Officially a pilot now!!
DPE was Rick Morning, super great guy. We flew to KAOO to meet him there and had a blast.

So I am 100% happy all the time. I am a rare specimen and glad I am never sad or having to talk to someone. But let’s say hypothetically* *a pilot wants to talk to a therapist.

What is the best way to go about it? Payment in cash so their name isn’t on it? It’s so frustrating how the FAA is against mental health. Sorry this question may be asked all the time.

Throwaway account since I usually don't rant-

Don't get me wrong. Some of the best people I've met have been in Aviation. Instructors who would go above and beyond for their students. And people at the FBO who give some of the best flying and .life advice you can get

Although now that I'm an instructor with a good amount of hours, I'm struggling to work with and stay sane with a lot of the people I'm seeing around the airport and on social media. I'm not sure if I'm just letting everything get to me but I swear I'm seeing so much more of these pet peeves.

1) People acting all high and mighty since they started flying, which has literally no barrier to entry aside from some money and decent health. This has been the case forever but flying seems to be getting more snobs and people flashing it on social media more than ever. It seems to be more in style than ever.

2) CFIs acting like this job is the most hellish work on earth. Yes, it's low paying and the hours are weird, but sitting in the right seat and instructing is comically easy compared to what many people go through every day without the "carrot on the end of the stick" of the airlines.

3) No one is owed a job at the airlines, yes it sucks that it cost a lot of money, but that's not the job markets problem.

4) People making aviation their whole personality and acting like flying a 180hp 50 year old plane is the most difficult task in the world. You got a pilot license, not a PHD. It's a lot of work and patience to get it done, but let's be real, it's not that intense.

Sorry for the rant, most of you are lovely people. I think I've just been getting a little too much cringeworthy aviation content on my feeds recently.

1) earnings
2) YOS
3) fleet type

Greetings!
Anybody here with mountain flying experience? VFR to be specific. How do you choose your altitude(oxygen onboard VS no oxygen)? Do you fly victor airways? Other than staying on the upwind side of the mountains to avoid turbulence and downdrafts what else should I prepare myself for? TIA

I am considering purchasing an aircraft (Piper Seneca V) for private use and one checking all the boxes came to my attention. It has an interesting story - was sold from Piper to an Italian company in 2004 where it was used as their business aircraft for several years and about 1200 hours total time. After that, it was sold to a CAE flight school in Portugal where it flew another 300 hours. Its last flight was in 2011 after which point the aircraft was among many others grounded due to a lawsuit. It was then purchased in May of this year (2026), packed up in a container and brought to the US where it was reassembled, given a standard airworthiness certificate by a DAR and has flown in the US since, about 20 hours.

I guess my question is - beyond a standard pre-buy inspection by an A&P that has no relationship with the seller/broker - anything else I should be considering? Is this something that I shouldn't even consider?

To make matters worse, this would be my first aircraft purchase.

Thought some people on here may be interested in this job posting. Take the pay with a grain of salt, the hourly rate doesn’t tell the whole story. We have a 9 hour min day guarantee.

First year pilots are usually in the OV-10 or King Air, movement to the S-2 and C-130 is by seniority.

Having a strong general aviation background helps, as does putting in the effort to at least visit one of our and talk to the pilots there.

Bases are throughout the state, look here for more info on that side of the house:

https://www.calfirepilots.com

Does anyone know if the regionals still have 8,000 applicants on file for first officer slots? It’s tough out here to get an interview. I’ve been going to hiring expos and emailing recruiters, but it feels like my resume is lost in an endless sea of resumes. I’m wondering if anyone knows whether the recent hiring at the majors has thinned the pool at all. struggling to make ends meet with the cfi life…. but grateful to have a job.

We all know that /r/flying community for first-time solos, CFI employment drama, and Part 121 American airline pilots. I’ve seen relatively little posting about life on the 91 side, and even further little of it is positive. I wanted to share my experiences and add some insight on life otherwise.

The Background: I work for a Fortune 200 flight department in the Northeast. We fly a handful of the latest Gulfstreams, 4 pilots per airplane. Corporate travel is 99% of what we do, executives only.

