How to Effectively Gain Flight Hours

Accruing flight hours is one of the most crucial steps on the pathway to becoming an airline pilot. Even when you obtain the necessary ratings and certifications, 1,500 flight hours are required in order to make the transition into a career. When you work to build your flight hours, you put all your skills to use, practice and hone your abilities and log the time necessary to prove you are a pilot. This time on the blog we are looking at the best ways to gain flight hours!

There are a wide range of possibilities for accumulating flight time. After attaining their Commercial Pilot License, a pilot who is looking to get their minimum flight hours for jobs with the airlines, has a few options out there that have lower hour minimums, making them ideal stepping stones on the airline pilot path. 

Jobs To Gain Flight Hours

Tow Pilot

Believe it or not, there are still people out there flying banners behind their planes, advertising for their business or other, more strange causes. Whatever the reason, that means pilots are needed and these jobs often require much lower flight hours to get into. 

You can also look at towing gliders as a possible job. Towing gliders will definitely help you hone your pilot skills, as you will have to be aware of the glider’s flight as well as your own aircraft. 

135 Operators for Charter-Type Services

There is a need for small, private jets and their pilots. Often these jobs are moving passengers or cargo to remote places where standard aircraft and airlines don’t service.

Ferry Aircraft

While not the easiest gigs to find, they can give pilots a great opportunity to log plenty of flight hours! Ferrying an aircraft is required most often when someone purchases a new plane and needs it flown from one destination to another. Again, these can get you a good number of hours, but they are a bit hard to come by reliably, keep that in mind.

Tourist, Scenic Flying

For pilots with their commercial license, operating a small plane for tourists can be a reliable way to get their numbers up. Traditionally, tourist heavy places like Hawaii (or other islands), the coasts, or, more locally to some of our campuses, The Grand Canyon, are all places where tourists want to take a sightseeing adventure and get a bird’s eye view! 

Skydivers Need Skydrives

Speaking of people looking to get a bird’s eye view, some people are actually looking to jump out of planes! Ok, maybe that isn’t that shocking to you. Regardless, those folks need someone to fly their plane up for them to jump out of! Get in touch with a skydiving business and you can have a reliable source of flight hours.

Now, those are all possible sure. In fact, there are even more opportunities out there. But if you’re looking to find the best, the most effective method to gain flight hours…

The Most Effective Way to Get Flight Hours

The best, most effective way to accrue flight hours is through becoming a certified flight instructor and helping new cadets earn their wings. While all those different jobs are possible they are rare, most of them don’t actually fly that much. Certified flight instructors, however, are always needed!

Few things are better for practicing and mastering skills than instructing others. You will be in the air, guiding a cadet into learning their flight skills, packing every flight hour with active practice, thought and instruction. 

When you fly for skydivers or banner towing, that’s the job.  When you fly as a certified flight instructor, the flight itself is the purpose. Practicing and going over skills with the student pilot is the whole point of being up in the air! This means you are clocking those hours in the pursuit of being a pilot, not while doing something else.