Do you have the competitive times to at least get on a bottom feeder ACMI? It seems that even with the worst ones, you could at least get 10 in a row every month. I think that Skylease is still looking for MD-11 FO's. It might be worse than one of the better regionals, but what the heck?

My December ended with 4 days off, January began with 4 days off. Still have 15 days off in January. I'm senior, but it's still attainable as a junior pilot. There is even some flexibility on Reserve. You can move days around, but you're still only gonna have 11 days off. It's all about knowing the contract and working the system...like creating 7 day conflicts, 30 in 7 issues etc.

Sorry for the delayed response folks, I've been flying non-stop since I got back to work at the beginning of the month.

I really want to move to the US ASAP (got to wait for my green card application to be complete, so probably not until June at the moment). For the time being I'm on a 23 on 10 off roster with a small turboprop airline in the Caribbean. The money is the same as it would be at a regional, but the pull of actually being able to live with my wife (hopefully in ORD), and moving on to an RJ as opposed to a 25 year old turboprop, means that I am leaning towards making the plunge.

My only two concerns are firstly actually getting a job with someone like Eagle in the summer with 1,400TT, 1050 Turbine, 100 PIC, 250 IMC but no internal rec. And secondly getting enough time off each month to be able to make it back to the UK to look after my mother for three or four days.

I really appreciate everyone's help!

Your times should be good to get a call from someone since you have previous airline turbine experience. I assume you have a bunch of ME time also?

But reserve schedules normally don't have more 2-3 days off in a row...and PBS will not help a reserve pilot, they bid hard lines at every airline that I am aware of. As a new-hire reserve pilot about all you can hope for is to bid days off at the end of the month, and then bid a schedule with days off at the start of the next month. But that will probably only work every other month, and you will need at least at leasy seniority as a reserve to even do that.