Regionals at 53?!?
 

Hi Guys,

I did my time as a flight instructor 20 years ago, went through Pinnacle ground school back in '07 before realizing that the place was a disaster and bailing before the checkride, and have spent the last 12 years doing a variety of other things.

I'm fully current now, but still need a few hundred hours before hitting 1500. I'm nearly finished with an RV-14A (should fly before year's end) and will pound out those hours flying around the country in early 2020 after finishing the Phase I test period.

I live in Orlando and am primarily thinking of Republic, SkyWest, and Envoy for short commutes to DFW or IAH. At my age, I realize that I might be better off remaining at the regional level as an increasingly senior CA vs. moving in five or six years to the majors only to be a junior FO for the rest of my career. We'll have to see how the numbers (pay vs. retirement) work out in practice, but I'm fine with staying at the regionals if it works out that way.

Anyway, am I completely nuts for wanting to go to the airlines at my age? Given that I can't afford to just retire, I'd rather fly than find an office job or continue to slog away at online consulting.

Ken

Envoy and you can retire with AA employee travel benefits for life with 10 years in.

Definitely doable, just remember you’re going to need to work very, very hard to get through initial. Make sure to show up with great instrument skills. I’ve had older students knock it out of the park and others that were let go after just a few sims. The two factors that seem to make a difference are effort (which you have control over) and instrument skills (which you can’t really improve in a meaningful way after class starts).

Good advice; I'll certainly take it to heart.

I have a decent amount of instrument time for my total hours (about 18%, approximately 2/3 of which is actual), but that's all in the past but for recent time getting current. I'm planning to get a thorough sim workout (at least 10 hours) before reporting to class. Assuming I get an offer, of course.

I’d get at least 100 hours under your belt before class. Preferably all or most while under the hood.

Just to clarify: are you saying that my total sim/actual time should exceed 100 hours or that I should plan on obtaining 100+ hours of recent instrument time (either sim or actual)?

If the former, then I'm all set and just need to be current and sharp. If the latter, then I'll make a point of finding IMC while adding hours in my RV. Actually, that's a good thing to do in either case.

I would get 100 hours of recent experience, with the majority of it being IFR. That seems to be the biggest indicator I’ve found of success among the career changer crowd. The ones without a great quick scan really struggle. You’re shooting approaches at 145 knots, the scan has to be good or everything just kind of falls apart.

Got it; thanks. As you said, my own level of preparation and effort is something I can control. I’ll do everything I can to be ready for success.

I wouldn't consider any time that I flew 12+ years ago, although legal to count towards the 1500, as very useful. It is like trying to remember something that you learned in High School over a decade later.

You need to have recently of experience to be successful. The pilots that have 1500 hours over 20 years of flying rarely pass training, especially if they have big gaps where they did not fly.

If they were an airline pilot 10 years ago and have only flown 100 hours in the past few months, they would probably be successful. Only a CFI 20 years ago, it is not as straight forward.

Go out and fly at least 100 hours of recent, good quality time (including actual instrument, some multiengine, and in busy airspace) and then re-evaluate where you stand.

Fair enough. I’ve been flying the Duchess around lately and am certainly planning to put several hundred hours on my RV early in 2020 prior to submitting any regional applications.

I think you have a good attitude about the whole process. Get your time, get a tough CFI to beat you up in the airplane, maybe pursue another rating, and then apply to the regionals. One of the most heartbreaking things for me as an instructor is to see a new hire that I know could make it through if they had another few hundred hours but we simply don’t have the resources to give that to someone in the sim.

Ask around for someone who needs time to be your safety pilot. You can help him/her and they can help you. You can perhaps alternate seats and split fuel with one always under the hood.

Yeah, no amount of effort in training can make up for lack of recency unless you're a natural yeager (some are, most aren't).

I just flew with a OO Newhire. 62 and he just got awarded upgrade. He did come with experience....

Congrats on the career change. I always liked flying with the second career folks at Republic because they seemed to really enjoy/appreciate the job. I’ll second the get good and instrument current and add try to fly something with a complex flight guidance panel and autopilot. As far as regionals go I really enjoyed my 8 yrs at republic. Quality of life was too notch. I’ve heard similar about Skywest as well.

Thanks; I appreciate the positivity.

I'll be getting plenty of current IFR practice (including modern glass avionics and autopilot) once my new RV flies later this fall. That, plus some quality Redbird time will hopefully see me through interviews and training.

The more I hear about Republic and SkyWest, the more they solidify as my two top choices.

You want a guidance panel and an auto pilot. Are you purchasing your own DA 40? I think that’s what it’s going to take and the last guy I knew who bought one spent 165K. And he didn’t even get the air conditioning option. Which was particularly uncomfortable going to Key West in July. And that was a 2006 model so I’m not sure what they go for now? He was so clueless he had his maintenance manuals sitting in the backseat of the aircraft. I told him to get them out of there and put them in a safe place.

No, I'm building an RV-14A. Yes, it has a guidance panel (LNAV, VNAV, et al.) driving a 3-axis autopilot. Dual G3X screens, GTN750 GPS/Nav/Comm, G5 backup, etc. Very well-equipped and all glass.

I have a bit more than that in it before paint. :)

I don’t doubt you my brother had an RV6-A. Very equipped with avionics and cost a fortune in maintenance and got rid of it in three months. I told him not to buy it from day one. He just rents from the local flying club now.

I'm sorry to hear that he had such a poor experience; sounds as though he didn't get a competent pre-buy and got stuck with a rare bad one. He should've gotten involved with the local RV builder's/owner's group. They're everywhere and would have been a huge help to him.

