dl773

All,

ATP informs in its website that you will have 115 hours ME-PIC by the end of their accelerated program from zero hour.

How can they offer this many ME hours for $60K??? On top of the rest of their training!

Other Part 141s like FSA and Aerosim have much lower claims and their programs actually cost more.

What gives?

threeighteen

115 hours x $200 hour (probably costs them less, but that's a conservative guess) = $23,000. That leaves them with another $37k of your money to spend.

Next question.

Rotor2prop

Thats not some awesome deal. It just shows you how much your getting screwed at FSA and Aerosim. Look at Aviator.edu their program is even cheaper. Are any of them worth what they charge, probably not unless your a trust fund child.

Std Deviation

[QUOTE=Rotor2prop;1227999 probably not unless your a trust fund child.[/QUOTE]

They don't participate in "work" by flying the aircraft. They ride in the back, try to cram in an extra person by asking the company to remove the flight attendant, want their 17 year old girlfriend to sit in the jump seat while landing on a short runway in Santa Monica, and rub chocolate cake all over the interior...

DirectTo

If I recall correctly, ATP uses wonderful 'safety pilot' time to overly inflate your total time. Basically you and another guy go hop around in a Seminole, you ever so carefully watching him as he flies 'under the hood'.

AKA you're both paying to fly the same airplane, both logging the time. I personally think it's an absolute joke, but the almighty FAA has signed off.

yimke

Bingo. Also I have heard of them having you ferry aircraft for MX and both of you are paying for it. I wonder how employers look at that glorious safety pilot time?

One thing they are good at is to get you done quick and get out.

Ray Blaszak

Sounds like no one hear speaks from experience. How is it a claim? First the only safety pilot time you get is when you do your XC under the hood and you have a safety pilot? How is this different than being a safety pilot in a 172 and logging PIC time as well? Students aren't paying to move planes for maintenance. During your XC portion if they need a plane moved for maintenance you move it. Bottom line your there, going there, and a plane needs to be moved why pay an employee to move it. I am willing to bet that no one gets more actual instrument time than ATP can offer. During my instrument training we went flying and all but .1 of it was actual and all the other flight schools grounded their aircraft.

DALFA

It actually ends up being about $64-65k because there is also so much not included in the price.

As others have said, you can rent a Seminole for $200 (i've seen $170).

So $200 x 115 = $23,000

The rest of the time is 172 time...

So you can rent a 172 for $120 (average).

$120 x $135 = $16,200

So now all the flight time cost comes out to $39,200. Add in about 60 hours of instruction @ $40 per hour (again...average) and that's $2,400. Now you're up to $41,300. So that leaves them about $19,000 for them to pocket after all the instruction and aircraft rental. Not to mention that using the above rates...they're making money off of that as well. For example an ATP CFI takes home $800 per month plus $11-$13 per hour...and the airplane costs them maybe $80-$90 per hour.

The kicker in all of this? The financing. They get you approved to get a loan for all your flying and get a kickback from the financial institutions.

Yes they are fast...but you sure are paying them a whole lot for it. There's plenty of similar programs around that can be done just as fast for much cheaper. For example...they take 60 days for you to get your PPL when you can get it done in 3 weeks if you're ready.

dl773

From what I am reading this Safety Pilot thing is a co-pilot type of thing, where you share the flying. Both of you rack up hours. But, BOTH of you are also earning time as PIC and not as SIC?

Is this correct? Please clarify. . .

Ray Blaszak

Yes you are correct. One person flies under the hood and the other is safety pilot. We have two Hobbs meters to make sure we both don't log the same time. The safety pilot logs gear up to gear in the ground time and the pilot flying logs all the time. I don't regret ATP I did my instrument in 12 days.