Socal Approach

wow as fast as I want to get all my ratings I certainly don't want to feel rushed...That is very useful information and certainly not worth relocating for. I dont want anyone to hold my hand but at the same time everyones comments make it seem like going there a student pilot would feel like just a number and it doesnt change after you become CFI there which has been confirmed they dont even say that is a sure thing anymore. Thank you for sharing Ray.

HA717

Do everything up to comm/single at your FBO. From there do the multi add on at ATP if you're close to one. Not a bunch of places with a multi airplane that can beat the $3995 for that add on. They have that 10 hour multi rating down to a science. Be prepared to study your ass off for a week going into it though.

StartUp161WanaB

+1 to all the replies.

I went to ATP in jacksonville in 2007. Went from zero hour pilot to commercial rated pilot with plenty of multi time. I decided to opt out of the cfi program and did it at my own pace.( I'm from ny/nj area)I felt that seven days was wayyyyy too much of a cram for me to get all three ratings done. It is not impossible. I am happy with my ratings and experience I received from ATP. however if I could go back in time, I would have did my training differently. If I had known about this website before I would have taken the advise from members on this forum and saved plenty of money. Good luck on whatever you decide to do.

JamesNoBrakes

Ok, but 400+200=600, and you haven't even paid for the rental of the airplane for the checkride, which is usually at least 2hrs for a full private pilot ride. I've seen 450-500 for examiner fees more as of late. Realize at least SOME of the fees later on are likely to be this with inflation. Books can be less if you know where to look, such as downloading the handbooks online and finding a place to print them out.
Ok, so only 10hrs of that 45-50hrs is solo and only the aircraft rate, but each unit with a flight instructor should include about .5hrs of pre and post-flight briefing and supervision. This doesn't count ground sessions where you learn things like XC flight planning, airport operations, performance, weather, etc...20hrs at least, possibly more like 40. This is a pretty big oversight IMO.
Being at 6000 saves a little, but not much, since it's not cruising you are doing and you run the engine a little richer for all the large power changes you make while practicing maneuvers anyways. Here's something from the school of hard-knocks that many of us went to: The price is it is now is NOT the price it will be in a few years when you are finishing up your CFI or Commercial or whatever. Prices go up, and it's hard to say where fuel will be too. Expect the hobbs rates to go up. Again though, those prices seem very suspect as far as maintenance, yes, even for 30 year old airplanes.
So is it a home groundcourse or not? You realize this is different than the knowledge required for the orals, which is what I was talking about before (the 20-40hrs). The purpose of the groundschool course is to prepare you for the knowledge course, but if the CFI helps you with parts, that means more money spent.
Well, it's a business, and it makes money. Whether it makes THAT much money I don't know, I see some ATP locations that aren't all that busy. The attitude you have above makes it sound like you think you're going to save tens of thousands of dollars. Like when people think they are going to buy an aircraft and save mad money on flying, only to find out it's just a few bucks off from if they had rented. Maybe you do save a few bucks, but it's not a realistic plan for quite a few reasons, especially for other people that would literally have to move to take advantage of something like that. I don't feel ATP is a great school for "learning", I just don't see it saving all that much more money going somewhere else. Realistic expectations are key, and many of yours don't seem realistic at all (40hrs of flight, didn't even calculate checkride in there, reasonable extension, no ground time with CFI, etc).

JamesNoBrakes

This is why it's generally a bad idea to go to ATP IMO. It's not drastically more expensive than any other place, it's because you really don't learn anything getting hit that hard and fast. The knowledge and ability leaves as quick as it came (or was never really there). This is where the universities have the upper hand, as their standards are usually higher and upheld. People aren't rushed through and given unrealistic learning situations.

Going back to the old "part 61" and lots of 141 schools, you get quite the spread. Some are horrible and have much the same situation with their examiners that ATP has. Some have highly experienced instructors where you will learn a lot.

DALFA

I set aside $700 for books + examiner. So $400(examiner)+$200(books)+$100(plane). That's $700. My PPL checkride was 1.2 hobbs.

Like I said...it doesn't matter if it takes you 50 or 60 hours to take the checkride. Because the additional hours used for the rating mean less hours of timebuilding...same cost. I did my PPL checkride at 40.3 hours so it's doable.

40 hours of CFI time is PLENTY if you're prepared...quit milking it.

Remember, this is from my own personal experience...i'm not making this up. You're trying to make a point that it can cost a couple hundred bucks more to go this route...when the savings are still around $20,000 or even more!!!

ATP is a business and is WAY overpriced. It's the perfect sucker school. Just read the experiences people have had with them.

DALFA

At ATP you end up with 220 hours...and end up paying about $65,000 for those hours. That means you're essentially paying $295 per flight hour on average. This does include the 115 hours of multi-engine time...most of which is logged when sharing the plane with another student as safety pilot time and hood time.

JamesNoBrakes

Then you're just getting a pencil-whipped PPL, I'm sorry. 1.2 is nowhere near enough to do a PPL checkride. It's just not going to happen. The things that have to be evaluated can not be done in that amount of time. Something has to be sacrificed at that price, so I guess it's the training and evaluation

DALFA

I can assure you nothing was sacrificed. I just double-checked my logbook and it was actually 1.3. I went from 0 to my PPL in 19 days of flying. Passed my written and my checkride on the first go around. I read the Jepp books and was completing the online Jepp courses via Utah Valley University. Don't insinuate that something isn't right just because people do it in these parameters. Maybe you're just slow?

JamesNoBrakes

Yeah, 19 days. That's exactly what's wrong with flight training these days There's no way to pack in the experience of weather decisions, airport variability, radio communications, and everything else, into that short of a time period. Sorry, I call BS to that being an adequate training experience. 1.3 private checkride? 19 days? Not quality training and experience. I've given enough checkrides and evaluated enough people giving checkrides to know what is "normal", "exceptional" and "not possible".