This is the second RV I've built, so I'm well acquainted with the type and its relatively few peculiarities. I hold the Repairman's certificate for my RVs and do all of my own maintenance.

Here's a pic of my old RV-8:

https://kenbalch.com/wp-content/uplo...048355931.jpeg

The panel of my new RV-14A during bench testing:

https://kenbalch.com/wp-content/uplo...9880507385.jpg

Microsoft flightsim or Xplane is better for brushing up instrument skills than a real airplane if you know how to use them.

No. Just no.

I agree. Jedi Starfighter or Wing Commander on XBOX and PC is a much better platform.

Why DO you want to go at this age? Just to try it?

Fair question. The short answer is that, having reached a point in life where I can afford to pursue a career switch and not being ready to simply retire, airline flying is the one thing I've always wanted to do and haven't, as yet, done.

Consistent with my philosophy of living with no regrets, I'm determined to make a serious, solid effort at achieving this particular goal rather than letting it permanently slide.

Excellent! I am 44 and start ATP/CTP this week. Got into the game in the 90's but stayed out as it wasnt a great time to pursue being an airline pilot. Good times for those of us getting back into after having solid other careers. Nice plane you are building as well!

Awesome - the very best of luck to you!

I'm working on the plane more or less full-time at this point. Once it's done, I'll get through the test period in short order and then pound out the hours I need to reach 1500. Can't wait!

I'm looking forward to following your footsteps by springtime.

In that case forget about finding a rationale behind your decision and follow your heart. Just know it’s not going to be a particularly practical decision and for many the excitement wears off sooner or later particularly in the regional world.

In my experience (yes I've tried) a good PC flight sim can be a very useful, very inexpensive adjunct to real flight training in a sim or airplane. Need to have a foundation in the plane FIRST so that you understand what's unrealistic in the PC game but given that you can quickly practice IFR procedures with a high degree of repetition.

You can really fine tune the "mental gymnastics" of IFR ops in a distraction-free environment. That does not replace real flight training in a plane, but it can make flight training go more smoothly and quickly. You can of course accomplish the same thing in the traditional manner, but it will take longer and cost more.

I would suggest recent glass time if you’re a steam gauge person. The transition is not insignificant and you don’t want to be learning it in your sims, which presume glass IFR proficiency.

Another challenge I’ve observed in the transition you’re making is the level of automation, which can bewilder those of us whose experience is mainly stick-and-rudder types. Again, not something that’s easy for everyone to pick up in a sim session or two, and falling behind hurts chances of success.

Candidly, I wouldn’t put stock in the “it’s too hard past 50” naysayers. It depends on the person. If you put in the time, focus on the right things, stay positive, and listen, it’s just another airplane. But I’d show up glass-proficient and IFR-sharp. Fly with some airline buddies and ask for their honest feedback, then work hard to improve BEFORE showing up.

Thanks for that; I agree 100% with your various points. Although I've spent quite a bit of time on the sport aviation side of things, I've also done my share of hard IFR and glass cockpit work. By the time I show up for training, I'll have several hundred recent hours in my all-glass airplane (as much of that time IFR as I can manage) and will absolutely follow your suggestion of seeking direct feedback on my flying and readiness.

In my experience most of the older career changers don’t get anywhere near as prepared as they need to be even though they think they are. They are also typically very overconfident probably because of their success in the previous career. When you couple that with the fact that they haven’t been in school in decades so study skills are not really there. All of that in an unforgiving training environment at the regionals usually doesn’t end well for a lot of them. We had a guy who consistently bragged about how experienced he was in a 172. As it turns out he only had 10 hours of multi engine time it was before the rules changed. Failed his oral and could not stop crashing the simulator they released him after sim 2. He didn’t even get to single engine operations just couldn’t handle two engines at the same time.

Point taken. I’m nothing if not objective about myself and pretty much everything and everyone else. I’m not worried about my studying skills/habits; I have wide-ranging interests and have never stopped learning, both formally and otherwise.

The proof will be in the proverbial pudding. I’ll return to lurking mode here for the next few months, build the necessary hours, get razor-sharp on instruments again, and see where things go with my regional applications.

Thanks to all for the helpful input.

I wouldn't say most, I've seen many who do fine. But they are at a cognitive (and often recency) disadvantage... the ones who realize and adjust their habits usually do just fine.

121 is nothing at all like stick-and-rudder GA flying... that just provides a foundation.

That will help.

Were you ever a flight instructor? The majority of my 2000 hours of dual given was teaching instrument flying, and I know first hand what works the best. Give you a hint, it isn't a stupid hood that the students can cheat with.

The people that are having a hard time getting through airline training aren’t the ones with several hundred hours of recent flight time, it’s the ones that thought playing flight simulator at home and getting an IPC after several years off would shake the rust off enough to fly something 15 times bigger and 3 times faster than their last airplane.

Well, that is entirely different than saying it is instruments, but isn't that the case with most new people at a regional? Heck, you describe me when I was a newhire at a regional, but I had no issues. Wasn't until IOE that flying a jet for the first time, every takeoff felt like I was riding on a tip of a spear. And in my case, thank goodness I played flightsim a lot, made learning the automation easy. Thank you PMDG.

Where are you located around Orlando? Could you pm me? We have a lot in common.

That’s what ASA employees were told, and expecting. When Delta dumped ASA (ExpressJet) there went the flight benefits for those retired or who had at least 10 years employment on the Delta side. I think they’re completely hosed for any kind of reduced travel Now but I don’t know for sure.

Point being things change in the Regional world.