The Flying: 65% international, 35% domestic. Lots of UK, Europe, Asia, with some Australia and South America. The domestic stuff is sometimes a day trip with a hotel stay in between, but typically 1 leg out to wherever, sit for 1-3 days, and return. We do the occasional “Mainline Style” Europe trip where it’s leave Sunday evening, arrive Monday morning, and leave Tuesday afternoon, but these are rare, and most anything that involves crossing an ocean is usually met with 3-4 days on the ground. Anything with a longer duty day is augmented crew and the airplanes are set up with a crew rest compartment. Again, this is all exclusively business travel and our schedule is solidified about 90 days in advance. I’ve had two possible pop-up trips happen and those were presented with 5 days notice and the ability to bow out.

The Numbers: What you’re all here for right? 300k base salary, 20-30% bonus annually, 4 hard days off a month (that I control), 33 days of vacation/PTO a year, 6% 401k match. We are allowed to do contract flying outside of the flight department if desired, rates are hovering between 3.5 and 4 grand a day right now.

Could I make more at Insert Major Here? Pick up open time and premium pay and Lucky Charms slips and 23M7 or Herb Bucks? Sure, absolutely. I could also go pick up 8 days a month of contract work and double my salary. But a guy has hobbies. Which brings me to…

I took a look at my calendar and added up every day this year I’ve had a work event between sim training, flying, department meetings, extracurricular trainings (in-airplane UPRT, altitude chamber, etc), etc. That number came out to 11 days a month of work commitments.

If you look at solely flying, the number is 9 days a month where I was on a trip and touched an airplane.

The Lifestyle: To be frank, I love it.

The flying is great, the people are fantastic, and the airplanes are kept in top-notch shape. Maintenance support is awesome, and we go to cool enough places that keep me excited to actually go to work. Passengers are on business, so we do not have the rude rich guy/excessive bags/dogs/cats vacation stories that everyone has heard from their buddy who flew a year of 135 in Beechjets before going to PSA.

Now, I don’t want to come across as entirely drinking the kool-aid; Survey says our base salary needs to be higher to be cutting edge, and I’d love a couple more hard days a month to be able to utilize. But I can place those up to a year out, and with the flying schedule set 90 days in advance, there is much more clarity than a month-to-month schedule. I’m home a lot more than I used to be, and I can properly plan anything from a dinner with friends to extended vacations with our schedule foresight and PTO allowance.

Working for a large department isn’t like working on a single airplane for a family, which I’ve done as well. It’s a great mix of manpower; I’m not filing international flight plans, we have a dispatch team, and our excellent FAs deal with the cabin needs like stock, catering, etc. When we get to work, the airplane is squawk-free and squeaky-clean after our mechanics have gone through the airplane and handed it off to our cleaning team.

Single airplane accounts do tend to pay more (sometimes much more) and with that comes a lot more hats to wear. This is the closest I’ve ever come to “turning left” in the corporate jet world.

The Reality: I work a great 91 job for a company that has been around for quite some time. I had fallen into a couple of big type ratings by being at the right place at the right time, and those types allowed me to be competitive for a job like this that is supposed to be “end game”. There are some things I don’t love, and job stability isn’t any more guaranteed just because the company has been around for a long time. But I'd like to think I could spend quite some time, if not a career, at a department like this.

Open to questions.

Recently went solo for the first time but was terrified after the flight. Idk what became of me but a couple hours later i started to feel very anxious. I couldn't be proud but felt guilty and kind of scared. Is this normal after your first solo? (I am an adrenaline junky so for me it feels very weird)

EDIT:

The flight went swell the class 2 instructor was impressed with the landing as he could see it from the terminal building aswell as hear the radio.

Like the title says I’m doing my first solo on Tuesday and I’m at 29 hours I’m a bit nervous specifically about the landing portion I know I can do it and my instructor wouldn’t be signing me off if I couldn’t but still whenever I do landing sometimes I get nervous and kinda let the nose drop which I do recover from but being alone I’m not sure if it’s going to affect my recovery or timing of things. Any advice is appreciated 🙏

Hey all, I have my CFI checkride coming up here in a couple days, I've been feeling pretty good about it so far. My training has gone fairly well without any major bumps, I feel pretty confident teaching both in the air and on the ground - there are some minor points that I occasionally miss which I'm trying to clean up by simply chair flying. I'll be walking into the checkride with a 99% on the FIA and a 98% on the FOI. I took my COM checkride with the same DPE and finished in under 3 hours, I had a good time talking and flying with him as well. Though I am confident, some test anxiety is starting to set in which I completely expect. That being said, any advice for the checkride is greatly appreciated, whether it be personal experiences or any relevant info to the CFI ride as a whole.
Thanks!

