Originally Posted by
bedrock
Get a PPL first, so you can judge your aptitude and desire to fly, before you plunk down serious change at ATP's. The biggest problem with ATP is in a fast paced program, you don't have time to internalize what you learned. How fast you internalize is the question. ATP dispatchers will treat you like dirt and customer service is bad. They have an attitude that you are the pilot, we are the company, so we tell you what to do---not you are the customer, how can we please you.
I only did their CAPT program in 2003 (35 hrs multi-IFR) after I was out of aviation for a while and applying for a job which required multi-engine currency and good IFR skills. I flew ATP's planes over half the country in mostly IFR. Dispatch had me running around last minute scrambling for enroute charts and approach plates as they kept changing my route, so i was delayed hrs trying to find an FBO on field that sold charts and which was open on Sunday evening. Keep in mind, this airport was big and I had no car, so it was miles of running on foot. Then they yelled at me on the phone, when I as late. They had good, well maintained planes and the other ATP student was a good pilot. But this was after I had 1200 hrs of experience. If you put the work into it, that means study, study, study AND you can keep up with the pace, I think it can work well. You get gobs of multi-time in a real world environment, flying their planes hundreds of miles in all weathers (not icing). No other school I know of gives you the opportunity to get that experience and confidence. Get the PPL elsewhere first, though.
I agree, I had my PPL before I went to ATP. That also lets you judge the quality of flight instruction a you have something to base things on. Their crew cross country phase is awesome! But I agree, flight ops is a DA operation. The fast track program has your time at ATP all planned out. IF you get behind, and you will; each day puts you closer to the chopping block that you get behind. That's regardless of the cause for the delay. For example, CCC at ATP should have you flying multiple airplanes around the US and each leg you should be changing flight crews. It is set up to work like an airline environment would work.
My CCC went like this:
I was assigned a crew partner I knew from my school, which was cool, but the base we were assigned to depart from was not our base and was an hour-hour and half drive one way in good traffic. Flight ops wants you to check in at 6am and be ready to go. Well it was windy and the minimums are like 20 knots on the winds, if ATIS reports 21 then you can't go. They will hold you until it hits 20. That meant that for 3 days we sat at an airport 1-1.5 hours away from where we were based at to only have to drive home 1-1.5 hours to turn around and get up early again to repeat the BS. Finally the weather was good, and we get on our way. Well, I never changed partners but we did change airplanes. So what that entailed was getting stuck with someone for about 2-3 weeks that on day one was "tolerable" but I was looking to get away from him. He thought he was better than everyone and especially me. This guy would file below the MEA, listen to a WX briefer but not LISTEN to what it said, he would not follow ATP CCC SOPs, he was lazy, careless, and wouldn't listen to me. When he was getting slow, I would call out, "airspeed!" and as the stall horn went off as we approached the IAF; he did nothing. The stall horn is an action horn! When it came to making radio calls, he sucked yet he was a former ATC. He just sucked the more I flew with him. There was an active rocket/missile launch going on in a MOA and the DA that he is filed for an altitude that would have sent us through the hot zone. I told him to change that once I saw it, and he blew it off. We get there and ARTCC informed us to climb. He didn't want to climb. He was afraid to climb. He liked 5,000 and below. Partially had to fight guy to climb above it. Anytime we landed, we were to complete an instrument approach. He would do the visual, and log it as an instrument approach, that was until I put my foot down after a few times of noticing that. Coming out of Houston going back to the Dallas area I filed for 10,000 feet. I had never flown to 10,000, but had been to 9,000. He was certain the airplane would fall out of the sky, and I knew that was silly. Once I proved to him that 10,000 feet was not much different than 9,000, he kind of relaxed. Then we went to one airport, it was to be our last flight together essentially. It was his leg out and mine coming home. The weather had been IFR with weeks of hard rain. It did not look good for us going and coming home. Despite telling flight ops that, we departed. We were flying to Louisiana and had filed for like 7,000 feet. We were up just after 7 am and had leveled off at 7,000 about 10 minutes into the flight, when my crew partner looked at me and asked me to request 11,000 feet. I thought I was hearing things, but he was serious. We got 11,000 and 5 minutes later were level at 11,000 feet. Well we land and he did a balked landing and it was rough. Weather was not in favor of a flight westbound anytime soon with fast storms approaching and so I was the PIC now as it was MY leg. I was the shot caller. I said we were staying, but nope my DA crew partner decided call flight ops and tell them that we were ready to go. Like I knew it, we weren't going to Dallas due to weather, so I suggested flying to Houston to dump their airplane and airline us to Dallas. That was too hard, and they were CERTAIN that the weather was going to be perfectly VFR despite what the forecasts were depicting. That's pretty stupid if you ask me. We get notified that we were flying to a small town in East Texas, which sounds like no problem considering I live in East Texas, however I knew all about that airport and knew what was forecasted. That was not the place to be considering what the weather was going to do; ground us. I told flight ops and my CP but listening to me was too hard. We get there, its pilot controlled, and busy as storms were coming and people were getting in before they couldn't. He made 2 radio calls (his job is the radio/navigation, gear snatcher,etc) the entire time once we changed other CTAF from Houston Approach. Two. It was hazy, sunset, and of course MVFR. My CP is a city guy, and never really spent much time out in a small town environment or airport, and trying to explain to him he needed to be more aggressive on position reports when trying to fly the approach was not team work. It ****ed me off that he cared so little considering the factors involved. Well we land, and flight ops thinks that small-town USA is like NYC, DFW, ATL, LAX,etc. I told them there was going to be NOTHING but they just knew it all, and I was once again ****ed off. No rentals, no taxi services, nothing. Airport was outside of town and required borrowing an airport work truck. Hotel was actually nice, which made the next 5 days better, but still sucked. Every morning per flight ops, we would be up at 6 am talking to them and despite telling them it was LIFR/IFR and we weren't getting out of there that day; they made us check out and sit at the airport. We repeated this for 4 days and had to check back into another room. YAY ME! This airport has a really small waiting area and sitting there for 5 days sucked. Turns out on the 5th day flight ops called to say the weather was bad and we were getting a rental to drive back to Dallas. REALLY!? It took them FIVE days to agree with me!? So point is that ATP flight ops is just as clueless as a brand new CFI. I might be a student pilot to them, but I am pilot and I am a human. Just because flight ops thinks they know more than I do, does not mean they can be stupid or rude.
Anyways that is a short version of what to expect from flight ops.