Gulfstream Academy Question

[BrianNC]

Didn't know where to post this as I saw no category for them. Any reason for that? Anyone have any experience with them?

Thanks!

[JEP]

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Didn't know where to post this as I saw no category for them. Any reason for that? Anyone have any experience with them?
Thanks!

[/ QUOTE ]

Question #1 - Yes.
Question #2 - Personally No.

General Statement - Run, Run Away Fast.

Just do a search on Gulfstream Academy and you will see why.

[BrianNC]

Just from reading their site, what is so bad about getting 250 hrs. turbine in the right seat of a 1900 (plus sim time, etc.) and all your flight time coming to about $75 an hour once all is said and done?

[shooter13]

Because someone should be getting paid to fill that seat instead of paying to fill it.

If more pilots are willing to pay to sit in the right seat of an airplane, why should the regionals ever raise wages?

[BrianNC]

But isn't that in essence what you are doing with any kind of training? What makes this any different? The one was primary training, this is first officer training.

Sounds like semantics to me.

[SmitteyB]

This would be a better topic had it been posted in the General Discussion.

[BrianNC]

I'm new here so I didn't know where to post it.

[SkyJeff]

Do a search on gulfstream academy.

IF you make it through Gulfstream's program it doesn't mean you get a job, just an interview. Besides, do you think a Captain will respect someone who bought their way in?

[DE727UPS]

Brian, in my view, it's not semantics. Gulfstream is a regional airline flying turbine equipment. F/O jobs with regional airlines flying turbine equipment are traditionally a paid, entry level, job. There are always outfits like Gulfstream that come along and try to find new ways to lower the career expectations of pilots and make a buck for themselves. "Hey, I bet we can find guys to pay US to do this job, let's give it a try" they say. Next thing you know, the bar is lowered and it will spread throughout the industry. You'll be paying to fly right seat in that 737 someday.

If you want to pay for right seat time, you can find places to do that where you aren't considered a required crewmember, unlike Gulfstream.

By the way, if you didn't know, Pinnacle Airlines was forced by the FAA and their insurance company to stop hiring low time Gulfstream guys. I think PCL was the main place Gulfstreamers were going, so I wonder what the employment prospects are for Gulfstreamers these days.

[jaxpilot]

Once you have gone to Gulfstream, you will be "blacklisted" forever by many employers. You can deny that you got your training there all you want, but when the employer looks at your logbook and sees you logging SIC time in a B1900 and you have 250 hours Total Time, that will be a dead ringer. Why risk it????

[BrianNC]

Let me ask this though: What if your aspirations are to only be hired by them and not really go to an airline? It says they will give a FO job if your time with them is satisfactory. And what if you then build much more than 250 hours with them and then try to go somewhere else if that is your desire? It would not be evident then, would it?

If I had gotten all my ratings over the years by going to the local FBO, and now decided I would like to do FO for someone, then that $25K or so in some ways would be like going to Aviator ro get my original ratings. And I spend that money getting tubine time to boot.

What it seems to me (as a newbie to these concepts) is that it is more about the principle of what they are doing, because as I said before it really is just semantics. But it appears to me from responses that the attitude among pilots is that outfits like this cause you to make yourself a "#####" so to speak because it is more like you paying for a "job" as opposed to training.

I guess I can understand that. But $75 an hour for turbine time and training (once you factor in the $8 an hour they pay you while you are flying FO for the original 250 hours)? That's pretty cheap turbine time.

[MikeD]

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I guess I can understand that. But $75 an hour for turbine time and training (once you factor in the $8 an hour they pay you while you are flying FO for the original 250 hours)? That's pretty cheap turbine time.

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Would you pay to work at McDonalds?

Go for Gulfstream, and let us know how it works out for you.

Good luck.

[shooter13]

I see it as this, I am not planning a career change to an airline because of the low starting pay. That pay is low because people keep paying to work at an airline like Gulfstream. There is no need to raise pay because people think they are getting a deal and can get into that majical jet job faster. However, the more people who do this, the less of those great jet jobs there really are.

I wouldn't even consider what other pilots will think. I am not a big union guy myself but personally I think I would be helping to destroy the pay and working conditions by volunteering to pay to work for someone. I won't do it in my current field and I certainly wouldn't do it for an airline. It isn't the same as primary training. There are not 2 pilots required in a 172 so by requireing an instructor I was actually creating a job not taking one out of the market.

[ananoman]

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Let me ask this though: What if your aspirations are to only be hired by them and not really go to an airline? It says they will give a FO job if your time with them is satisfactory.

[/ QUOTE ] So, why whould they hire you when they have other people willing to pay for your seat?

