I think ATP CFIs get away with it because most of their flying is just sitting on a seat doing long cross countries, therefore they aren't constantly teaching as another would doing work around an airport many times a day. One of the major faults that ATP has in their philosophy is that they try to emulate an airline flying environment. They have dispatchers and do coast to coast flights. The problem with that is that those kids need to be learning how to fly planes rather than learning how to fly in an airline environment. They're not going to learn much by flying for 90 days non-stop. It's your choice, if you've got something going at your school why ruin it?

Shaun
 

Once again, you have no idea what you are talking about. The cost comes from all the costs included it takes to get you done. Since the intial is done in Fort Lauderdale, they pay for your airfare to get there and the hotel that you will be staying at. While you are in CFI school. You get the use of an ATP furnished apartment for those 2 weeks. You have no hotel costs while at ATP. They also will pay for a rental car while you are there and reimburse any taxi service that you may use. You can't tell me any other flight school does that. ATP is the best way to get things done. I am not saying that your FBO is anything less, because I don't know about your FBO, but that is why I am not saying about your school. You really don't know anything about the career program because no one in the country can compete with that. When you are fininshed with the career program, you already have the multi mins for most regoinal airlines. The planes are keep in good condition, and if something does happen, they have plenty more. Unlike an FBO which might only have 1 multi, ATP has 70, so do the math.

I never thought about doing the career program. I just talked to some people who did the career program about the CFI program. They said that I would be better off doing it at the FBO and gave me a lot of reasons why. I did my CFI for much less than the cost advertised on the ATP website, what ever that includes, it was still less.

It is already done. I don't know why you are trying so hard to change my mind after the fact. I am not saying that ATP is a bad place or anything, I am just saying that in the situation, it wasn't right for me.

AirWillie
 

You just won the award for the dumbest person on this forum. You obviously have no freakin clue about ATP instructors. 95% of my flying is done in and around the airport environment(Class C at that) which alot of instructors fly in and out of their non-towered airports. I have almost 400 hours of dual given in multi engine aircraft. All ranging from pvt multi to atp. I have done 4 long cross country flights in 8 months of instructing. Don't tell me that I am just sitting in the seat chillin. I have almost been put into spins 3 times with my students which isn't fun in a seminole during a Vmc demo. Yes ATP does try to emulate the airline environment to some extent. That is because the majority of the people are trying to get to the airlines. We have dispatchers because someone has to keep track of over the 100 total planes that ATP owns. Planes need to be moved around the country to our various maintanence locations and as other locations need planes for training. The only people that do the "coast to coast" flights as you say are students. 2 students fly those routes to build up time. There is no instructor on board. Once they get their instrument rating, they fly 75 hours of XC. Most of this flying is done around some of the countries busiest airports like Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, LA, San Fran, San Diego, Chicago, and D.C. just to name a few. Something you obviously didn't know. One thing that makes me realize that you don't know what you are talking about is flight proficiency. You can't tell me that flying 200 hours over a period of 1 year is better than flying that in 90 days. The more you fly the better you are. The worst pilots are those who don't fly that often and they get extremely rusty on simple things like comms. But I guess that you wouldn't know that because you are an idiot.

All this ATP hate is nonesense. . . it's getting to the level of ERAU and DCA hate.

Relax, bottom line, ATP is a GREAT place to get ANY training at a REASONABLE cost.

ctd57, one of the things that I have heard from the people who have gone to ATP is how good the XC time is. Once you get your instrument, you get to go use it in a real world situation. It is a good way to remember everything and get not only XC time, but real world instrument twin xc time.

I just want to let everyone know that I am not an ATP hater, it was just the situation that my FBO was better. If I were to go back and start from scratch, I would consider the career program. I didn't hear about it until I was to late and it didn't make sence. They have a good program that is good for a lot of people, but not everyone.

Sorry to insult your organization, Mr.ATP. But you don't need to use heavy language. People know how to sit in a plane for long hours, they need to be learning how to fly a plane first. It's just that the word is that ATP CFI's can't teach.

You not insulting ATP, I don't care what people think of them. It is just the fact that you made a comment without knowing the facts of how we operate here as instructors. If I am going to comment on something, I at least learn the facts or find out from someone who does if I cannot find the answers myself. I am just sick of people on the forums who say that people who work for ATP are just buying there way into the airlines, and they act like they can't go to a school just like this. I think for the most part some people are just upset that they didn't do something like ATP. It is a smart way to get yourself moving in the right direction. If ATP instructors can't teach, then how can they pass an FAA checkride in the first place if they don't know what they are doing. We checkout with the same DPEs that everyone else uses. If I couldn't teach, I wouldn't have a 95% pass rate out of over 40 checkrides that I have done for people. I know that it doesn't take brains to fly straight and level, but that is not what we teach here. The only time these guys get to fly straight and level for extended periods of time is during the cross country time building phase.

Hey ctd57, what ATP city do you instruct at? I'm about to do my Private checkride and start taking classes at the Atlanta ATP. Hopefully in the next 14 days.:cool: