Folks…I’m making the decision to transition out of the military. I’ve noticed that recent flight time is an important factor on applications. Unfortunately, I’ve been flying a desk and not able to log time. Will the airlines, regionals majors or cargo, count your time if only logging time in a C-152? Any help is appreciated.

Short answer = yes

Obviously it depends on how competitive the company you're applying to is. For operators who are inundated with applicatons (the majors) you're going to need more than 152 time. For a regional who can't attract enough pilots to operate flights, 152 should be sufficient.

I joined my 135 jet operator and the only thing I'd flown in the last six years was a 172. Gave me some angst as I was about to attend training, but hard work paid off.

Good luck!

Most of the majors have unpublished or published currency/recency requirements. SWA, for example, says they want "2 years of active professional flying in the last 5 years." At the UAL military hiring webinar earlier this year, Susan Witt, the HR manager of pilot recruitment/hiring, noted that United wanted to see more than 100 hours in the last 12 months "in something more complex than a 172".

That being said, there are outliers -- mil folks coming out of staff or desk jobs that have been hired at majors without recent professional flying -- but it is important to remember that they're outliers, not the norm.

At a regional, about all you need is a current BFR and IPC, and you'll be in the door. I bet they'd even take you without either of those, depending on your qualifications.

I am in the same boat. However, being overseas, I cant even find a FAA certified instructor in the country I am in to get me current, so i am actually thinking of investing in a type rating. I was wondering if passing the type check ride will get me the recent flying time required by the airlines

Take a job with a regional for a year or two then transition over to majors. It'll hurt, short term, but make you most competitive at the majors.

There's a difference between currency and recency.

Currency means as far as the FAA is concerned, you have the correct training, landings, and instrument approaches required to exercise the privileges of a certificate or rating. This is what you get when taking a Flight Review or an Instrument Proficiency Check (which a type ride in a sim will give you)

Recency means that you've flown a particular number of hours in a particular timeframe. In this case, it means the 100 or 200 hours in the previous 12 months that the majors are looking for.

The majors are looking for both of these, not either of these.

While getting a type rating would get you "current", it would not get you "recency".

For folks who aren't going to have the year or two or three of lookback (active flying) when they leave the military, the regionals are a good way to get that recency while giving your application at the majors a bit of a shine, too.

Hacker hits the nail on the head; I was in on the UAL webinar as well and was excited to hear their requirements for recency. Currency will help you get hired at a regional but the reality is you could probably get hired without either. The thing currency will give you is confidence in training and some slight defense in an interview against the question, "when is the last time you flew?"

For what it is worth, you can reestablish FAA currency in one flight in a 172. The benefits far outweigh the $300 price tag. More importantly, it would be near insanity to attempt to fly yourself into recency for a desirable flying career, so that leaves the regional option.

Dubz

Even a bar-napkin cost analysis says mil guys who are non-current/non-recent when they retire or separate would be smart to fly at the regionals as a path to the majors. A lot of military pilots don't want to hear that, but that's a dose of reality.

The costs for buying recency are pretty significant. Even a 172 at $100/hour is going to be a $10,000 bill to get that 100 hours. If you look at real-world rental expenses (even time splitting/cost sharing) of anything bigger than that, it runs into the $20,000-$50,000 range (especially when talking about a twin...aye yi yi....). All of that even assumes that any of the majors will accept the time for their recency requirement, as it isn't "professional" flying.

I know of guys, myself included, who were trying to hold paid part-time flying gigs on the side of their military desk duties. I went after freelance CFI-ing and flying a King Air at a jump zone on the weekends (that theoretically worked around my AF schedule) but could never make any of the jobs work because of having to leave for months at a time on deployments. Some other acquaintances I have were able to do stuff like banner towing and the like, but still didn't get much significant time out of it for similar deployment/TDY reasons.

The down side to that entire path of action is that if the majors don't come knocking right away upon separation/retirement, you may just end up going to a regional anyway to keep flying/earning while you wait who-knows-how-long. You'd be out a big chunk of change and end up working at a regional in the end regardelss.

All true, the upside is that your typical military flyer can get hired practically overnight at the regional level these days. Just emphasizes the point to start early and aim high and lower the bar as that all important date closes in.

True statement. I recently upgraded at PSA and my sim partner was one of my former F/Os at Comair. I helped him get hired in late 2014. He didn't touch an airplane (to my knowledge) after Delta shut us down. He went through new-hire F/O training, completed IOE and, almost immediately, started upgrade training.

He's also a prior service AF flight engineer. His military experience, combined with his Comair time, helped. He had no problems.

When I interviewed at PSA, there were two retired AF guys in my group. One was a pilot and is a former IP. The other was a flight engineer who flew 135 for 2-3 years after retiring from active duty.