Originally Posted by
LeoSV
I totally disagree with you about the time frame. It is almost impossible to get all those ratings at an FBO in even remotely close to 90 days. (private not included) I have tried it. In order to save all that money, you need safety pilots, and safety pilots are a pain in the you know what to find on a regular basis, unless you get totally lucky and find others in the same boat that have the same time frames as you. Otherwise, you need to pay an instructor to ride with you to get the hood time. Plus if you look at the cost and effort it takes to build ME time, ATP's prices aren't really all that bad. I'm not trying to advertise for them, and I know it really is alot of money to pay, but for the structure and ME time, it's really not THAT bad. flight training is expensive no matter where you go.
We had several at my local FBO. They would fly twice a day and have all of their ratings and decent time in less than a year (including instructing a little to build time). All it takes is about $30,000 - $50,000 in loans and some serious dedication.
I know I will get flamed for this, but here is goes:
The best part about flying at a local FBO is that
odds are you will be flying with a quality CFI who got his/her ratings over a long period of time and has some good experience to offer. At ATP
odds are you will be flying with somebody with very little experience, and is ONLY there to build time so that he/she can get in the right seat of a sexy regional jet. He/she doesn't really care about the quality of instruction that he/she is providing.
At the flight school I worked at, many of the students who wanted to blow through their ratings did it with some of our very best career CFIs. Our philosophy was that we need our very best CFIs to teach people that fast. One of them was 70 years old and has been a CFI since he was 19 and is a retired airshow pilot. Try finding somebody with that experience level at ATP - you won't. Flame away