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Hi All,

Currently, I am a senior in high school, and my goal is to be a airline pilot in the future. I just got my PPL this summer at the age of 17. This is my plan to achieve my goal.

1. Get my Instrument Rating by March of the next year (Currently working on IR Ground), and keep building time after that until I reach 250 hours, at which time, I can get my CPL. (Goal is to get CPL at my 18th birthday.).

2. Attend and graduate from a community college, and live at home to mitigate living expense costs.

3. After getting my CPL, get my CFI so I can start CFIing in college part time (have a inside connection at a flight school to get me hired.) That flight school is pretty busy and hopefully I will get about 50 hrs/mth as part time.

4. Transfer to a four year university; major Non Aviation related. (Business). At the same time, I will be 21 or so so I can apply for one of the Pipeline CFI positions with AE,XJET,etc. If unable to get on, continue CFIing.

5. Graduate from 4 yr university, and should have about 1000 hours. Keep CFiing until 23/1500 hrs, get ATP,and apply with a regional airline.

6. Fly at a regional airline until my hours are enough to apply with a major airline.

As far as flight school and college debt goes, I plan to have no debt from my flight training (working a part-time job) and will have little to no debt from college/University. (Financial Aid).

I know that's a lot to read in one gulp, but what are yall's views and comments on this plan of action? Also, I am a Chinese-American male. Will that help me or hurt me in any way when it comes to airline hiring?

Thanks and Fly Safe!

thepesimist

Of course not being white affect people in their profession but the world is becoming a better place plus it might help you. China has huge population with great demand for captain pilots.... or so I heard.

9780991975808

If you already have your pilot's licence, you already know how to plan. And your plan seems to back that. A couple of pointers to help you hone your planning skills. They were written with flight operations in mind, but the principles therein apply to all goal-oriented planning. Best of luck.

There are two fundamentally different approaches(81) pilots take to tackle uncertainty when they plan. One school teaches that it is better to generate several plans, one for each set of circumstances, test them one-by-one against the given set of circumstances, and then adopt the best one. The other teaches that it is best to devise one plan and test it against all circumstances. Is one method better than the other? Although they both satisfy the object of the plan, it is proposed that the first method places more importance on quality than what is needed. It is argued that the yardstick for planning should be the same as for all line decisions: adequacy.
...

The difference between best and adequate is a difference between two levels of satisfaction: striving for a higher quality than what is needed is attempting overkill. And overkill is no more effective than kill but costs more. The difference between the best plan and an adequate plan gives the Air Carrier nothing while the method to generate it could cost him a delay, or worse, a missed operational window.
...

Another area in need of attention while planning is flexibility. The first time we climbed into a cockpit we realized that rigid plans are DOA (Dead On Arrival). Therefore, plans should always be flexible. But how do we recognize and avoid plan rigidity? The following is offered as food for thought.

Rigid plans are recognized by their reliance on certainty. If any factor is less than certain, the plan should effectively address the uncertainty, both in isolation and in relation to other factors. Otherwise, the plan is rigid and useless. Warning signs of plan rigidity are assumptions incorporated in the plan as facts when experience suggests otherwise. For example, say, it is known that some airframes within the fleet consume more fuel than average. If the consumption of the subject airframe is unknown, a plan is rigid if it is based on fleet average. To be flexible, the plan must provide fuel for the airframe with the highest consumption. Note that it is not necessary to have experience with a particular airframe to detect plan rigidity: it is sufficient to know that some airframes in the fleet consume more fuel.

Another warning sign of plan rigidity is the legal "doctoring" of several factors to force a bad plan. While it is permissible to apply any value within an allowed range to accommodate operations near performance limits, applying marginal values to several parameters without taking synergy effect into account makes a plan rigid. Such plans cannot flex because the limits of their flexibility have already been reached. In other words, if they start out stretched to their limits, they are, in essence, rigid in so far as further stretching is concerned. Such practices eat up positive tolerances at the onset and thereby narrow operating margins. The net effect is a loss of tradeoff capability, the salient feature of good, flexible plans. (It should be kept in mind that the adequacy, referenced above, is not the same as minimum performance limits. Adequacy should include, among other considerations, all operational margins.)
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... good line plans always satisfy four criteria:
1. They lead to the objective,
2. They satisfy adequacy,
3. They cope with uncertainty, and,
4. They reflect command skills.

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(86) Schmitt & Klein, How we Plan, Marine Corps Gazette.

(Italicized text from: G.N. Fehér, Beyond Stick-and-Rudder, Hawkesbury, 2013, p. 203, 205-206, 209)

9780991975808

The footnote number in post #3 should read 81.
Sorry, I don't how to edit my post. I can't find an edit button anywhere.

rickair7777

With all of that out of the way...

Sounds like you have a good plan. But I would also seriously consider military aviation, preferably Air National Guard/USAF Reserve. If you you are open to committing to some serious dedication, military aviation experience is very career enhancing and will save you a bunch of money too.

Being Chinese-American will not hurt, and may help vis-a-vis affirmative action, although you need to be a US citizen to get commissioned as a military officer (all US military pilots are officers). Being non-Caucasian will almost certainly help with selection for any military officer program.

JRope135

I wouldn't think your ethnicity would be a hinderance at all. Especially if you speak a language other than English. As a previous poster mentioned, there's a growing demand for pilots in developing countries.

Good plan. Especially good that you're thinking about the debt level. That's what led me to the military. I couldn't afford to keep paying for hours. I've been in the AF for the last 15 years and wouldn't trade the experiences and and the training for anything. Stick with it and keep getting input from the folks ahead of you.

Best of luck to you.

.....

Thanks for all the advice. I have considered the military, however, due to my eyesight (nearsighted), unless I get Lasik, I can't get into any pilot training programs.

Montey

That sounds like a good plan ! As for me, Im sort of in your situation. (17, senior) I plan on going to Texas and going to flight school there; AE CFI pipeline program. Go to university in the same town and earn qualifcations to become eligible in the program. By the time Im 22/23 I'll hopefully have enough hours to apply to regionals. (The flight school hires 98% of students as instructors, insturctors will see 100hrs/month, very busy school).

By the year we're looking for jobs, more than half of regional pilots will move on to majors to fill in the retirees. Regionals will be in a shortage by that point. I know things could change, but thats just my vision on the upcoming future.

I wish you good luck man

Montey

oh and just like rick said, go to ANG/USAF Reserve. I plane to while im flying.

Montey

qualifications* and plan* editing was disabled ..