need help with pilot training
 

Ok guys, I'm a 35 year old male who works as a line service guy in Aviation. I live in Rhode Island. I have been dreaming of becoming a pilot ever since I was 8 years old. I have done my research on becoming a pilot and am discouraged. I feel that I am too old to start traing, because I know that it will at least take me 18 years to get a good paying job. That will make me 53 years old before reeping any benefits. I plan on financing my dream. Am I crazy for wanting to pursue this. I do not have a family and is there any jobs out there? Also, how many hours do the Airlines or fractionals look for?
Thanks
Orlando

Not sure where you are getting that 18 year figure from. If you really hustle and commit, you could go from private through CFI in less than a year......instruct for a year.....then have more than enough hours to start applying. There are alot of guys older than you applying for regional jobs so don't think you are alone. In 18 years you could be at the majors buddy....so don't be discouraged. You can begin applying for jobs when you reach 500TT and 50ME. That seems to be the magical number. If you wait until you have 1000TT and 100ME....you can go to a much better regional......and you would get that time quick instructing.

Thanks for the quick reply. I work with alot of pilots and I came up with the 18 years it will take me to make 100 grand a year. I was planning on attending ATP flight school. I've been reading posts from this site and its rather mixed if ATP is a good school or not.
Thanks
Orlando

Its not mixed. ATP is a good choice for many people.

-LAFF

Some of the better regionals can pay $100K after ten years or so, even sooner if you volunteer to be a check airman.

At age 35 you need to consider...

1) Do I already have any retirement plans in place? If not you might want to focus on that before a career change.
2) Do you have a college degree? If not, that will make it significantly harder to get a major airline job.
3) Family/kids: Do you have them? That will greatly complicate things unless your wife has a high-paying job that is PORTABLE on short notice (ie specialty nurse, MD, or something like that).
4) Are you in better-than-average health? Entry-level regional airline flying is often grueling and can wear down a 24 year old...but he will bounce back after a good night's sleep. Will you?
5) Age 65: The age 60 rule will almost certainly change to age 65 in the next 2-3 years...this will do two things:
a) Slow hiring at all levels for several years in the near future.
b) Give you an extra 5 years to work...but ONLY if you stay in exceptionally good health: Good diet, DAILY exercise, low body fat, minimal booze.
6) If you end up staying at a regional, you probably want to have a back-up career so that you can make money on the side or in case your regional shuts down. Do you have skills you can fall back on?
7) Loans: How are you going to pay for training? If you take out school loans, you will be paying them off for 10-15 years... :eek:

As far as ATP goes, all of the big-name "Glossy Brochure" flight schools offer the same training that you can get at your local school, but they do it assembly-line fashion. The training is not going to be better at all with one possible exception: Classroom training. If a school's classroom instructors are low-time cfi's the training will probably be pretty basic...this is typical of small and large schools. If a school uses experienced professionals (off-duty airline pilots, retired airline/military, etc) then the ground schools might be better. But how much is that worth?

The best plan is a small school at your home airport...that way you don't have to move and can hopefully keep your day job until you have the ratings to get a full-time flying job. If that's not an option, I think ATP is the most reasonable out of the big schools.

The best plan is not a small town FBO. Look at the accelerated flight training programs out there. ATP comes to mind but there are other...

Don't worry about the groundschool. Everything you'll need to pass the FAA and airline interviews can be found in FAA publications and on-line.

-LAFF

I checked with my local FBO and it will take me 18 months to receive my commercial rating and I think that I won't be focused since I will be working. I am leaning more towards ATP, because of the accelerated learning and they claim that you can receive a commercial rating in 5 months. Is that realistic?

I have to disagree with you here. I did my instrument, comm single, comm multi, CFI, CFII and MEI in 5 months while working full time....doing my flight training evenings and weekends at my local FBO. In the end I have about a third of the debt you will have going to ATP. Anythings possible.

Dude, I trained at both, and the small FBO is DEFINATELY the way to go, but you have to do your homework!

By contrast the vast majority of the big schools charge WAY to much for the same product you get at your home town patch.

Despite all of the advertising and hype (who do you think PAYS for the full page ads in Flying magazine?) the big schools are limited by the same common denominator as the small school or FBO: The 23 year-old CFI who has apps in at 9 regionals! In fact you are more likely to find an older career CFI (or retired airline/military pilot) at the small school/FBO.

If you can't find a decent CFI at your home airport, then I would consider ATP as a last resort. ATP seems more reasonably priced than the other big schools.

I tried getting a price from one of the fbo's in my area. They were shady about how much it would cost. They told me that everyone is different...yada yada yada. I asked if it would be around 100 dollars an hour and they said it would cost $300.00 an hour. I'm almost tempted to go to prairie or ATP for my private then my fbo for all my other ratings.

"and they said it would cost $300.00 an hour."

For what?

