Talk to me about pilot training.

We’ve just had the sit down mum and dad talk from No1 son, he has expressed an interest in becoming a pilot and has looked at doing it via http://www.ctcaviation.com/ easyjet link.

Is this a good way of getting into flying planes, told him to finish uni and get his degree then think about it. All I can see is the £100k loan, than no doubt he wants us to fund in some shape or form.

Anyone with experience of doing it this way, what are the real costs?

dantsw13 to the forum, please!

Id always wanted to be a pilot, and looked at CTC when I left uni (2008). Forget the exact process, IIRC I did a lengthy questionnaire plus literacy and numeracy tests, then was invited for an assessment centre/interview in Bournemouth, for which I had to pay £188 (just looked at the email I still have).

Training was 2 years, broadly in New Zealand, you then left with £60k in debt and no promise of a job – just because they partner with airlines doesn’t mean there are constant jobs there.

I decided paying £200 for a pre-interview was excessive and backed out. Don’t regret it, although I know someone who did train with them (ended up flying for Ryanair and living in Cork) and I believe he enjoyed it. I imagine wanting to live in New Zealand would be a huge benefit (I didn’t/don’t).

I’d say now is a better time to be doing it, but I’m not convinced I’d go with CTC based on what I saw.

join the RAF

In the old days you joined the University Air Squadron and they paid. My mates who wanted to be commercial pilots joined the air force/navy first. There are a number of commerical pilots on here, my view from the outside is that there is huge demand due to growing air travel and budget airlines but for most pilots its not the job is was and it doesn’t pay that well any longer.

RAF/RN/Army would be the most enjoyable and cost effective way to do it and you’ll have some amazing experiences on top of aviation. My Operational flying will always remain the pinnacle of my career. That said I’m loving my role in the airlines.

You don’t have long to join as a military pilot (24 max??) but you’ve the rest of your career to be an airline pilot.

Paying £100k and then paying for type ratings etc is a slippery slope and I’m pretty sure that’s not a sustainable way of getting quality pilots into the industry.

It’s tough getting that first break but perseverance will see you through.

Sorry – been snoozing before flying home from the states tonight!

Basically, 3 options.

1. Pay for your training, then get a job afterwards. As you’ve seen, this can cost £100k, with no guarantee of a job afterwards. There are a lot of people with pilots licences who never get the first job.

2. Sponsorship. BA run a scheme, where if selected it leads to a job at the end. It’s quite a complicated financial arrangement, but basically, as long as you pass the course, BA take over your training loan, and your pay for the first 5 years is reduced slightly to pay it back. Google the Future Pilot Programme.

Other airlines might be starting schemes too, but as far as I know, BA is the only one most of the time.

3. Join the RAF as a pilot, get your wings, do some really fun flying, then leave and join an airline.

Have a look on a website called pprune.org. (Professional pilots rumour network) It’s a bit of a pilots STW, and has loads of fora for wannabe pilots on this kind of stuff.

Many thanks for the input guys.

Slight aside based in friends experiences – Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm was easier to get into than RAF. Helicopters mainly of course but my mate who went that route now flies for Easyjet which he prefers to the long haul cargo he was doing as he’s home every night with his kids.

Aside from the military flying exoerience serving your country is an honiur and a privilege offering many powerful life lessons. In many resoects I wish I’d done it

@dan is a long haul commercial pilot and there was another stw-er who live just outside Annecy and flew for BA just connecting into LHR from Geneva (aircrew pay just 10% of normal fares I recall or free on their own airline). Quite a nice lifestyle I imagine.

Just for a different view

Mate of mine came out of uni 20 yrs ago with an engineering degree. He went the private route of getting hours up, going on a courses using a loan etc. Eventually he got a job flying private jets. Did that for about 10 yrs but eventually had to give it up. The lifestyle sounds glamorous, but his body clock was screwed and he struggled with it needing drugs to help to sleep etc.

He gave it all up for a few years, but in recently ish has become an instructor in simulators.

One of my other Uni mates got straight on a course with BA and has flown for them ever since and loves it.

I did the Oxford (now CAE) route, then into EasyJet just as the scheme started about 7 years ago. EasyJet is a far better place to work than RyanAir, as new cadets start on a permanent contract and the company is somewhat less evil now it’s under the leadership of Carolyn McCall. European bases, time to command roughly 5 years, and great colleagues.

BA obviously has the attraction of long haul opportunity but means working from Heathrow. It’s possible to commute, though, and the grapevine says that time to command on shorthaul is now under 1 year for experienced pilots.

Other people from my course went to Cathay Pacific, others to Emirates and a few became instructors, now working for Flybe and EasyJet.

I’d recommend your son look at the University Air Squadron but thinks very carefully before joining the RAF full time. IMHO it doesn’t set you up well for the very open CRM environment in today’s flight decks. Everything in modern aviation is threat and error management and the flying side of it is secondary.

