Mac Miller
DVA9891
First Officer, CRJ-200
Joined on June 22 2011
College Park, GA USA
1 legs, 1.5 hours
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Post created on June 15 2012 07:05 ET
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Michael Brown
DVA3196
Assistant Chief Pilot, MD-11
OLP, PPL, VFROLP, COMM
DISPATCHER
Joined on June 03 2006
Online Double Century Club
50 State Club
Six Century Club
"www.pitchpowertrim.com"
Anderson, MO
619 legs, 1,093.4 hours
292 legs,
503.1 hours online
580 legs,
1,026.5 hours ACARS
89 legs,
191.0 hours event
235 legs dispatched, 109.5
hours
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Post created on June 15 2012 07:47 ET
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Kevin Cornish
DVA1038
Captain, B737-800
E-MAIL
Joined on January 12 2003
Century Club
"Celer, Silens, Mortalis"
Summerville, SC USA
169 legs, 1,008.2 hours
56 legs,
288.5 hours online
25 legs,
221.2 hours ACARS
1 legs,
5.0 hours event
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Post created on June 15 2012 08:17 ET
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Charles Carter
DVA7922
Senior Captain, MD-11
OLP
Joined on November 04 2009
50 State Club
Online Century Club
Triple Century Club
"Student Pilot: "Um, Your controls.""
Dallas, GA USA
334 legs, 933.5 hours
128 legs,
221.9 hours online
333 legs,
931.9 hours ACARS
18 legs,
40.6 hours event
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Post created on June 15 2012 09:51 ET
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If the extent of your goals is to fly regional aircraft, you do not need a college degree to do it. However, you would be severly limiting your options by not getting a degree.
At this point, to be eligible for hire at a regional airline, you need an ATP Multi-Engine Land pilot's license with Instrument priviledges. In the next few years the aviation colleges (UND, Embry-Riddle, and the like) will be getting courses approved to reduce the number of hours required to get an ATP, but for now that minimum total time is 1500 hours. To put this in perspective, you can get to the Commercial level on your license (multi-engine land, instrument airplane) in as little as 180-200 hours. That is going to leave you with about 1300 hours of "time building." At that point, the best way to build time is by instructing. Getting your basic CFI license will add probably 30-50 hours of time to your total time, and then from there you can expect to build about 50-80 hours a month while instructing (that figure is based upon my averages while instructing full time at a school who made sure I always had a full load of students).
Just to give you a basic understanding of the different "levels" of licensing, there's private, commercial, and ATP (airline transport pilot). A private pilot's license is much like most driver's licenses: you can fly all you want, but you can't make money doing it (there are a few exceptions). A commercial rating allows you to start making money flying. Traditionally a commercial rating was all that was required to get into the right seat at an airline, but this has changed. Now all pilots flying for airlines must have an ATP rating.
Those are the different level's of certification. As you work your way up, each level gets harder to obtain. Within each level is the category and class of aircraft to be flown. For working towards airline jobs, single-engine land and multi-engine land are the two you'll be concerned with. There are others, such as seaplane ratings and lighter-than-air, gliders, and more.
The typical progression is private pilot single-engine land, private pilot multi-engine land, commercial pilot multi-engine land, ATP multi engine land. The instrument rating is usually sought after either of the private pilot's licenses. At that point you'll hold a license with priviledges for private pilot single-engine land, ATP multi-engine land, and instrument airplane (that covers both single and multi engine flying). To become an instructor (one of the better ways to build time towards that ATP license), after your commerical pilot multi-engine land (or before that rating), you'll need to get a commercial pilot single-engine land rating, and then your Certified Flight Instructor rating.
There are no more "quick" routes to airline flying, but you can probably decrease the time a little by looking into one of the major fligtht colleges. The new rules are allowing the FAA to grant them reduced minimums for an ATP license.
There are other requirements for each airline, but the licensing is by far the most intensive part. Start researching the different schools, and good luck!
One last note... Delta is getting ready to vote on a new contract for its pilots. That contract includes a pay schedule for regional aircraft, and there is language in the agreement concerning returning portions of that regional flying back to the mainline pilots. It's possible Delta pilots may begin flying some of the bigger regional aircraft, but that's just speculation.
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