How long does it take to get 2000-3000 hours in flying time to become a pilot?

I want to become a airline pilot. I need 2000-3000 hours for the job I want. About how long will that take to achieve?

If you fly 10 hours each day, you'll need 200 days or roughly 7 months.

You will never get the job without military experience, they don't just hand it out. You couldn't afford the fuel cost of 3000 hours anyway. At best, 15 years.

Your duty hours are limited by FAA regs as to how much per day, how many consecutive days. You can get a job with a regional or short haul line as a co-pilot or First Officer with a lot less hours than your figure. Then later you could be hired by a major airline as a substitute or relief First Officer. Later you could be a regular First Officer, then a relief Pilot. After a decade or so you might move up to regular scheduled Pilot or Captain. Some airlines still have Flight Engineers, but they are rare with the smaller aircraft and the newer large ones.
Hours might be calculated differently from different sources:
In the air seat hours
Block hours, including pre-and post-flight time, delays, and being substituted while in flight.
And being a copilot might not involve actually flying the aircraft. Most times there's monitoring instruments, radio, calculations and checklists, and at most, handling the takeoff. Supervision of those actions are by the pilot, who also does most landings.
See the FAA rules from 2014 about ATP:
That is for USA regulated airlines. Whatever country's pilot job regs might be for your 2000-3000 hour requirement is not known from your question.

You can't do the math? Seriously? And you want to be an airline pilot? Assume you fly 3 hours a week. Math time, 3000 divided by 3 equals 1000 weeks. Figure you fly 50 weeks a year it will take you 20 years. Golly gee, just in time for retirement. Assume you fly 30 hours a week. 3000 divided by 30 equals 100 weeks. That will take just over two years. Now, how about cost? Even if you could find a Cessna for $100 per hour, it is going to cost you $200,000 to $300,000 to get those hours.

2400 hours is 100 days. 100 days is nearly a third of a year so that's how much time you have to fit into all other things in your life such as sleeping and trying to earn a living.
I guess 2 to 3 years minimum

2000 to 3000 hours
Seriously it depends on how often & how long you fly

Including training plus entry-level and intermediate flying jobs, you're looking at 3-5 years on average in the current economy to reach that much flight time. A year to 18 months training full time (if you can afford it), and then 500-1000 hours per year as a working pilot. And, depending on what country you're talking about, you may need to have a college degree to be competitive, as is the case in the USA. No degree? Add two years minimum and 4 years preferred. And, depending on the job in question, 2000-3000 hours may be the minimum experience they require to apply, but to be competitive to actually get hired may require a lot more than that, or very specific experience that isn't easy to obtain. Getting hired by a major airline can easily take 5-10 years of working in the minor leagues before you get a shot at it. To give you an idea, in the USA the median age of hiring at the majors is 31.5 years old. If you're a teenager now, that's over a decade away.

How big is your pocket book, flight time in a jet is very costly. Most airline pilots are former military pilots and got paid to fly with free training.

Add Comment