It’s great fun – I can’t imagine having a real job – but it can be hard work. Getting up at 4 in the morning six days on the trot is mind numbingly fatiguing, then you might have to work a 12 hour day into technically challenging destinations. Your son also needs to consider whether he’s happy to be formally tested 2-3 times a year, putting his license and job on the line each time.

On the other hand, you can jump off the aircraft at a beautiful European city and look around, followed by drinks and a good meal with friends on someone else’s expense. If I could choose again, I’d still do this.

There is a massive demand for pilots forecast over the next 20 years or so, so now is a good time to get into it. There are a few grad trainees from the company I work for who left to become pilots and after a few years sussing out that a corporate desk job was not going to do it for them, and they’re all employed by airlines now, so didn’t seem to struggle. No idea how much it cost them though.

25 years ago or so I was toying with the idea of becoming a pilot and I went through the selection process for the BA scheme but didn’t get through it. Though they said previous flying experience isn’t necessary (I had none), alot of the aptitude tests were testing flying-like hand-eye coordination, so previous flying experience would obviously be an advantage, or at least alot of hours playing on a decent computer flight simulation game.

Are people still banned from doing the intensive CPL courses in the states and doing an FAA to CAA conversion course? that used to be the cheapest and quickest route if you were paying yourself, but they were banned to foreigners after 9/11.

Need to ask why he wants to be a pilot? For me it was the travel. Not as glamorous as it used to be I’d say and due to all the regular testing and changes of procedure, one of the most stressful jobs you can do by all accounts.

I applied twice, once to the BA scheme and once to Oxford Aviation Academy. Unfortunately for me I wasn’t quite what they were looking for. There’s various aptitude tests which needed to be taken. I didn’t pass them all but it seems that those that did had spent an awful lot of time practicing on various simulators and online aptitude and hand/eye coordination and multitasking testing software beforehand. Most were also heavily into flight simulator software e.g. MS flight simulator. I wasn’t even aware you could practice this sort of stuff online, yes I know now though – doh!

Now have a job that involves plenty of international travel, and actually get to stay overseas in many unusual destinations for up to a week at a time, more than you get as aircrew probably. Being a frequent flier and seeing the work that aircrew do I’m not sure I’d now want to work the irregular hours of flightcrew. Quite glad I didn’t get into it actually. I do get flying though – passed my PPL on light aircraft a few years ago. Loads of fun and real flying, no computers to land the thing for you.

Good mate from here was a commercial pilot (Eastern I think). Stuck it for a few years, but left again. The shifts were unsuitable; he also arrived at it from the many years in the RAF route – years on fast jets – and kind of ended up doing commercial pilot as a means to pay the bills. Is now back in the RAF as civilian simulator instructor, much happier…

My brother in law started down the private training route about ten years ago, going to a school in Oxford and also one in the US. Now he and my in laws have a massive debt related to it, and he can’t find a job.

Flying strikes me as one of those careers where you need a lot of luck to get in, and the best way is a way where someone else pays for it.

Flaperon – Getting up at 4 in the morning six days on the trot is mind numbingly fatiguing, then you might have to work a 12 hour day into technically challenging destinations.

Sounds dangerous to me. I can’t believe you’re expected to do that.

I’d recommend your son look at the University Air Squadron but thinks very carefully before joining the RAF full time. IMHO it doesn’t set you up well for the very open CRM environment in today’s flight decks. Everything in modern aviation is threat and error management and the flying side of it is secondary.

You may not be surprised I don’t entirely agree with that. When the brown stuff hits the whirly thing, hard earned flying experience can be very useful. You seem to suggest ex-RAF pilots have poor CRM/Flight management skills. As somebody who used to teach those things in the RAF, that isn’t my experience.

mitusmonkey – I think you’d be surprised at some of the rosters Shorthaul pilots can/do fly.

Im currently on Longhaul. Nights out of bed hurt, but you get used to it. For me its balanced out by the lifestyle. 6 days work in easyjet involves 6 full days flying. For me, it means flying somewhere, 4 days off (socialising and cycling) then fly home.

Im writing this, having just got back from a 4 day trip.
Day 1 – Fly to Atlanta. Land, few beers and bed.
Day 2 – Go out on my bike for 5 hrs, breakfast in one of my favourite US coffee shops, then back to the hotel, shopping for the missus, a few beers with dinner with the crew.
Day 3 – Early bike ride, breakfast, pre-flight snooze, fly home.
Day 4 – Land LHR, drive home, chill with family/dog.
Tonight Ill sleep well, and be fine tomorrow.

I work a 75% roster and do the above 3 times a month.

dant – When the brown stuff hits the whirly thing, hard earned flying experience can be very useful.

… as Capt Sully showed in ’09.

I’ve probably spoke to you Dan. I do BNN/LAM arrivals and WOBUN/BUZAD and BPK deps. If you hear a dour crabbit jock trying to be polite but failing with certain eastern European budget airlines, that’ll be me.

I do lots of BPKs to NRT/HND – no doubt we have spoken!! If those carriers are worse than the Americans who can’t/won’t read back any clearance they must be awful!!

