DA42 NG

[Golfer]

If it's a class D sim you can log it simulated jet time, right? As far as I know you can get all your ratings in a class D sim without ever seeing a real airplane.

You're correct that you can get a type rating in an airplane without ever seeing the inside of the real airplane.  You can show up at the hangar and fly it as PIC 30 minutes after you're done with training if you wanted to.  That doesn't mean you have logged any flight time in the airplane.

The Practical Test Standards books contain this information under the acceptable equipment and aircraft as well as which tasks may/may not be done and areas of operation qualify.  There's an advisory circular that talks about the certification of flight simulators and if you're bored waiting for something to do you can give a go at reading it.

Read FAR 61.64.  How do you meet those requirements if you only sat in a simulator?

FAR 61 and the aeronautical experience requirements also clearly spell out just how much flight simulator time may be used as a credit to an additional certificate or rating.  I believe it's 100 hours for airplanes and 50 for helicopters as an example.  It's not total time, it just gives you credit in addition to your total time to bring your aeronautical experience to whatever is required for the rating being sought.  (1500 for an ATP, for example)

You get credit for the landings for currency.  It's not Jet, PIC, SIC, Airplane, Multiengine or any other wink-wink, nudge-nudge quicky shortcut bonus to your flight time.

Now it's your logbook you can log whatever you want or you can not keep one unless you're needing the records for currency.  You just have to be able to explain what you've logged and why you've logged it.

I had a kid send me a resume a couple years ago with 1400 or so hours, half of it in the right seat of an E145 and it included 800 hours of actual instrument time.  Now considering your average professional pilot might have 1/10th (give or take of course) of their total time be instrument time this was unusual so I called and asked.  He had been logging all time above FL180 as actual instrument time since it's by reference to instruments.  He didn't offer much of a defense.  Cute, clever, wrong.  I referred him to someone very well respected as a resume and interview prep coach to get him sorted out since he wasn't a complete dork and was also pleasant to speak with for a short while.  If he had been sending that resume out to other operators they're likely to round-file it off the bat and you don't want your name remembered that way.

[SFRT - Frenchy]

Didn't really wished to get involved, I can't bite my tongue anymore. It's my personal opinion, so it's not law written in stone. Don't fall for the unicorn & glitter crap. Whatever a class D simulator is, nobody, again nobody is going to give a hoot about your 10 - 20 hours of space shuttle simulatorin the job market.  Nobody cares either about someone with 600 sic time on a part 91 king air to give you an idea. Few even care of your 800h as a CFI, as you were not even flying the thing, but they'll love that you know all the little stupid regs that don't apply to their operations anyway.

Its been beaten to death, you have two routes. The commuteurs that might hire you with no real world experience, where you can go parade your stripes before you pull out a colgan air, or painfully build your 1,200 to be thrown in the wild as a light twin captain, hoping you'll learn of the pilot skills before you pancake into a mountain in the middle of a storm.

The DA44 might look like the falcon millenium, but to a recruiter could be a seminole, even a freacking apache. They all are bug smashers, and twin time is twin time, but a recruiter will prefer PIC single with actual ifr over twin time as a MEI. Real world stuff that shows you have been around the block a little.

Off course, I'm making a point at being cynical, but the word of the street is that the industry will massively hire in 2-3 years to compensate for the baby boomers retirement. Thus if I were you, I ll get cracking 911 style. Get done like yesterday, and try to go rack up some real life experience.

Nobody ever asked me where I got my ratings yet, and what I was flying. There's nothing wrong in buying an old apache for $40, hire a flight instructor for 2 months straight, get all your ratings, sell the pane back.

Again, check the pilots hiring boards, see what matters, see how you can get it the cheapest/quickest. Big 141 schools throw glitters at you to justify riding their $$$ unicorns. Ain't going to make a difference with Bob's flight service graduate, except when you'll pay your loan back for the next 10 years.

Golfer, Wolfy might see different, again, just my 2cts ... Ain't God's writings.

[Wolfala]

^^^^

That pretty much covers it

[Golfer]

What Frenchy said.



<edit>

I didn't really like the way I wrote that.  I don't want to tell you what you should or shouldn't do.  Make that decision for yourself but make it objectively.  Whichever you choose have fun, learn and stay safe.