Thoughts on TSA
 

I am a low time pilot, still in college. I want to jump in with both feet in may after graduation. TSA and PSA seem to be the only two airlines that I will meet the minimums for at that time. Does anyone out there have any oppinions on the two companies?

...i know this is a loaded question, but i want to know

TSA? Never seen them mentioned on this board.

Haha nice. Seriously though, TSA and PSA have been discussed endlessly lately with similar topics. You need 10 posts to be able to use the search function but if you spend some time going through the pages you should be able to find what you need.

Go be a flight instructor, you're FAR from ready.

http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/sh...&highlight=tsa
http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/sh...&highlight=tsa

http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/sh...&highlight=psa
http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/sh...&highlight=psa

it doesn't have to be that way. being low time at graduation is a choice. get some experience (flight time) before graduation. you'll have more options and some personal pride in your accomplishments. how long before you graduate?

ill graduate Texas A&M in may 2008.

my "low times" are certianally not a choice. the muti-engine im training in is a dutchess. If i had the money i would live in that dutchess. but i have to pay for every hour of my flying from my own pocket. i cant afford to get hundreds of hours in a $200/hour airplane.

that is why places like AE and Xjet are out of reach for me....for the moment. do you have any advice for a kid like me in becoming an airline pilot???

Hey aggieflyer don't worry about the multi just yet. What you need to do is work on that TT and experience a little. You're from TX I take it flying out of Easterwood? There are jobs around the area flying power lines and pipeline. Once you're out there getting those hours you'll meet people and find ways to get that twin time.

yes i am flying out of easterwood. there are lots of people who need pilots. infact there is a man out is snook who wants to train somone to be a crop dusting pilot. how ever, everyones insurance requires 500+ total time or more. i only have 300 hours in the 172 with an IFR ticket. there is no way im willing to continue to spend money and take out loans to get enough TT to fly powerlines or crop dusters, when i already meet the TT minums for airlines like TSA.

Trans States>>>ERJ145>>>250TT 25ME
Powerline Pilot>>>C-172>>>500TT Comercial
go figure...

i dont want to sound like one of those "wizkids" that get a commercial licnese and think they deserve an airline job. i know about the long hours, the low pay, the responcibility of having 50+ people on the plane all looking to the pilots to fly them and their children safely. being an airline pilot is the only thing ive ever wanted to do. i realize that a 25 yr old pilot with 300TT and 25-30ME is a little behind the curve, but why would i continue to fly a 172 or someones barron, when i could be right seat in an ERJ?

Get your CFI. Get on at a flight school and make a deal with them to get the MEI. Instruct for a year or two. I instructed for just under two years. When I started the regionals weren't looking at anybody with less than 1000/100. Of course, that's not the case right now. There's no telling, it could be back to that by the time you graduate. Take the money you're spending on the multi, get the CFI. Instruct part time while you're finishing school.

You'll be doing yourself a favor by instructing for a while. I just finished groundschool, now in the sim and it's very fast-paced. I wasn't very impressed by the number of people in my class that didn't have any actual and very little real-world experience.

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

or a 500 pilot and a 2500 hours pilot...

AggieFlyer,

You're counting way too much on the minimums being the same when you graduate. They don't stay static for long and they can't go down anymore. Do yourself a favor, don't expect to get on with the lowest amount of time possible.

we had people pass with 280 hours and 25 multi. it's doable, but you should know how good / bad you are at checkrides. use that to judge your move.

...or a 257 hour pilot and a guy in a chicken suit on a street corner hawking car washes for the local high school band boosters.

Got my comm single and comm multi for $3400. Comm single at LGB would have been $3000 plus another $4000 for the multi addon. I spent 1.4 hrs in a single (including checkride hrs) for my commercial. 19 hrs in a comanche. Depends on who you go to for the courses. I found it to be much cheaper than the single engine at LGB.

I say do what your heart tells you. You wanna be an airline pilot at 250+ do it.

I had to work my way up as a traffic watch pilot, and a lot of pps on this board had to work their way up as flight instructors, pipe line patrol pilots, corp pilots - however, things have changed and this industry has taken a turn in how it thinks it's going to meet the need capacity of pilots to fly the airframes they have with the schedules they want and the contract (and their translation of the contract) they have signed. With that in mind, people like yourself and different people with different types of experience can get on alot faster. What I did, doesn't mean that YOU have to do it too because I told you that my way is better or correct - you do what suites you with the given opportunities presented to you along the way.

A person I knew once, told me, you have to be the right person at the right place at the right time - but when all these three happen you have to prove and do a hack of a job to prove that you are two of those while the third is the option presenting it self to you.

With all that in mind, and with whatever path you choose know that just like any choice in life it bares responsibility and I ain't just talking about the ones sitting in the back of an ERJ, but also personal resposibilities as for working hard, studying hard making sure you WANT (not necessarily succeed) to pass the rides etc etc. I am NOT saying you will not pass your rides or that with your experience I would sitr away, not at all! I would just make sure I know full heartedly what I'm getting my self into and what responsibilities it bares with it .

To sum it all up. If I were you and I was presented with an offer to join an airline with less experience hack yes! Would I take it lightly? hell NO. It is a responsibility and with such there are consequences that you might have to bare, both good and bad ones.

Think of that, and do your own personal math. Not what a bunch of people are telling you because of their path/choices/given opportunities in life.


On a side I do however want to share with you a little something I've concluded along the way.
A long time ago, I had a friend who was an airline pilot in Europe, flew a bunch of Airbuses for diff carriers. I told him I've had it with GA and I want to move on. He laughed and told me to patient and that I should try to enjoy where i'm at and make the most of this experience building time as the airlines once you get into them are boring. You can into a jet that flies 450mph+/- and you enjoy very little of it and the associated "flying" that comes along with it - whether you use the automation or not. I started laughing and told him he forgot what GA is and how sucky it feels. Looked up to him and envied his airplane, the speed, the computers and the cockpit which just for the mare fact it had an A/C in it was far better than my stupid cessna. Today, looking back and not trying to sound cheesy, I know exactly what he meant. Airline flying is an awesome job but it is also very B-O-R-I-N-G and very very repetitive. Flying loses alot of the "magic" it had back in GA days. Take that for whatever it is worth.
-schone

You know that you can't do drugs and fly right? Cause you appear to be on crack. If you are counting on graduating in May and walking into an interview immediately you're nuts. It COULD happen but it's not likely in reality. Go pay your dues and build some real world (outside the training environment)experience then worry about who's hiring. You guys kill me that say all they wanted to ever be was an airline pilot but are so unwilling to do what it takes but the bare minimum of what you perceive it takes to get the job. Being a pro pilot is more than have a Comm ME rating and a few hundred hours.

Come on, give the guy a break. If he can and wants to get on with 250hrs and thinks he'll get through the training then let him. Every one of us would have done the same thing given the chance had the industry been this way when we were coming through the ranks. So don't beat down a guy who wants to do it at such low time. If he can then let him. Just one piece of advice Aggie. If you want to pursue the airlines that will hire you with such low real world experience, pass the training. Whatever you have to do: make sure you pass the training. That's my $.02

The decision for you to go on to a regional is your choice and your choice alone. If the airlines are advertising commercial mins, that is the airline's choice as well. No one is forcing anyone to go one direction or another. Obviously there are some risks involved with this, but again, this is something you will have to decide for yourself.

I am in the same position as you: I am graduating next spring. I have, however, basically eliminated TSA from my list. TSA routinely comes to my university once every semester and gives a presentation followed by an interview session. 250/25 is their advertised mins. Their recruitment presentation is straight-forward and they tell us up-front: "We aren't going to lie. Our airline is a stepping stone. You get in and get out. You don't retire here. It keeps the costs down low." They also added: "We aren't the best regional, but we aren't the worst". TSA waves the quick upgrade time around a lot (1.5 years?). I'm not sure if I believe that is more of a good thing.

They give you a total of $800 in housing allowance in several increments during training in St. Louis. It is up to you to find your housing (they can help with finding "affordable" housing - crashpads). That didn't appeal to me after my friend going through training at Pinnacle said they are put up in a hotel paid by the company.

As for the training process the recuiters said that part 61 guys often have a harder time because they are not used to the intense studying. He gave the example that some guys that are hired from a 61 background show up without all of their memory items memorized, lack the study habits, etc. that 141 university guys develop well through cohort competition. I'm sure this doesn't apply to every 61 or 141 guy out there. He may have been saying that just to blow smoke up our asses. I dunno. Everyone is different, but I think the university experience may help in that respect.

If you can fit the battle, you will be a champ. Good luck.

Someone please tell me how flight training in a single engine airplane sitting in the right seat teaching a student how to do S-turns, turns around a point, stalls and slow flight is real world training to be a First Officer on a commercial airliner? Too me they sound like two different kinds of flying.

called decision making and experience.... getting your arse out of trouble a few times.

Exactly......

different types of flying, absolutely, but will one help you in doing the other, you bet.

It's also nice to know that the guy who's making the decisions in that big airliner has actually had to make some real world flying deceisions at some point during his career...brings the saying "this ain't my first rodeo" to mind.

I decided to go get my CFI instead of going to the regionals, for financial reasons. Plus I think it will be fun making my own schedule and rewarding to put students through their licenses.

I have limited 'heavy jet sim' time, but I can definitely say that CFIing will not prepare one for the right seat of a jet anymore than the 300hr pilot. I will say this...I think my communication skills, CRM and reaction to emergencies/skills to handle them will improve 10 fold from where I am now. But the actual flying and the 121 environment can't be prepared for as a CFI. The only way to get real world experience in a jet/121 world is to actually work in the jet/121 world. What else is there?

Being a CFI is all about learning, and applying, judgement and decision making skills. It's a seasoning process to instruct a while...a confidence builder. Doing instrument instruction and gaining experience in the IFR system would be a huge benefit, as well.

These things will do very little to help you get through RJ initial but will do a lot to make you a well rounded pilot down the road. What's sad is the quest to be a well rounded, experienced, pilot often falls to the wayside in favor of the quest to get on the list ASAP.

I have to agree with you. However, I wanted nothing more than to get into the seat of an RJ and start building time so I could get to my ultimate goal a little faster; this included skipping the CFI. But as the reality of the contracts and extremely low pay began to sink into my rock hard brain, being a CFI became more attractive. Plus making my own schedule with tax free pay is priceless. On a more fundamental note, the legacy of aviators in my family should be carried on with the intent & passion to be an aviator and not just a pilot wanting to get into a jet ASAP. Plus, I want to share my enthusiasm and passion for aviation with others; and vice versa. I think I will thoroughly enjoy my time as a CFI.

I've realized in the exercise physiology field that you know little about it until you teach the material. This past week has been a wakeup call for me to do the same thing with aviation. I feel very good about doing this too, no regrets.

Now, this is not to say that I am against going to the RJ's with low time because most of those guys get through the training very well. I'm all about going to the RJ's if that's what one would like to do. This was all just my two cents on the current events that have unfolded in my life in the last week.

oh boy...I have 666 posts. I'm doomed! Better post another soon. :D

I honestly don't think being a CFI makes you a better F/O. You can learn how to pass a checkride without instructing. I failed my oral the first time, and I was a CFI. However today was my first sim lesson and it quickly became apparent that my experiences as an instructor were going to help there in a few ways. The first few minutes were ugly today. I did what I'd make a student do and get back to basics. Within 5 minutes of this choice it started coming together.

How many regionals hire F/Os? Most are hiring captains. This is where the CFI becomes big. Ok, so flying around in a 172 around the pattern with a student isn't the same. Neither is flying a 172 around during your training. Why not skip the step all together and go straight to the jet? As a CFI your workload can get very high, especially with new students or when you're doing more advanced training. The task management is just as high, especially in a high-performance aircraft or twin and on final you're not moving that much faster in an RJ (20-30kts).

Blastboy, I really liked instructing. I'd go back to it in a heartbeat if I could make a living doing it. Enjoy it, get as much as you can out of it and in return your students will as well.

I agree, I don't think being a CFI will make you a better F/O. The only thing that can prepare you for a regional jet/121 is to actually do it. I've never flown an RJ nor the RJ sim so I have no idea what flying the RJ is like. CFIing wont give me a better idea of that either. I would love to go straight into a jet now, however, I wont be able to spend nearly as much time at home or making the money I need to make for now; among other reasons too. It's funny to think that I am avoiding the regionals and turning to CFIing for financial reasons. LOL! It should be the other way around.

Ok, I hear what everyone is saying, but I learned task management and decision making while a Lieutenant in the Army. Iapplied it while deployed to Bosnia and more recently Iraq. So I think I have good decisionmaking skills under stressful situations.

Now I agree with everyone. I love to teach and I want to be a good instructor. Not a timebuilding instructor but a teacher of aviation because I do love avaition. I just recently got my CFII initial and am currently working on my CFI-A and I plan to teach even after I become an airline pilot even if its justground school.

But I see your point about having avition work experience. And thas what I dont have and thats another reason I want to instruct before applying to the airlines.

Are you doing your CFI through american flyers?