What is involved in becoming a large jet pilot

Factual Questions
21

I can’t seem to resist the temptation to re-hash some of what’s been said already and add some of my own thoughts:

Two main options to get there are militay and civilian.
Going the military route, your best best is to go Air Force, but the commitment time is huge, and even after 11 years in the AF, you’re by no means guaranteed to walk into a major airline. I believe the Navy’s commitment is a year or two less than AF, but you are less likely to fly an aircraft that will translate well into flying airline jets (half of Navy pilots fly helicopters). Army guys very rarely get to fly the kind of aircraft that will get them airline jobs.

Going civilian is riskier and more expensive, but might be a little quicker. There are several schools that specialize int raining pilots. (Embry-Riddle is probably the best known, but there are others). This route will certainly require that you spend years, perhaps decades, working some not very glamorous aviation jobs - teaching lawyers to fly their new airplanes, flying puddle jumpers and loading the passengers luggage yourself, etc.

Some other things to consider:
Until you’re on track at a major where the pay is remarkable (100-200K depending on equipment and seniority) you’ll be making very little money. in the 20’s and 30’s is not uncommon even at some of the bigger regionals.

The industry isn’t as exciting as it used to be - much of the flying is done with the autopilot. “Excitement” can be a bad thing from a marketing point of view – people want their air travel safe and stodgy. Cheaper air travel for the masses has turned flying into a simple means of travel and less of an experience than it used to be. It’s hard to believe that people actually used to dress up if they were getting on an airplane! (bottom line: If you’re imagining “catch me if you can” those days are long gone.) There are certainly plenty of “exciting” flying jobs in the military, and a few in the civilian world – fire fighting, for example. Lots of helo jobs have that excitement factor (law enforcement, life flight) but also don’t pay very well (30’s - 40’s).

By the time you’d be ready to break into the industry 10-15 years from now, things may have changed a fair amount on the pay front as well. The smaller start up airlines are chipping away at the big guys, and all of the big guys are looking at their pilots to make pay concessions to help out.

All that said, SOMEONE out there is getting paid $240K a year to flying 747s into Heathrow, and that wouldn’t suck.

22

So, bro … how long has our Cousin Dave been doing this? And how old is he now?

23

Just wanted to mention that he has a collection in book form out now. (And I’m shocked Amazon actually made a good recommendation to me.)

24

My brother-in-law has been flying DC-9s for Delta for 15 years. He’s stuck as 1st officer – there are no openings for captain, and whenever one does open up, there are first officers with a lot more seniority than him who are first in line.

Delta has asked its pilots for a minimum 30% in wage cuts. I frankly don’t know what the typical pilot’s salary is, but no one wants a 30% cut in salary. And the pilots who were hired after my b-i-l are already on a lower salary scale.

25

Lufthansa train their pilots from scratch

check their web site

http://www.lufthansa-flight-training.com/lft/eng/data/contentseite.php?menu_id=103

silkie =:^)

26

Now this is the type of question people should ask me. It seems people here have got the qualifications down well, so I don’t have to go through them.

As far as going the military route, I believe any aircraft you fly for the Navy will translate into a civilian job (all are multi engine aircraft).

Anyway, I am a manager at a flight school in Republic Airport, Long Island NY. If you are interested in becoming a pilot, go to www.iflyctl.com.

Starting off, it’s not all to well paying but it’s worthwhile. If you can mind the simple life (not having much money) but value doing something that you enjoy instead than you should go for it! As you gain experience and hours you’ll start off with the smaller airlines (at around 1000 hours flight time) as a first officer making anywhere between 25K-30K.

But anyway, if you’d like to fly, go to http://www.iflyctl.com and give us a call.

27

I suspect you might find doing the air force thing a bit more adventuresome than airline flying.

Even if you do ultimately want to fly airliners, the big difference between going civilian versus air force (or navy/marines) is that civilian, you’re going to pay your $25-30k to get trained before you ever start making money. Then you “pay your dues” for a number of years, getting paid relatively little money until you have a marketable amount of experience. Starting with the air force, you get officer pay from day one of training and it isn’t bad for being straight out of college. Check out www.dfas.mil and start at the O-1 pay grade for the rates; you’ll be pulling base pay, housing pay, subsistence pay, flight pay (even during training) and get full health coverage for yourself and your dependents.

HOWEVER, there IS the issue of the ten (effectively eleven) year commitment. By the end of that eleven years, air force pay is still pretty nice, but it is possible for the guy who paid his $30k and dues to be making quite a bit more than you at that point; that’s one reason pilots leave the air force. But hey, you were getting paid a lot more than him eleven years ago, right? If your goal is to become an airline pilot, the air force is one way to do it, but I’d give serious consideration to whether you actually want to do air force flying for that long. Your needs and desires are secondary to the company’s, and you will get jerked around several times in that eleven years.

