"Working" for Gulfstream isn't training. It is a job. A flying job.

Here's a good example. When I was CFI'ing I wanted to live and work in FL. Gulfstream was an option. However it wasn't - because I would've had to fork over almost thirty thousand dollars if I wanted the "job". At what point in the job selection process should companies hire employees based on how much money they can pay for it?

On your point about how Gulfstream hasn't affected the airline world - keep in mind Mesa was doing 1900 routes down in FL - the same routes Gulfstream is doing now. Gulfstream kicked Mesa out of FL and displaced all of those people. Mesa isn't the pinnacle of places to work, but it's infinitely better than Gulfstream.

 

they pass unqualified people. As I said before, I know much of their alumn(all female)....scary

 

Unqualified in your eyes...Qualified as far as the regional training department that trains / tests them is concerned. I'm sure more than one ATP grad is flying the line at a Major / Legacy, fractional, overseas.

-LAFF

 

I assure you MAPD doesn't make much, if any, money. You can't rent out a Bonanza for $130/hr when fuel is $4/gal and make money off of it. Their CFI rates were recently increased, but used to just barely cover the costs of the CFI pay + benefits. The people who make the money are the folks over at SJCC.

MAPD provides a service for which they are paid - private thru multi training and in some cases CFI training when MAG hiring has slowed down. And they do it at a lower cost point then a significant amount of the aviation colleges.

You are at skywest now, correct? Surely you know the inside joke is Mesa is Skywest Airline Pilot Development? The folks that graduate MAPD aren't stuck at MAG for years...barely one year and that's if they didn't change the date on their training contract.

Yes, mesa does gain a low time pilot. But so does ASA, Comair, Expressjet, Eagle, AWAC, yes even Skywest with their reduced hiring mins when these airlines hire thru their bridge programs (with varying times). I don't like mesa as much as you don't like it; but don't single them out. They aren't the only ones doing it.

 

You have 1000TT and you're looking at Gulfstream?? Just get your 100 hours of multi engine time and that's all you need to work at any of those places. Gulfstream is for the losers who are either too stupid to get experience and earn their right to work or are too old to care about becoming a CFI. A good way of knowing that a place is pay for training is if that's the only place you can be hired with your qualifications. Ie, Mesa air pilot development, if you were turned down by mapd could you be able to find a place to work? No. If you were turned down by gulfstream?

 

SKW has not lowered their hiring minimums, still 1000/100.

Philosophically, there is a very fine line with the whole PFT, and it's hard to be sure where it starts and stops. These things are bad in my opinion:

1) Paying for type-specific training.
2) Getting a job based on 1)
3) Paying the employer for this training.

MAPD does all three, so I don't feel bad singling them out. Other schools may do 1) and may facilitate 2), but don't they actually employ you.

MAPD makes their real money by providing mesa with ready-to-abuse pilots. They don't have to make much money selling flight training.

 

HotMama,
I’ve read your post on ATP grads and realize that you aren’t a fan... I am an ATP grad and have flown part 91 freight in a larger turbo-prop aircraft and have also flight instructed and now I’m at an airline. I realize that some people who come from ATP are "tools" as you suggest from your posts, but the vast majority of us are not that way. I don’t care where you get your license; any rating you receive is a license to learn. I don’t care if it comes from ATP, DCA, or mom and pop FBO down the street.
You have to realize that examiners must evaluate each candidate by the same PTS. I instructed for ATP for a while and know for a fact that the examiners I used for my students could care less about where the student learned. And no, there is no money exchanged from ATP to the examiners.

I guess the moral of my rant is that tool bags come from every school and even the miliary. So lumping everyone together into the same "tool bag" grouping isn't fair to the normal, hard working, pilots like myself.

 

Sure about that? Mins of 850/100 for ATP grads, that's lower then 1000/100, if my math is correct.



Ah yes, because the 5% of MAPD guys that make up mesa's payroll put MAG in the black. Yep, that's it. If you cut off MAPD, Mesa goes TU! (that's sarcasm)

 

I truely am sorry if I offended anyone about ATP. I was generalizing. I know there are good peops too that come out of ATP . Merry Christmas

 

Seriously LAFF, are you paid by ATP or something? Every chance you get you toot ATP's horn...