Whether you realize it or not it is a choice. and I'm not talking about buying time. Here my honest advice. There is no reason for you to have low time when you graduate! Work your a^^ off and get your ratings early. Then spend the rest of college life gaining hours and experience. Do whatever it takes! (ie... flying sky divers, flight instruction, aircraft deliveries, banner towing, charters, ect...) I entered college with 110 hours and a private pilots license. I graduated with over 1700 hours and over 700 multi Commercial single multi land and sea, CFII/MEI. I was in new hire class at the airline of my choice two days after my last final exam. (was also offered jobs at three other airlines) It can be done. I had no financial help from family and paid for all training and college myself. make that still paying.

Your goal should be to get hired as soon as possible not with as little experience as possible. These two things are not mutually exclusive. Don't graduate with nothing but the 250 hrs you got in training. It will greatly limit your options and in previous years would have left you with none.

Deez, that was about the best post i have seen on these boards in a long while. There will be a lot of people who tell you to "go instruct for a year or two...that's what I did and that's how i got the experience to succeed and not kill myself" the unfortunate of the industry is that people who were instructing for 4 or 5 years wouldn't have done it if the industry wasn't in the state it was in at the time they were looking for jobs. If people had been getting hired then @ 250 hrs, those who stuck out instructing would have moved on as quickly as possible too. My advice, don't move on because options seem dim (little time, little options) move on because you feel your ready. Little time, little options and a training failure in your first 121 enviornment are going to make you WISH you had your CFI, as was stated earlier...there aren't many options for a guy with low time, and if you bust out there, don't have the ability or certificates to instruct (much less any instructing experience) you can basically guarentee yourself a very difficult path on your way to the airlines in the future...best of luck...

As to how's TSA...well, it sux...just like every other regional...so, i'll just continue to enjoy this crappy overnight, and get back home tomorrow. Cheers. :rolleyes:

Well you're going to be jumping in to the snake pit with both feet, assuming they actually even look at you. The comm/multi is just so they can stir up attention, the competitive hours are higher.

Keep in mind that TSA will wash you out if you don't meet standards. Training is difficult for some, easy for others. My class had 24 people, one busted the oral, four busted the sim. All were retrained and passed.

Hours are nice (don't flame me), but buzzing around in a 172 will only help you for the first couple of hundred hours as a CFI. Going into ORD will be much more worthwhile in my opinion.

so what you people are saying is that if i am still a low time pilot, (just barely meeting the minimums) when i graduate, that if i am so lucky to even get an interview/job with TSA, then i will surely wash out of training because i didn't spend time as a CFI teaching people to fly a 152.

i dont like it...

maybe i should get me single enging commercial and fly that crop duster in snook.

You weren't planning on doing that anyway?

no the plan is to get the ME and COMM at the same time. and then get the single enging add on later...if i need it. a buddy of mine did that and said it is a little cheaper. seems to be a good idea. when it is all over i will have a ME, a ME-COMM, and 25-28 hours in a dutchess.

How could it possibly be cheaper to fly a multi than to fly a single? I know I slept through a whole lot of my econ class, but I don't think I missed that much! Get your inst/comm ASEL, then do the AMEL addon.

i see your point. maybe i didn't explan enough. it is cheaper to get a ME-COMM in one lesson, and check ride, then to get the ME rating, then (after the ASEL-COMM) get the AMEL-COMM addon.

for the last year, people have been telling me that after your first few hundred hours in single engine, airlines begin NOT to care. but they DO care about every single minute of multi time that applicants have. is this not true?

The difference between 9,000 and a 10,000 hour pilot? Not too much. The difference between a 250 hour pilot and a 1,250 hour pilot? So much more than the 9,000 and 10,000 example