Regarding eyesight - I don’t have 20/20, and quite a few guys I fly with do not either. The air force issues you glasses or contacts. Once you are “in,” you are also eligible for the company’s PRK (lasik is not approved) corrective eye surgery. I have a buddy who recently finished training after switching careers from goat to pilot; he had worse than 20/200 but had the air force surgery and then applied for ENJJPT. As I understand, very few people are not qualified after getting the company’s surgery.

If you’re interested, I’d say ROTC at your local university is the way to go. As I understand, OTS has been throttled way back in the last year for pilot and officer production. Both are worth checking into. With any commissioning source, it really doesn’t matter what your major is, so political science will do. You’ll do flying that most civilians never see - including aerobatics, formation, in-flight refueling and low-level. You may have the opportunity to fly several different planes in your career, though you will probably not accumulate hours as quickly as your civilian counterpart. Some of the planes that the air force flies have equivalent FAA type ratings, including the T-1 (BE400/MU300), C-135 series (707/720), KC-10 (DC-10), C-37 (G-V), C-40/T-43 (737), C-21 (Lear 35), E-4/VC-25 (747), C-130 (L100) and quite a few others. If the new tanker deal ever comes through, you can fly a 767. Or, take an altogether different route and fly fighters or bombers - plenty of political science types in that crowd. Trainers are always an option too regardless of which route you take in the air force. A pretty good deal if adventure and stability are more important to you than money.

28

Oh, and to answer the title question to your thread, in the air force you would start by getting a civilian private pilot license at the military’s expense. Then you will attend undergraduate pilot training where you will fly the T-37 Tweet or T-6 Texan, both dual aerobatic trainers, for about five months. You’ll cover basic flying, aerobatics, instruments/navigation, formation and a little low-level. Then you move to the tanker/airlift track where you’ll fly the T-1 Jayhawk (pilot141’s old jet). This is basically a Beechjet without ailerons or thrust reversers. For about a half year you’ll fly the T-1 in instrument, navigation, formation and low-level. It’s a pretty sweet deal, because basically you pick an airport, fly to it and get a couple instrument approaches, land and eat lunch, and then go home. You also do stuff that civilians really never do in business jets. After T-1s, you train in whatever heavy plane the air force decides to send you to. C-5, C-17, and KC-135 training is done at Altus AFB in Oklahoma and take several months each. KC-10 training is done at Travis AFB, CA and McGuire AFB, NJ. KC-767 training will probably be done at the bases that operate that tanker if the air force ever buys them. After a year or two as a copilot, you re-enter training to upgrade to aircraft commander or first pilot, and eventually instructor pilot.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

29

Except the F-16.

30

While most naval aircraft will put you in a position to fly professionally later, many will NOT set you up to large commercial jets. As I said earlier, half of Navy pilots fly helos. Unless helo guys get significant fixed wing time in a follow-on flight assignment (training command, small transport, etc.) they are generally not competitive at the airlines.

I have heard, but not reliably, that some European airlines (British Airways) actually prefers helo pilots to tac air jet guys (i.e. fighter pilots) because they have more experience managing a crew in a flying environment.

31

The Navy doesn’t fly the F-16.

32

Tell that to this guy, then:

Bolding mine.

33

…or maybe they do. Hmmm…

Well, they don’t fly them off of aircraft carriers. It appears that they are used for dissimilar aircraft training purposes. I don’t recall ever hearing about an F-16 being modified for carrier operations.

34

The only F-16s the Navy has/had are either for “Red” forces (ie as Airman Doors stated, dissimilar air combat training) or the few that they have at the Naval Test Pilot School in Patuxant River, MD. None of these have been modified to withstand carrier ops, though.

The Navy does fly other single-engined fixed-wing aircraft, though. The T-45 Goshawk is used for pilot training and operates on carriers (when needed for training - they don’t deploy on them). The T-34 Mentor is a single-engine turboprop used for pilot training as well.

As for Navy guys going to the airlines, igloorex correctly pointed out they need fixed-wing time. Helo time is good for getting a helo job, but most airlines won’t count helo time as “good” time.

35

The brother of a co-worker was a Marine helo pilot, now a 757 second officer at a US major. He reports that his helo training made him better at crosswind landings than his all-fixed-wing colleagues, mainly from getting used to using his feet, and that he can grease landings every time. Dunno if he had trouble getting hired, though - I’ll inquire.

36

I have several friends at my airline and others who were helo pilots in the Navy or Marines. All of them did at least one tour in a fixed-wing aircraft, though (in most cases as an IP in the T-34). A guy with all helo time would be surprising (but like anything, not impossible).

Oh, and one clarification: a 757 has only a captain and a first officer. A second officer is also called a flight engineer, which the 757/767 does not have.