Originally Posted by
Nate Graf
If I could get a free ride through Cathay Pacific or ANG I would definitely be on board. I'm approaching the whole deal tentatively and want to avoid any unnecessary cost. I will definitely be looking into Cathay Pacific and any other airline with similar programs. Thank you for your advice.
Cathay is not a free ride, you will need an FAA (or JAA) commercial, but they will then train you for a JAA Frozen ATPL, which converts to a regular ATPL when you have enough flight time. It's definitely a shortcut to the majors, but hard to get into.
Military will be the only route for a US citizen where you don't pay out of pocket for training.
At this point I'd go checkout small local flight schools and FBO's, and work on a PPL if you don't already have one. By the time you finish a PPL you will be much better informed as to how to select a school.
The big schools mostly excel at separating uninformed people from their money, I generally don't recommend them. If cots is no object, I would recommend Flight Safety.
Also new airplanes are not necessarily what you should be looking for. The cost of new light airplanes is far out of proportion to their historical cost, and you the student will pay for that.
At this point I would still say train on an older "steam gauge" airplane with a traditional six-pack flight instruments. It's easy for any young person to learn glass later when the time comes, because of your computer/smart phone experience. Many entry-level airliners (older turboprops) still have steam gauges and if you did all your training on a glass cessna, you'll probably fail out of new-hire training on a steam gauge airliner. I even sat jumpseat on a SWA 737-300 a few months ago and it still had all steam gauges.