publius

Thank you very much rickair7777, your answer has cleared the confusion I had about the legal requirements of being PIC in the U.S.

zambonidriver

Hey all. Curious about what looks better to a major, sim instructor time or a 737 type rating. I am up north of the border and am in the process of converting my license (Dual Citizen). Im a line pilot/sim instructor at a regional but wondering if going to a LCC up here for 737 type rating would look better on the resume… thanks.

tnkrdrvr

If you have been doing the same thing for years, sometimes a new type rating can be a plus since it shows you can learn new things. May not matter much in current job market.

rickair7777

Instructor time, not everybody has the opportunity to do that. Anybody can buy a 73 type.

But like tankrdrvr said, if you have not completed a type training event in the last five years, some airlines will filter your app. So you may also need a type to get past the filter and the 73 type is probably the cheapest and most readily available. Separate issue from airline instructor experience... punch that ticket if you can.

Xdashdriver

If it was ever a thing in the past, I highly doubt any airline filters by that criteria at the moment.

rickair7777

Ir most definitely was a thing, it was about risk of training failure.

Stats showed that folks who had not done a recent type event (ie had been on the same plane) for more than 3-5 years were at a much higher risk of flunking out.

You'd be a believer if you sat in class with a bunch of lifers after an old fleet type was retired.

Also it was a convenient way to filter out old guys... it was bad enough that I was actually reserving one last type rating at my regional in case I needed it. Wasn't a big deal since there were multiple bases which I could drive to but lost-gen guys at single-fleet regionals were often just screwed for some majors, and had an uphill climb with others.

I'm guessing they still consider that, but as you say they probably can't afford to be that picky. At the moment.

zambonidriver

Thanks for the info all. Its been just over 4 years now on the same type and have been instructing on it for just under 6 months. Not much improvement in the industry up here as a whole so just thinking of ways to get the resume competitive for a move to a career gig down south.

rickair7777

I would think that being an instructor woul somewhat mitigate concerns over stale training experience.

If you have better pay and/or QOL at the current gig, you could always just go buy a 737 type on your own. Used to cost about $5k, but it's probably higher now. Although a type without line operating experience has less value.

JohnBurke

I'm not sure if you're suggesting that a type rating should have been performed in the last five years, or just some kind of recurrent training on an aircraft requiring a type rating. If it's the former, I'd disagree. That would imply that someone who is operating on a given aircraft type and has been for more than five years, would be considered at a disadvantage...which would imply that one should be changing aircraft types every few years. That's just not true.

If instead, you're saying that one should show a type-specific training, be it an initial type or recurrent, in the last five years, then absolutely. It's certainly advantageous, and the old saw that it's easier to find a job when you have a job (than not), is also true. That said, I've seen a number of individuals come from 135 operations flying nothing bigger than a King Air, who are getting positions in large transport category aircraft. I think it's perhaps more accurate to say one should be current in flying, instrument experience, and some element of training in the recent history.