Like others have said, you need more total time and training events under your belt. I would suggest 135 once you get the time, that way you will get professional-level training events (similar to 121) at the time of hire and then periodically for recurrent.

I hate to have to say this but you only have two things going for you in this situation...

1. Your busts occurred very early in your career
2. You have not busted a professional/turbine training event (135/121/Flight safety).

With your history it's important that you keep it that way. It sucks to have that kind of additional pressure but it's imperative that you don't fail any more checkrides, most especially 135/121. I think in the long run you can overcome this if you are willing to accept a possible career sidetrack (ie 135 or 91 flying for a while). But if you include any more failures in your track record, I'm guessing you will have a real hard time.

Also be aware that if you "clean up your act" so to speak you will still have to address this at interviews. It will help if you have some sort of an explanation. By that I do not mean "excuse"...you will have to take responsibility for what happened. But rather if there is some extenuating circumstances which you can identify and then explain how has been corrected it will ease employer's minds about your trainability. Something like working two jobs plus going to school, family problems/sick family member, maybe even a psycho ex-girlfriend. If you can't identify any such circumstance, do some soul searching and find something you can change to improve your ability to pass checkrides. Something has to change here...if you can't tell people what it is and how you changed it, you will have a hard time getting hired by anybody.

Thanks for sharing your details, it helps others who may be in a similar boat.

Except pilots; we LOVE ourselves!

Keep your chin up - things are better now than they were in 2009 and 2010. I'm sure if you plug away during the summer and the fuel spike comes down in a few months there will be opportunities for you in the fall.

Good luck!

BU
AT'05

With 3 failed checkrides in less 1,000 hours of time, you are going to have to reset your expectations in a big way; 121 is not in your future, at least for a very long time--and I'm not talking about waiting until the end of summer, or when you get to 1,000 hours.

You need to put significant time and space between yourself and your busts. Rickair is right....135/91 is your future, and your only possible chance at this point. Even if you go a couple years without any hiccups, hoping an airline will overlook 3 busts is asking a lot.

Sorry, but it's true. You need a reality check, not a pat on the back.

No, it is not.

He failed 3 checkrides in less than his first 1,000 hours of time. It might be a trend, and I agree that he probably needs to gain more flight time and show a history of checkride successes to prove he's likely to successfully complete 121 initial training.

But to say 135/91 is his "only possible chance" is a bit of a stretch, given the REALITY of regional airline hiring which is loving "young and dumb" pilots who they expect will stay vs. more experienced pilots who they know will leave at the very first opportunity for something "better".

I know more than one pilot with that many or MORE busts during their initial training that got hired by regionals during the 2006-2007 hiring wave.

Regionals can afford to be choosy now in hiring because the supply of candidates for those jobs greatly outweighs the demand...but that almost certainly will not be the case in 12 months, or even 6 months down the road.

Maybe but that depends on oil and the economy...

Borrowing a page from Homeland Security, here's a color-coded economic threat indicator:

Green: Oil < $90
Yellow: Oil $90-130
Orange: Oil $130-150
Red: Oil > $ 150

Also while bottom-feeder regionals may drop their hiring standards to nothing, that does not guarantee completion of training. I'm not sure it would be a good idea for someone with <1000 and multiple busts to even try 121 training...I wouldn't give him great odds of success at this point.

I know what you're saying in terms of economic condition & energy prices, but in the crazy times we live in, the raw price of crude oil ain't remotely close to the cost of refined fuel to end users...like you & me in our cars, or airlines by the millions of gallons.

Light Sweet crude closed yesterday just below $104/bbl with Brent crude just shy of $118/bbl, yet almost all refined fuel prices are at or, in some cases, actually above where they were in July 2008 with oil pushing $150/bbl.

Maybe the ATA needs to build a refinery to provide fuel to airlines...that'd probably be cheaper than incurring billions in collective losses...

I disagree and there are a lot of pilots 135/121 with dings all over their records to prove you wrong. A handful of busts means nothing if the applicant can take responsibility for what happened, learn from it, and show that he has improved himself since the bust. Its amazing how many people at majors and regionals today have less then spectacular records. Speeding tickets happen, busts happen, and sometimes FAA violations happen... it doesnt have to be the kiss of death to an applicant. None of them are good, by any means, but sometimes things happen.

I know three pilots flying at majors that had dui's prior to getting hired. I know of an ex-xjt captain who failed training events throughout his career and was picked up by a major. The point is crazy things happen and you are never out of the running unless you dont apply.

My recommendation is to keep flying and work on getting hired anywhere that will take you in the meantime. (Great Lakes, Cape Air, 135 or cargo) Once you get hired somewhere and get through training without a bust you are now much more marketable to a regional. If you cant get hired somewhere i would keep instructing and network your rear end off trying to meet someone that can get you to the next level. If the busts are recent then i would attempt to build my resume with additional ratings like tail wheel, float plane, glider, other cfi ratings,... If you can show that you know how to study and have learned how to pass a checkride then you can use that when you do eventually get called to interview.

Dont give up! There is always someone who is in a worse spot then you are and you will eventually be hired somewhere if you keep flying and applying.

+1 to the rest of your post and plus a million to this, however much of a pipe dream it may be. New refineries period would be good, but seeing s there hasn't beb a new refinery built since the 80s, I don't see it happening any time soon.

and in the spirit of the thread, Boiler Up!

That was then, this is now...the hiring experiences of somebody with many years on a major airline seniority list really don't apply to what's going on today. I can almost guarantee that nobody with 2 duis will be getting hired at any major airline in the forseeable future...unless those duis are 30 years old or maybe the applicant has some REALLY good family connections...

Society in general is a lot more litigious, which leads to a very high level of sensitivity to the "paper person". Frankly that is more important to most employers than the real person, particularly in a high-liability business like airlines. The most important attributes of the paper person in our industry are going to be flight time, training history, incident/accident history, and criminal history. Next are things like employer reference, credit history, lawsuit history, etc.

Now if the "pilot shortage" actually materializes, that could all change of course.