AKASHA

I arrived at ATP with a PPL and stack of credit cards. They handed me a cardboard box full of King videos. They said go home, watch these videos and take all your writtens. I was a little taken back. Disappointed definitely. But in 5 months I had all my ratings (including MEI,CFII) and a competitive amount of multi-time for a very fair price. True, not the attention and training you would expect from a lot of 141 schools. But it was a very good value. Its not for everybody but I got what I paid for.

JAPANAN... I would like to hear a little more about your China experience. I am weighing an opportunity there and would appreciate your insight. It is off topic but there is China thread and you can reply there if you want.

150Aerobat

I am thinking of doing something similar with ATP, but its hard to find money. Where did you get the credit cards to finance your training? How did you make the payments when you weren't working? Are you working now? hardly any flight schools are offering financing right now, its frustrating.

chignutsak

All I got was a big box from UPS full of books. No videos. Here ya go, start studying. During my training there, the only part I would describe as academically thorough was the instrument multi portion. For everything else, you needed to be self-motivated, as the CFI's were too busy at my location to give more than PTS rote-type instruction. In some cases, the CFI's didn't have more than that level of knowledge anyway.

To the original poster, I commend your decision. You brought a discrepancy to their attention. They refused to correct it. Sleeping on the floor does not constitute adequate accomodation. I did the career program there, and I can describe many similar incidents although in their defense they eventually addressed them. At any rate, there are plenty of places out there that will be happy to take your money and treat you correctly from the start. These are important ratings; best of luck in getting a thorough training program and a tough, but fair, checkride.

AKASHA

It was a much different economy when I enrolled at ATP. Credit card offers came in the mail on a weekly basis. After refusing and refusing, I suddenly got the idea to accept them all at once. Before any banks could figure out what I had done, all seven cards were already maxed out.

The minimum payments on all the cards was somewhere around $400/month or so. And I was working at night to make my payments, I was living at home. Somehow I made it all work. Eventually all my debt was bundled together and managed by a credit counseling service.

Honestly, I don't know if I could pull off the same thing nowadays. It used to be so easy to borrow money, find a job. If I was young and hungry to get into aviation in todays world, I would probably shoot for an ATC job. I would get that career on its way and do flight training on the side without taking on all that debt.

japanam

AKASHA

Sure! I don't know how much help I can be but I will do my best to provide you with real life in-sights. What kind of opportunity are you looking at? If you're thinking about Jade or Yangtze, you might consider looking at those threads.

As for life in China, or if you're looking into flight instructing; that I can be of help! Let me know!

MoonFallsDown

ATP is not worth for any initial rating, for an add-on yeah it’s not bad, but depends on how good your instructor is btw. I was there for an add-on and I was glad I had one of the good instructors from that specific location.
The worst experience I had was the customer service, when I first called them for to get enrolled in an add-on program the chief Pilot john was very helpful, the moment I paid for the program, I saw his black colors, he never responded to any of my emails I sent him regards to change in a date and what not. But the Instructor I had was very helpful and he took care of my needs as I needed.

An added bad experience was, one day there was an arrangement problem and I was waiting for the instructor to get back from his flight which I had to stay at the ATP Office for more than 2 hours, one of the instructors was teaching his instrument student the whole thing wrong. I couldn’t stop laughing….he did not even knew what a back course is and what it is for… so being a CFII, I asked him if it’s okay to teach the student the right thing….so I went on and took over his student for the 2 hours of ground he was scheduled for.

So when i asked him how did he got hired with ATP and the interview stuff, he said the interview was over the phone and the interviewer only asked him to Explain Seminole's Electrical System ....

So for any MEI's out here reading this ... study the Seminole's (PA44) Systems and ask them for an interview ha ha

@Japanam : any opportunity for this 350 hour CFII?

japanam

Hmmm.....Is that 350 Total or 350 dual given?

If it's the latter, I may know of a couple places that may take you on. If it's 350 total, I don't think you'll find anything in the Japan/Korea/China and Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Thailand) area.

The Philippines I don't know anything about, however, I have heard of fresh CFIs getting jobs. What you need to do is search on the net and send blind resumes to various flight school. There's a catch though, don't expect twin time and don't expect more than $2,000 per month. It's plenty to live on though!