I'll tell you what, I hear lots of complaining that the cross country requirement is too onerous very frequently. To be honest, that is hard for me to relate to, because I had 500XC pretty easily by 1,500 hours. Besides having the latitude to take students beyond 50 NM, I flew a lot on my own dime. Even as a poor CFI I still rented for a number of reasons, not least of which was to get actual IMC time on IFR cross countries. A pitfall I saw with the other CFIs was that if they rented, it was to take friends or girls on joy rides. If you are going to do that, make a bonafide XC.

With that said, I realize, flight schools and their individual procedures vary, so your experience possibly differs from mine. Since both professionally minded students and CFIs need the XC time, maybe you should attempt to change your school's syllabus or procedures to include plans that kill two birds with one stone as often as possible. Make training flights that will get you to 50 NM and back while integrating flight lesson objectives.

 

Exactly, practice cross country procedures out then work on other things while making your way back. It not only kills 2 for one, it also builds more x/c time than just flying a straight line out and back.

 

Look, the rules have changed and I'm not happy about it. The foundation is there, I'm ready to move on but I can't because of an arbitrary number that up until a year or so ago had no bearing on my "hire-ability" Congress getting involved in anything is never good. I wish I could change our syllabus but we are a Pt 141 school and locked in to what I can do on a particular lesson. On top of that I (not that you aren't) consider myself to be an ethical individual so taking someone 50 miles away to do stalls wouldn't be right. I do appreciate the suggestion though. And FWIW I'm a big Zeppelin fan...

 

You should be happy about it. It might suck to have to get a few more hours of XC time, but in the long run it's going to make your career A LOT better. Look at the big picture.

 

Hey I understand your frustration. It wasn't that long ago that I was a CFI still trying to put numbers in the XC column. The XC time can be difficult to get, but that was VERY easy compared to the multi time requirement that most airlines have (100hr). I don't think that 100hrs helped me very much in my transition to the jet at all. Without that requirement, I would probably have been hired earlier, and a lot of things would have been better.

No point in crying over that now though. I know it's hard to believe, but in a lot of ways, being a CFI is a lot more fun than being an RJ FO. Airline flying is cool at first, but just like anything else, the novelty wears off and it's a job. The greatest job in the world, but still a job. If I had to do it again, I'd treasure the best moments I had as a CFI- the first solo, or that guy who FINALLY understands holds.

Food for thought, in the grand scheme of things, you actually have it pretty good. 1500+ hrs buys you a lot of options, and when you do get your XC time, you'll get scooped up pretty quickly. Compare yourself to the guy who did his commercial checkride last week. I sure wouldn't like to be in his shoes.

 

I'm glad I read this thread. I think I'm going to try and work my training schedule into mostly XC time. I think my instructor would like that idea and it would build my specific hours.

The two birds with one stone is fine in my book.

 

You realize that insurance sets "arbitrary numbers" just like the "ATP rule". Surely you aren't suggesting companies put interviewees through a battery of tests to see if their "quality time" outweighs more experience? I'd love if the world worked like that, but it doesn't. The bottom line is more important to the parties involved. 1500 only guarantees a higher average experience level and performance. The "average" part means there are plenty of people with far less time that could do the job safely, some them better than "higher timers", but you have to make the case that it'd be cheaper or same cost as it is right now to somehow identify these individuals.

 

Not if you flew with some of the captains I do

 

Not sugesting that at all. The point of my original post was to show that the OP's assumptions on the CFI pipeline were wrong and that it will take much more than 1500 TT for most CFI's to reach ATP mins. That's all. I do get the insurance requirements. You need 2000 TT to fly a Caravan for a FedEx feeder, insurance... I understand it...

 

I think if you know going into it then it makes it easy. I have 435XC with only 860TT right now, and it's been pretty easy with my students instrument flights to string some approaches along in such a way that we go from one to the next but we're doing a touch and go 50nm away.