I had been with UAL 4 years and was a line guy the 777. I had previous instructor/check airmen experience. Back then they were actively looking for PI's and I took the job as I was sick and tired of commuting. IMO it's one of those jobs that beats the heck out of being JR on something as you have some control of your life. But it definitely has a time limit before your sanity starts to suffer.

You can only watch so many thousands of V1 cuts and have the same discussion over the same misunderstood operational limit before the wires start to cross and spark.

For the most part, a great group of people at TK, but how do those guys do it for 15+ yrs? I'd have to eat a hollow point.

Valid points, I was thinking more from a family/not being gone point of view. But yes....I could see sanity suffering.

How does pay work? And was it a 9-5 job or week on week off or...

Thanks for the response.

Having a job at TK was probably better than being at the bottom for the same time. It allows a predictable schedule and pay while getting more home time than more senior people flying the line after at lot of furloughs. When you think about it like that you can watch a heck of a lot of V1 cuts and live in Groundhog Day over and over and over and over.

The pay is excellent now it's what you are holding on paper at max credit 89 hours I think plus an override of like $800 or $900 bucks a month. I didn't take the time to look it up exactly but I think that is pretty close. So say you are teaching on the A-320 but you hold 777 F/O on paper. You'd get 777 pay at the max monthly credit plus the override. You get paid for whatever you can hold no matter what you are teaching on. Inversly if you are teaching on the 747 and hold A-320 F/O you are getting paid at that rate.

NOTE; To Tk dudes, I am going to look this up in the contract. If anything I said needs correction please feel free to jump in here and fix it before I get back.:)



It is NOT a 9-5 job depending on what you are doing. A regular sim session is a 6.5 hour day 1.5 hours of brief .5 break 4 hours of sim time and a .5 debrief. Some days are longer some are shorter depending on what you are doing and how many students you have. You get 12 or 13 days off a month you can pretty much pick them, sim times are variable from 0400 start times to as late as 2000 getting done at 0200. Those days kind of suck but they aren't all that common.

As far as groundhog day. I was good with it for the first three or four years because I was getting qualified to do new stuff all the time.

One of the things I really enjoyed was when we closed the 727 and DC-10 fleets down we had some guys who were having issues transitioning to glass and the two person crew dynamic after having spent a career on steam gauges with three pilots on the flight deck. I found a great sense of satisfaction working with those guys and getting them up to speed. It was very gratifying to be one of the "go to guys" when we had a pilot with some trouble. That was real teaching and not just running through the script and pushing buttons in the sim.

Almost correct ....

CAL. 90 hours Best Held PERIOD for all involved with overrides varying based on credentials(FIA, PCA, APD etc)

UAL. 6 year 767 FO for PI. Sad...

"Standards Captain" paid like a CAL APD but without the ability to commute positive space business with continuous per diem and paid hotel

Thx "H"oss. It's people like you and others who for the most part, have made TK a positive experience.

It's killing me, what does "TK" stand for?

Anyway, if I can manage to get hired, nice to know the possibility.

"Training Kingdom" is one possibility.

Training and Knowledge is what is stands for.