Regional vs other?
01-22-2014 | 06:36 AM
#1
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From: United DCA 756 FO
Regional vs other?
Need opinions… Retiring military. Want nothing more than to be a pilot with a major. Done flying at the end of Feb. If a major doesn't call, need to find a job to stay current…
Option 1: Regional (focus would be on flying a jet and quality of life).
Option 2: Contract pilot (overseas every few months to fly turboprops).
What would you do?
TT 2000 (all turbine / 750 fighter time)
PIC 1300
MEL 1800
Option 1: Regional (focus would be on flying a jet and quality of life).
Option 2: Contract pilot (overseas every few months to fly turboprops).
What would you do?
TT 2000 (all turbine / 750 fighter time)
PIC 1300
MEL 1800
01-22-2014 | 06:42 AM
#2
Gets Weekends Off
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From: 737
Need opinions… Retiring military. Want nothing more than to be a pilot with a major. Done flying at the end of Feb. If a major doesn't call, need to find a job to stay current…
Option 1: Regional (focus would be on flying a jet and quality of life).
Option 2: Contract pilot (overseas every few months to fly turboprops).
What would you do?
TT 2000 (all turbine / 750 fighter time)
PIC 1300
MEL 1800
Option 1: Regional (focus would be on flying a jet and quality of life).
Option 2: Contract pilot (overseas every few months to fly turboprops).
What would you do?
TT 2000 (all turbine / 750 fighter time)
PIC 1300
MEL 1800
Quality of life will suck at a regional even if you live in base. Pay will be abysmal. If your life is going to be painful for a bit I'd take the $$ assured of the overseas job. I have a couple friends teaching CAS overseas making over $250K while they wait for a major to call.
01-22-2014 | 06:55 AM
#3
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From: United DCA 756 FO
Total time is relatively low even for a mil guy. I think the target # is 2500 hrs, at least at UAL.
Quality of life will suck at a regional even if you live in base. Pay will be abysmal. If your life is going to be painful for a bit I'd take the $$ assured of the overseas job. I have a couple friends teaching CAS overseas making over $250K while they wait for a major to call.
Quality of life will suck at a regional even if you live in base. Pay will be abysmal. If your life is going to be painful for a bit I'd take the $$ assured of the overseas job. I have a couple friends teaching CAS overseas making over $250K while they wait for a major to call.
01-22-2014 | 07:01 AM
#4
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From: BE350 PIC
Unless you do a TRACOM tour, breaking 3k gets hard unless you found the magic path and did nothing but fly.
13 years, never out of the cockpit, 1880 Navy hours.
On O-4 retired pay, you could probably survive on regional pay, but not have much spare. I know when I did the math for drilling my ass off as a O-3 it was barely scraping by on regional pay, and even now as an O-4, it's not much better.
I'm going the contract turboprop route.
13 years, never out of the cockpit, 1880 Navy hours.
On O-4 retired pay, you could probably survive on regional pay, but not have much spare. I know when I did the math for drilling my ass off as a O-3 it was barely scraping by on regional pay, and even now as an O-4, it's not much better.
I'm going the contract turboprop route.
01-22-2014 | 07:04 AM
#5
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From: United DCA 756 FO
Unless you do a TRACOM tour, breaking 3k gets hard unless you found the magic path and did nothing but fly.
13 years, never out of the cockpit, 1880 Navy hours.
On O-4 retired pay, you could probably survive on regional pay, but not have much spare. I know when I did the math for drilling my ass off as a O-3 it was barely scraping by on regional pay, and even now as an O-4, it's not much better.
I'm going the contract turboprop route.
13 years, never out of the cockpit, 1880 Navy hours.
On O-4 retired pay, you could probably survive on regional pay, but not have much spare. I know when I did the math for drilling my ass off as a O-3 it was barely scraping by on regional pay, and even now as an O-4, it's not much better.
I'm going the contract turboprop route.
01-22-2014 | 07:40 AM
#6
Gets Weekends Off
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From: 737
By way of background I'm recently retired AF single seat. I considered the regional thing and couldn't do it mainly due to the pay. Even with your retirement check you're looking at a 50-60% pay cut for an abysmal QOL. Heck, I feel broke on year 1 pay at a major. It's a lot less $$ than year 20 as an O4 that's for certain.
01-22-2014 | 07:55 AM
#7
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Regional vs other?
Do you guys think the pay would start to be more doable if you did the regional thing to build up some 121 jet time for the majors and also flew in the reserves? That's what I'm considering, I think that would get me at least within a reasonable range of what I was making as an 11 year O-3 before getting out. I'm at 2300 so I'm slightly below the fringe for the majors and Spirits/JetBlues of the industry.
01-22-2014 | 08:05 AM
#8
Prime Minister/Moderator
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From: Engines Turn or People Swim
Do you guys think the pay would start to be more doable if you did the regional thing to build up some 121 jet time for the majors and also flew in the reserves? That's what I'm considering, I think that would get me at least within a reasonable range of what I was making as an 11 year O-3 before getting out. I'm at 2300 so I'm slightly below the fringe for the majors and Spirits/JetBlues of the industry.
Yes, I've done that (wife works though). But live near your mil duty station, that way you have more flexibility to jump on opportunities. Added benefit is that you're home every night when you're drilling.
If you can somehow arrange it so that you can drive to both airline and mil jobs regional QOL might be better than you would think. That's my current situtaion and it's made me very, very picky about changing jobs. Even on reserve, things are slow at certain times of the year so you can get a lot of time at home.
01-22-2014 | 09:11 AM
#9
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I should probably write a book...Good luck, fellas, holler if I can help in any way.
01-22-2014 | 09:25 AM
#10
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From: United DCA 756 FO
Do you guys think the pay would start to be more doable if you did the regional thing to build up some 121 jet time for the majors and also flew in the reserves? That's what I'm considering, I think that would get me at least within a reasonable range of what I was making as an 11 year O-3 before getting out. I'm at 2300 so I'm slightly below the fringe for the majors and Spirits/JetBlues of the industry.
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