Quick question about night time. Ive been flying seaplanes for the past 7 years and have accumulated a bit of time exceeding ATP minimums. The one thing I lack however is the 100 hours night for the ATP. As you can imagine this is quite difficult to obtain with this type of flying. I am faced with two options. Spend the money to rent an aircraft to get the 70 hours i require during my next annual leave or leave my current employer and chase a night flying position (freight) only to disadvantage an employer when i leave in 3-4 months when i obtain these hours and join a regional (if any will take me).
Your call and I don’t know your current situation (age, current income, available funds) and how much you enjoy the job you’re at? As for burning the new job everyone in this industry knows pilots are always looking to move up, particularly entry level cargo gigs, so I wouldn’t loose too much sleep over that. Maybe you could find one part-time and work less at your current job? Worse comes to worse rent the plane. While it won’t be cheap you’ll see that money returned later at the airlines 10 fold.
Keep in mind FAR 61.159(b) allows pilots with at least 20 night landings to
credit up to 25 hours of night for each additional night landing. I’ve
copied and pasted the reg for you.
This should significantly reduce the cost to rent a plane.
(b) A person who has performed at least 20 night takeoffs and landings to
a full stop may substitute each additional night takeoff and landing to a
full stop for 1 hour of night flight time to satisfy the requirements of
paragraph (a)(2) of this section; however, not more than 25 hours of night
flight time may be credited in this manner.