I was planning on wearing a suit too so thanks for confirming.

Jeans and tennis shoes, plus not shaving... Some people never cease to amaze me! SMH

 

This was not a job interview, just applying to a flight school. Which in the rest of the aviation world means showing up with money and wear whatever you want. There is no testing and they will train anyone who can pay. You will be paying them a lot of money and you are their customer. The promises of jobs if you finish all the training do not mean a whole lot because they could just fire anyone they don’t want. One more thing, the amount training time it takes to pass the checkrides varies widely from person to person. So while they tout that it’s just one flat fee, that will likely not be the case for most people.

 

This isn’t a Part 61 local flight school for non-career minded folks. They seem like they want to operate it like ATP. Churn out pilots and keep a schedule. ATP seems to do it at a high level and doesn’t seem to make a lot of exceptions.

Edit: To Add, all the testing is probably to determine aptitude so the candidates can reasonably be assure of passing an accelerated program and in effect it is a job interview as they are offering guaranteed jobs as a CFI and FO at YX.


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Standard Disclaimers:

1.The following comments are based on information obtained first hand by me at RAH/LIFT in IND.

2. All of this is subject to change w/o notice as LIFT is still in process of finalizing many things.

3. Please allow 1-3 weeks for any correspondance with LIFT to include offers of acceptance, retest or rejection. They are still sorting through almost 2000 applications.

-----------------------------------------------

The Good.

Staff is very (VERY) friendly and helpful. They know that a bad reputation will murder the academy and are absolutely professional. They want professional students, as well. Problem solving and maturity WILL GO FAR with LIFT.

The believe whole heartedly in their endeavor to create 121 RAH pilots from scratch and arent in a hurry to do it. The plan over on myst 'time/hour to ratings' gates. If something calls for 10 hours, they plan between 12-14 to allow for individual growth.

They are hiring 90 CFI's from outside RAH - once the program gets going, they plan on only using LIFT CFI's. If they cannot use a LIFT CFI there at LIFT, you will be lent out to another affiliated flight instruction program (actual names TBD - but think Vincennes and other 141 schools)

Total tuition for training will be valued at 85K. RAH is eating 20K per student in exchange for a quality candidate FO.

If YOU disenroll, you are on the hook for whatever training you completed (up to the full 65K if you go as far) PLUS the 20K RAH waivered money on their investment.

If THEY disenroll you, you only owe on what you accomplished. This isnt being distributed widely (along with many fiscal details) because they are still finalizing the legal terms and conditions. Lawyers, man.

They will give you a monthly schedule so that you can work around training since not all of us are independantly wealthy or have parents that love them enough to foot the bill.

The Bad.

You are on your own for living accomadations. They have no desire to become involved in the student living situation. No dorms, no living stipend and no set-aside agreements to reduce rent with any vendors. They are working towards a partner apartment vendor that will help match LIFT roomies in 1/2/3 bedroom apartments to offset the cost of rent.

The Ugly.

Everyone will have to make their own decision when it comes to LIFT; for me, the living situation MAY premempt me from training. I have a house and family in Ohio that I dont want to sell and am not going to crack my 401k to live in an apartment for 12 months and risk being disenrolled at any time (hey, I may be a terrible pilot, tbh).

//////////////////////////////////

The Process.

Step 1; show up and sign in at the desk; recieve a cheap visitors badge and lanyard. That takes you 50% of the way to an offer from LIFT. Look neat/tidy and act professinally. The building is full of a range of people in a range of states of dress. Half of my testing class wore suites, the other half slacks and a polo (no ladies this go around). I believe that they dont publish guidance on this for a reason.

No, they wont disqualify you for poor fashion choices, but dont show up in board shorts and a Van-Halen (not Van Hagar) T-shirt. These folks are professionals and aviation in general is a conservative buisiness. Also, this is a training academy; so even if you dont want to dress up for a job interview, you may want to look sharp in respect to the people working there. Did I mention actual RAH CA and FO's are all over the place - likely judging you based only on your appearance? Its not part of the program, but lets face it, put yourself in their shoes........

The testing.

Very reasonable testing suite by COMPASS software provided by some Euro company. (CSTE maybe?). The test provides you with abundant information and sufficent time to test successfully. If your proctor forgets to tell you, TABLE A is in a document protector under the COMPASS explanation sheet. REFRESH YO MATH SKILLS. Seriously, nothing was 'hard' but some things you will not have seen since 6th grade.

The coordination testing with the rudders and control stick are easy and almost even fun. There is a feedback anomoly when you recenter the stick or pass from one lateral limit (back through center) to the other lateral limit. Very managable, but be aware that its there for the Slolom. You get three 90 second runs with each test and they are EASY - dont put the control in a deathgrip and you will reduce the workload by like 80%. I nearly squeezed the thing to death before i made myself relax.

The rest isnt worth talking about; decision making, some light mechanics and memory drills. A window displays up to four peices of numeric info (Speed Range Heading Radio) and you are tested on recall. Think of how ATC/Center passes vectoring data? Yeah, that - can you rember heading speed and altitude for six seconds.

They unofficially visit this forum and likely will NOT create an official presence here since the odds of being Hasslehoff'd are pretty good. Want to see the depravity of mankind? Visit comment section/forums....

I PM'd those of you that asked me specific questions; thanks for reaching out.

Bottom Line.

Its gonna be a great program and will provide RAH a bunch of quality 121-ready FO's. They are selective in hiring instructors and have only taken on less than half of who applied - they know they have to do it right the first time out of the gate and they start flying in September.

If I missed anything, hit me up. I have to figure out how to run two households after quitting my job to go learn to fly.......

Cheers!

 

Can confirm.

 

Thanks. My coworker only has a second degree assault charge which isn’t a felony so I wonder how she will be.

 

Great write up! I was interested in this section regarding them not having anything to do with housing. The approval email I (and others) got mentions information on housing is in the packet that should be arriving in the mail. I assumed it was something LIFT was involved in, but I guess it must be something generic??

I also noted some of us have small discrepancies in the information we were told. I wonder if we were interviewed by different people and hence a slightly different way of wording things, or if things are just so fluid right now?

 

RPA is no worse than the 2nd best regional airline from a pilot’s perspective right now, with Endeavor being the other contender. (I’m certainly open to dissenting opinions on this, but my point is that RPA has a great thing going currently.)

That being said, given the dynamic nature of regional airlines and their inherent instability, is it wise to lock into a single airline so far in advance? Other than $85K (LIFT’s marketing number??) of training for $65K, what TRUE BENEFIT/ADVANTAGE does this LIFT/RPA program provide to pilots in today’s industry?

I have no agenda here. I will likely apply to RPA when I reach ATP mins. But I’m truly not sure what I’m missing about the upside of this LIFT/RPA program... Can anyone throw me a bone here?

 

The reason i am enrolling in this program is the access to (Reasonable) financing. Unfortunately i've tried the pay as you go method and it just wasn't working due to money constraints. I looked at other fast track programs and almost enrolled in ATP until I realized the true cost of it and what the loan repayment would look like. I also would like to stay close to home and luckily for me, Indy is only a four hour drive.

 

I would assume the biggest draw for most would be the fact that the financing is backed by republic, so a co-signer is not required. I know that seems to be a big issue for most when trying to get into ATP style schools. Otherwise there is not too many differences over other schools that I can see. The guaranteed FO class at Republic will no doubt draw in some of those who have not been tuned into the industry and realize that getting into a regional is not as difficult as it has been in the past.