Re: How to become an Airline Pilot

Commercial Training

How to become an Airline Pilot

Anthony Tester 20/04/2010, 12:43 PM
This forum seems full of the same questions, what I intend to do with this post is write a "rough guide" of how you get from your sitting room to a flying job.

So, you want to become a pilot? Is it really your goal to cruise for hours at FL350 with the Autopilot on? Or would you really just be happier cruising around VFR? If you think its the latter you'd probably be better off with a PPL.

So Aviation is really where you see yourself working? The next question is your elligibility.

Age is a common concern, but assuming your between 18 and 50 you can secure a job after flight training.

Aptitude, some people just aren't up to the mental requirements of flying. Some training organisation require you to undergo aptitude testing as part of their selection, alternatively GAPAN also do pilapt testing. You can practice for these tests but if your not coordinated you may struggle with your flight training.

Medical. Obviously you need to be fit and healthy to be a pilot but there are no requirements to have 20:20 vision, Information on the medical can be found here http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?catid=49&pagetype=90&pageid=527

If your unable to get a Class 1 then you can't be an airline pilot, the medical requirements for PPL are less so it doesn't completely kill of your dream of flying.

Funding, this is where it gets complicated and its the hurdle where many fall, HSBC may no longer offer the proffessional studies loan (although it may at some point be re-instated) but some training organisations do claim to have funding information, so speak to the school and find out more directly. Parents may seem unwilling to use a house as a security, but if you can get firm information on repayment terms then you might be able to sway them, for instance a loan requiring repayments of £800pcm requires you only to find a job paying £6p/h working full time (Tescos, Sainsbury's, ASDA) although this is obviously not a long term solution!

Where to go is always a dilemma, First choice is often Integrated or modular. I'm a firm believer in Integrated training, it may be more costly but unless your full time work is in order to support a family, pay a mortgage etc. working full time on a small salary that barely supports your flying is pointless.

The best comparison I heard about integrated and modular training was a computer office system, do you go out buy the computer, monitor, router, cables and have them installed by the place you bought them all together or do you shop around and try and find the best deal for each one. The modular system may save you money but it doesn't give you as good an integration or support.

As for choosing your flight school, make sure you visit each one, speak to the students, see who's actually been employed, look at the first time pass statistics, the groundschool layout (when you'll sit the exams) where are you going to be doing the majority of your training, what aircraft will you be flying. Theres alot of information you want to pick up and compare, importantly find out about the funding options available and whether they run any reccomendation schemes.

I don't think i need to break down flight training as the details of what you have to and what you will be doing are all available on the CAA and school sites.

After approx 14 months on an integrated course and 1-infinite number of years on a modular course you'll then have your (f)ATPL and want a job. I can't say what the job market will be like when you finish, hopefully better than it is presently. If your lucky your flight school will reccomend you to an airline and you'll move almost seamlessly from flight school to type rating.

Many people however have to look for their own jobs, my biggest reccomendation is be open minded, look far afield, if you don't have anything tying you to the UK why stay? Sites like flightglobal jobs will show vacancies in cambodia, if your willing to go.

What I'd strongly discourage meanwhile is paying for your own Type Rating, this seems to be occurring more and more often unfortunately. Only pay for a type rating with a concrete offer of employment with the airline repaying the cost of your rating as a depreciating bond. Bonding is not uncommon but varies depending on the company, some will ask you to take out a loan that they pay off for you, but if you leave your responsible for, others merely state that if you leave before a required time period you need to repay them part of the cost of your training.

Imagine however paying for a type rating and line training with an airline then they go bankrupt leaving you with a type rating to repay, if your lucky you may be able to gain employment with another airline using your rating, but I work with guys who paid for airbus ratings and now are flying Fokker or Dash and had the company pay that rating for them.

This is, as i said before, only a rough guide, but should cover most re occurring questions. I have specifically chosen not to reccomend flight training organisations as most of these can be found via google and from there you can review courses and content. Please feel free to add input or ask questions as desired.