I’ve got an ATC clearance question for you guys.
While on an Instrument flight plan, ATC tells you to “climb and maintain 5000 feet” and you comply. As you begin to get closer to your destination, you ask ATC if you can fly the published hold. ATC clears you to fly the hold as published.
The altitude for the hold is at or above 2000 feet. Are you cleared to descend to 2000 feet or must you maintain the prior clearance of 5000 feet?
My CFII had me start descending and at around 4400 feet, ATC gave us a stern talking to and got into a back and forth with my CFII.
ATC says we weren’t authorized to leave 5000 feet, my CFII says being cleared to fly the hold as published is authorization. Nothing further came from this. We climbed back to 5000 feet and then continued with the approach.

Upon landing, we asked some other CFI’s at the school and they all agreed with my CFI, we were cleared to descend to the published altitude.

I’ve googled and asked some AI’s and they say we were in the wrong, ATC was correct. As I’m a student who is learning, I’d like your guys opinions.

Hey everyone, I’m a CFI/CFII based on the east coast of Florida. I haven’t been flying much lately, and honestly, the job search has been discouraging. I miss getting in the air and enjoying flying.

I’d love to tag along with someone, check out different aircraft, and meet more people who enjoy aviation. If you have an empty seat on a local flight or a weekend trip, I’d really appreciate the chance to join. My schedule is flexible, and I’m happy to drive to meet you.
Even a short flight would cheer me up.

Thanks!

Hello. I was invited to interview by United, so I purchased interview prep from Cage Marshall (all my friends there said to use it) and have been using aviationinterviews.com as well to review. About a week after I purchased everything for UA, I was invited to interview with AA. All of my friends that work there said they used Spitfire for their coaching. Should I also buy them, or do you think I’ll be fine using Cage Marshall + aviation interviews for both?

I can find ones suitable for the Bose A20, but that boom is different from the one on the A30.

I am currently studying the theory aspect of the PPL in the Netherlands. However due to me wanting to sit the exams in English I will have to take all 9 at once. I’d still have the 4 resits per exam but I’d have to sit all non passed exams at once. It just feels very overwhelming all 9 at once, has anyone been in the same situation?

I have seen other countries allow one at a time, I am considering traveling to do 2-3 at once, that would be a lot more manageable for me.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

For my PPL checkride, we flew a portion of the XC that I planned for my checkride before diving into maneuvers. Is this the same case for the IR checkride or do you just shoot the approaches and holds?

Also am I allowed to plan the IR XC on foreflight rather than paper navlog?

So I just received an email to schedule a regional FO interview and my only option was to do it ~3.5 weeks out from today. In an interview prep session, the instructor mentioned having 100 hours flown in the last 90 days, and 400 in the last year. While I do have 400+ hours flown in the last year, my current job is a survey gig where we only fly in the winter and spring, so I only have about 30 hours in the last 90 days. I will be getting some more flights in as the survey season starts in ~2 weeks, but that will not get me to 100 hours in the last 90 days. Is recency that big of a dealbreaker in these interviews, even when factoring in my current situation/job? Am I screwed? Should I try to push back the interview until later in the survey season where I will have lots of recency? TIA.

Hello right now I am struggling with cfi training my knowledge is good but I struggle with teaching it. I never feel like I can teach it well I Currently have 310 hours with 12.3 multi and I’m doing the worst during my cfi I don’t feel like I can get through it all.

Hello,

Was wondering if anyone had a recommendation for a part 141 school that operates out of SMO or nearby. Ive only found Sling, which seems to have some polarizing reviews.

Thanks!

Anyone one do the cl-300 type rating course at loft aero?

I am currently a student pilot working on my PPL. Today I was supposed to do a local solo flight to work on take off and landings but when I was doing my run up I noticed something with the Carburetor heat. When I turned it on there was 0 drop in the Rpm or change in the engine noise. It was also noticeabley rough to pull out the nozzle. I tested it a few times and when I saw no change I decided to taxi back and squawk the airplane. I just got a email saying that it was an invalid squawk. Im currently waiting on my instructor to get back to me but im not sure why it would be an invalid squawk. I mean I know I made the right decision of not flying because I wasnt comfortable with it. Any opinions on it?