quit while in initial trng after getting a legacy job offer. Giving two weeks when possible is showing respect to a company anything more is truly misguided loyalty.

 

the irony of prior mil folks making a distinction of loyalty in a current military environment of epic uncertainty, underhanded force shaping measures and waves of people banging at the doors to get out. I don't think those thousands of military pilots would agree with this blanket concept of military loyalty, these days..

 

The military you grew up in is not the military I grew up in. The military I belong to actively conspires every day of the Lord to ensure I don't make it to retirement and treats me with the same callousness they do any civilian airline pilot.

Even though that is the most personal thing anyone can do to somebody (mess with their livelihood) I don't take it personally, just as I wouldn't take an airline furlough personally. This concept of military loyalty, beyond the brother-in-arms peer level, is beyond foreign to me. It simply hasn't been my experience. I too hope to get some retirement out of this life commitment, but it's getting harder and harder to accomplish.

Timing and luck. My loyalty has always been primarily to those who will actually cry at my funeral, to paraphrase a retiring Wing Commander here a couple years ago.

 

I will agree with you that YOUR military and MY military were different animals.
Some of it my be personal, some of it may be the times, some of it may be the service we each came from; but I DID HAVE TREMEDOUS loyalty to my service and my peers.
My above post was MY personal struggles I brought to the civilian world and on top of that - my contract job was in many ways very military - so it was easy to give the same to them that I had given through my 20 previous years.
I'm still not happy about it on a number of levels.
First I still wish I were doing the same flying - aircraft and mission - from my old job, but with the security of my current job (even with its' recent problems) and second I wish I could have given them even more time before moving on, but NOT being a contractor and being tied to a flight hour = money is golden.
I am truly saddend by some of the stories I hear of people's experiences in the USAF and I am very thankful that those were not my experiences.