Welcome to the world of the FBO CFI...Its part of their scam along with the 'our average student has completed in xx hours'

Its all a big scam for those people.

ATP won't let you take their PPL unless you agree to the rest of the program.

You may want to look at PAS if you want to avoind the evasive answers at your local FBO. In the few conversation I've had with Herb - he doesn't BS. He puts it all on the table and is very open / honest about himself and his business.


-LAFF

Your broken-record posting is stupid and frankly insulting (says the FBO CFI that's had all the students he could possibly handle for the last seven years).

Seriously, find a new rant, this one is old.

Congratulations on your success in the field.

-LAFF

I would suggest a 141 school if you are wanting to do more accelerated training. It allows you to get a Commercial license in 190 hours if meet the minimums, which would let you get your CFI quicker. I finished my CFI with less than 250 hours which is the total time required to get a Commercial under Part 61. ATP is 141, but I'd look for a smaller school than that. Find something you can live with.

I don't want this to be a war, but I agree with LAFF and this is why.

I have been doing my homework and research and would love to fly. I have a pilot at work that is going to help me with ground school, so I don't have to pay for it. When I talked to the local CFI at the school I told him I was willing to do 2-3 hours a day 5 days a week. He said that was aggressive and if I was to commit to that I should have my PPL in 6 months. Well, if you do the math it doesn't add up. Considering that the national average is 71 hours 2hrsx5=10 hours a week 40 hrs a month so 6 months would equal 240 hrs? I have one more local school to check out and if that doesn't pan out I will go to ATP.
I really appreciate the time you guys are taking in posting a reply. This is a very important decision I have to make for a job that I believe to be rewarding.
Thanks again
Orlando

Pretty sure ATP is Part 61.

There's a lot of "Pro" schools that are still Part 61, basically means you still have to comply with the regular minimums instead of lowered PPL and commercial mins. In my opinion, the 61 mins sometimes are too low for "most" people.

You're a guy with no experience agreeing with a guy with low experience who hasn't even been to that school. If that sells you on ATP, go for it. If you're going to jump in with both feet I'd at least check out www.prairieairservice.com, you can finish just as fast as you would at ATP, it's much less expensive, and your CFI's have been pilots for more than 3-6 months. I'm not anti-ATP but it is over priced for what you get. Most of the guys that have been around the block and even some former ATP students are suggesting you shop around. LAFF is a PPL with around 100 hours who's never visited or trained at ATP. He's not a professional pilot. If you want to 'fly' satellites in the USAF for a living, he is for sure the man to get in touch with.

I really hope I misunderstood him when he said 300 an hour, maybe it was 300 for 3 hours

I heard great things about prairie air service. I know pilots that fly for Cessna service center in Wichita that went there.

Good for you...Do your own research and you'll also realize a school like ATP is the way to go. Don't waste your time/money on FBOs.


-LAFF

Definitely ATP is the way to go. When I instructed there we would take students from 0 time to right seat of an RJ in about 1year. Its not the most thourough education, but it defintiely isnt the worst. It IS the best when you are looking to crunch time and get as much done as possible, they are very professional and have several bridge programs with regional carriers to get you on your way to making a paycheck.

I think I'm leaning more towards ATP. I know it will cost more, but I think I will be able to get a flying job faster. One thing that is bothering me is that if I train in Phoenix where there is no weather would airlines frown on that? Also, I heard that regionals have an age cutoff for hiring. A pilot told me that they won't hire people past 31 yrs old. Is this true?
Thanks
Orlando

Who told you that? Totally and completely false! Don't let that be your justification for paying too much for training.

Whew, thank god it's not true!! I had 2 people tell me that. One guy is an aircraft mechanic and the other is a chief pilot for my company

Most wrenches I know, know as much about flying as pilots do about Mx, not much. As for your CP, if he's really old maybe it was like that in his day 20-30 years ago. You may want to try and talk to a few airline pilots first. What kind of operation do you work for?

I work for Textron in the aviation wing as a line service tech. Yes, the chief pilot is old. I talked to alot of airline pilots, at least 200-300. I use to fuel airlines when I worked at Northstar aviation at KPVD. All the airline pilots told me to go for it. It's the corporate part 91 pilots that tell me that flying sucks. I can't figure it out. They make over 100,000 dollars a year and are on the road 10 days a month and say there job sucks

I'd guess its because they're gone when they'd hoped to be home. Many probably chose corporate over airlines so they could be home. But corporate bigwigs like to travel on holidays and at odd times. It's entirely possible that their schedule is much different than they expected.

My company is pretty good for not flying on weekends, but if they do then the pilots have to pull the plane out of the hangar and they don't really like that. Does flying ever get boring? Do you ever regret choosing to fly?

The charter flying I've done can be slightly boring during cruise if the weather is great, the AP is on, and you got up early. But I'd rather do that than sit in a cube.