Re: How to become an Airline Pilot

McGoo 20/04/2010, 8:31 PM
<BLOCKQUOTE><table width="85%"><tr><td class="quoteTable"><table width="100%"><tr><td width="100%" valign="top" class="txt4">Parents may seem unwilling to use a house as a security, but if you can get firm information on repayment terms then you might be able to sway them</td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

what a disgraceful post, anybody who agrees to put their parents house up for security for an integrated course in this economic climate, needs their head read, look at some of the guys finishing training now who were the first to secure mummy and daddys house for that integrated course, no chance of employment, some up to £1800 a month repayments, YES £1800 a month before you have even housed, fed and clothed yourself or thought about running a car and having a social life!!, so the ones who went straight into training without a degree are going to be working VERY hard to stop mummy and daddy losing their home!!

Even those that do get flying jobs, a hell of a lot of them are not earning enough to service that sort of debt!

Re: How to become an Airline Pilot

Anthony Tester 20/04/2010, 10:15 PM
McGoo, I think you may have read a bit to far into this, I was merely relating to my personal experience and thats why I reccomend getting facts on the funding options available and finding out about the repayment conditions. I used the £800 as a figure which I had from HSBC for the repayment of a £60k loan over 10 years.

I'm slightly incredulous about those individuals who have chosen to indebt themselves to the sum of £1800 a month knowing that this is an amount they'll be unable to pay off until they've been on the flight deck for some years.

I'd say, from experience, Flying is all about Risk Management. Every flight has its risks which as professionals we try to minimise.
Perhaps we should view funding your training in the same manner. Attend Flight School open days and aerospace career seminars and you can judge when is the best time to start training. Obviously the least risk is to be succesful in gaining a mentorship like the kind FlyBE run and at the end of this walk into a jon in the right hand seat of a Q400. Not everyone is that lucky however.

You can use a mortgage calculator here: http://mortgages.hsbc.co.uk/products for a rough idea of how much repayments could be.

If we never took a risk in flying, we'd never take off

Re: How to become an Airline Pilot

GregR 20/04/2010, 10:26 PM
I dont see how this is a disgracful post. I can understand your point about the Loan which is secured on your house but that is your parents desicion. This post is very imformative!It Carries almost all the frequently asked questions!! Some answers to questions I have asked myself. Thanks for the post :):)

Greg :P

Re: How to become an Airline Pilot

Morbz 11/06/2010, 3:23 PM
Yer not too sure about Mcgoo's wording just there. I'm one of the crazy people that obviously need my head testing because my parents helped me out by securing a loan on the house.

It wasnt a stupid thing to do, it was a little bit risky yes but we had insurance to cover loss of medical etc for a few years during training and still have it now. Also the repayments are about £660 or something per month for 13 years. Seems crazy- well it is but it was my decision to do it. It wasnt too much of an issue because that amount per month is payable on even a very basic wage sitting in a supermarket, so in terms of testing my head I'm not so sure if that was the right thing to say. Also there are flexible options with the loan at the minute, so if employment was tough for one year you could just pay interest only etc. So don't jump the gun and start slating those who take up options like that, its personal choice and the bottom line is if your doing it via debt and secured loans then nobody in their right mind would follow it through without a backup plan.

The post did cover a lot of basics that people always ask so well done Mr T on posting it. You are always going to get people argue about integrated and modular, you are always going to get people say don't get into debt (because they didn't themselves and believe its the only way to do things) and you are always going to get difference in opinion.

BUT, just to clarify there are several ways of becoming a pilot in terms of finding funding. Those who pay as they go can find that it takes a long time and training isn't as consistent as it could have been if they had taken out a loan. Those who get into debt can argue their training is better because of consistency and the general opinion of airlines prefering pilots who stay with the same school vertically integrating their training. I sometimes feel that people are too quick to criticise instead of help each other (not mentioning certain other popular forums...) which is a shame.

So thanks again for the post, and Mcgoo- not everyone needs a pyschological check up for taking a risk ;)

Morbz

Re: How to become an Airline Pilot

airplanelove 30/06/2010, 3:28 PM
Great post but it seems to be more geared to the financial part of becoming an airline pilot. What about the fine prints? Would be nice to see a post about what it really takes to make it up the ladder like career paths maybe. Keep the good information coming in..

Kev