[BrianNC]

I guess from all the right seaters going to the regionals.

[BrianNC]

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I guess I can understand that. But $75 an hour for turbine time and training (once you factor in the $8 an hour they pay you while you are flying FO for the original 250 hours)? That's pretty cheap turbine time.

[/ QUOTE ]

Would you pay to work at McDonalds?

Go for Gulfstream, and let us know how it works out for you.

Good luck.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is worse than the first time I ever walked into an FBO. At least they ignored me. I come here looking for information because I don't know how all this works, ask an innocent (or so I thought) question, and get jumped on. I never even heard of a PFT. Or at least I didn't realize what Gulfstream did was considered a bane of aviation training.

Remind me when I become a "professional" pilot to help those that have questions and not to turn into a jerk.

Thanks to you that have sincerely tried to answer my question.

[Lima_Charlie]

Brian, I think MikeD was just trying to help you understand what organizations like Gulfstream are doing to our industry. For the most part, those that understand how Gulfstream is hurting all pilots, are very passionately against it. By allowing a person to PAY for a job that should otherwise be filled by someone BEING paid, it lowers the bar for everyone.

Think about it this way... Let's say you REALLY want to be an accountant. And it turns out the "bean counter" business is VERY competitive, and jobs are scarce. Young, naive accountants everywhere are willing to do just about ANYTHING to get a job counting beans, and XYZ Inc. knows this. So your resume, and one other persons are sitting in HR being reviewed. Unbeknownst to anyone else, your competitions resume has a little note attached saying "I will pay YOU to hire ME!!!" Now, everyone knows that when you work, you should be paid. So how would you feel if someone, potentially less qualified no less, "bought" YOUR job right out from underneath you. From an employer's perspective, this is the Mother Load!!! They must be kiddy with excitement..."People are willing to pay US to work here!!!" Why pay a bean counter, when they are willing to pay us just to count our beans?!! So now, a job that you were much more qualified to fill was given to someone else that has paid to get it. How would that make you feel?

The essense of it all is that we provide a service, and should be paid hansomely for it, just like every other profession. It may look like a short cut for YOU, but each person that goes PFJ, hurts every other pilot, as well as our industry.

[Lima_Charlie]

Brian, I just stumbled across this article on JC... have a read, and I bet you will understand why people are so passionate about PFJ/PFT...

It is much better than my little story!!

[DE727UPS]

LC...very well said.

[MikeD]

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Brian, I think MikeD was just trying to help you understand what organizations like Gulfstream are doing to our industry. For the most part, those that understand how Gulfstream is hurting all pilots, are very passionately against it. By allowing a person to PAY for a job that should otherwise be filled by someone BEING paid, it lowers the bar for everyone.

.

[/ QUOTE ]

Appreciate this, LC. And Brian, LC is correct. My answer wasn't in any attempt to be a jerk or in any way sarcastic. There had already been a number of answers to your original question, and I was simply saying that if you weren't convinved by the answers given about what programs like Gulfstream really are, then the next best thing might be to try it (test drive it, if you will), and report the results you come up with back here. To my knowlege, we haven't had a Gulfstream person here on the forum, and input from someone that would go there would be interesting.

MD

[jtrain609]

We have actually, he was at Pinnacle for a while. He said he felt like a complete tool once he had paid down his money and realized what kind of a gig his was. My understanding was that his father was an ex-Eastern guy and had gotten screwed over by scabs, and felt like PFTing (once he realized what he had done) was nearly the same thing. He, like so many guys, thought Gulfstream sounded like a sweet deal and signed on the dotted line only later to realize the mistake he had made.

He was later let go from Pinnacle because he questioned a captain about a procedure he did that he believed compromised safety while he was still on probation.

[BrianNC]

Did he regret it because of the PFT thing or was the experience bad also?

[jtrain609]

Sorry, I thought I was clear with it but I obviously wasn't. My mistake.

He felt like a tool because his father lost his job because of what happened at Eastern Airlines. When the Eastern guys struck, scabs came into fly the work. The basic premise under what I was saying was dishonesty and stealing another mans work. Scabbing and PFTing do the same thing, steal the job from someone who has earned said job. He had the realization that he was doing the same thing to other people that legitly built their time as those that scabbed his fathers work, destroying the collective bargining process and stealing work away from someone else who has paid their dues.

[MikeD]

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. The basic premise under what I was saying was dishonesty and stealing another mans work.

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You mean like most of Continental's upper seniority numbers currently?

[Doug Taylor]

Ahh, scabbing. The moral equivalent of picking up on a soldier's lonely wife while he's away at war.