Tell him to get his head out of the clouds..

Cobrakai- good evening from logan82wr/65kl!

OP – do have a look into the modular route too, potentially half that kind of price and a lot more flexible with part time working. Been absolutely no hindrance to me but then there are a lot of jobs going at the moment…

I know of a fella who worked in a well known North East bike shop & was a top notch downhiller, left the shop to be a trolley dolly with Virgin & is now a commercial pilot. Rumour has it that he had LOTS of fun with the female crew, so I heard. 😆

Err, not me. If only.

I’m not a pilot (well, expired paramotor licence) but my dad just retired from Virgin Atlantic. He’s set up a sim training consultancy to help pay for his most recent divorce and will also be helping out with VA’s new pilot cadetship scheme apparently. That could be worth a look as an alternative to BA.

Don’t get me started on American carriers and biz jets…..

Don’t get me started on American carriers and biz jets…..

Difficulties getting readbacks?

A mate of mine who incidentally was always the pub joker and never revealed his love of aeroplanes during our teen years, left school and started a job cleaning aircraft at Gatwick with the full intention of becoming a pilot, taking on every aircraft related job he could which helped him learn along the way. 10 years later I learned he was flying freight, and today he’s a commercial pilot for WOW air in Iceland having studied and paid his own way. That’s a lifestyle choice as his wife (and kids) are Icelandic.

He’s flown for BA, Virgin, Easyjet and a couple of lesser knows earlier in his career. It’s a great story TBH, from comedy beer swiller to respected pilot and family man.

My nephew failed the RAF route and is now doing it privately, (I haven’t dared ask my sister how much it’s costing, but I’ve heard rumours of £80k).

It’s a public forum so I don’t really want to get into a slagging match but it can be pot luck what you actually get in the read back!

It’s a great time to get into commercial aviation. I have flown with many younger chaps over the last 5 years who took the cadetship EasyJet route and not a single one of them regret it despite the debt.

I’d tell your son to 1) get a PPL and 2)get a subscription to Flight Intl, it’s the trade rag.

The ppl will cost c.5k. The instructor and school will know within a few lessons if he has the aptitude for commercial training. It’s fairly crazy imho to embark on commercial flying training having never operated an aircraft of some sort.

Also would advise finishing the degree. Nothing is a certain in aviation.

The Armed Forces is a TERRIBLE route to commercial flying. If he wanted to fly in the Forces, that’s a different thing, but it should in no way be seen as a ‘cheap’ path to civilian flying.

He’s ‘expressed an interest’? That’s quite the half-way-through-uni idea to throw 100k at.

You may not be surprised I don’t entirely agree with that. When the brown stuff hits the whirly thing, hard earned flying experience can be very useful. You seem to suggest ex-RAF pilots have poor CRM/Flight management skills. As somebody who used to teach those things in the RAF, that isn’t my experience.

Not what I meant to imply. I get the impression that going from single-pilot fast jet to commercial multicrew aircraft is challenging because you’ve been taught – forced effectively – to manage difficult situations whilst simultaneously flying something that’s difficult in it’s own right. It’s just you up there: **** it up and you’re dead. Dynamic situations have to be managed quickly and managed right, which is why the bar is set so high for the air force in the first place.

On commercial aircraft you have an equally qualified pilot (or two) sitting next to you who can do the menial work supporting you, while you’re free to make decisions, and who might come up with valid ideas of their own. Overlooking this can lead to interesting situations, particularly where the second pilot lacks confidence or experience.

Just my opinion, of course. Very different if you’ve always been part of a multipilot crew (RAF or civil aviation), I think. The fact that newer courses (the dubious MPL) focus on putting pilots together as a crew from the beginning suggests how different the two environments can be.

Fair enough. I guess most of the ex – multi engine RAF pilots get into BA & Virgin so maybe you don’t see as many. I’d also say the vast majority of the FJ boys adapt very well.

As for MPL, I’d suggest that’s more to do with minimum cost.

Bruneep – I started composing a response to your email yesterday, but it was gibberish!! I’ll try and get a proper one done today.

dantsw13-Thanks

After discussing the harsh financial aspects of his plan with him and the fact most loan companies seem to want security on any loan (a property i.e. ours) the idea hopefully been put off until he can save some money.

On the plus side at least my 1st thought that his Gf was pregnant when he told us he wanted to chat never materialised. I’m sure that’s for another day.

Ok – in that case I’ll hold off on the 3 page diatribe just now then!!

If you get back into it give me a shout. Definately get him to read through pprune.org though – there’s loads on pilot recruitment there.
I’m not sure how much credit security is required for the
BA sponsorship scheme. Also sounds live Virgin are setting one up too, so that’s good news for potential uk pilots.

Hi Bruneep

I’m late to this thread and haven’t read most of it.

My wife is a BA Captain and has worked as a mentor on the Future Pilot programme. SHe knows it pretty much inside out.

If you like and you think it would help I am sure she would happily have a chat with you or your son. Drop me an email and I will try to arrange something for your with her.