atpl! how far away is it?

[Kempus]

hi guys!

after much searching about all the old posts i thought i'd come to you for help and advice on my situation.

ok, here's the crack. i'm long haul crew for the "21st century travel" airline and my goal is to move from the back to the front.
to do this i want to keep my job as i like drinking and cavorting with the ladies and i got bills to pay. with keeping my job it ties my training to the uk with maybe venturing outside for a max of 2 weeks to burn holes in the sky.

the budget i'm looking at is 35g! if i can get it! the thing i'd like to know is it poss in the uk and the time scale. when i go on trips i can be away for a min of 3 days up to 9 days. after which i get 3 days clear. for example i got 15 days in the uk this month. bearing in mind that all the trips aint that exciting and studying in a hotel room sounds like fun compared sitting and twiddling your thumbs i'd be def looking at donig distance learning.

can anyone give advice? any help? i fly with some great people and when in the bar down route we talk about it but all those who drive were all part of the few.

happy flying!

kempus

[FlyingForFun]

Kempus,

It certainly should be possible to do what you're planning on doing - I'm doing similar myself, although my day-job isn't quite as interesting or relevant as yours! Some important questions though: how much annual leave do you have? And would your employer let you take unpaid leave, and would you be happy to do so?

The first step is to do a PPL. For a normal 9-5 worker, flying at weekends, this can probably be done, realistically, in 8-9 months. I would guess, from your description of your schedule, that you could do similar, maybe less, but it's kind of hard to tell.

After that, you have to a) build some hours, and b) study for the ATPL written exams. The studying would be very well suited to your "studying in a hotel room" scenario. Whether you could do the hour-building when you're back home or not would depend on how commited you were to studying while you're away - you may find it too much, in which case you should get the exams doen first, and then build hours afterwards. As a guide-line, it took me a year to do the exams, studying at the weekends. You will also require 6 weeks off work, in two blocks of 3 weeks, assuming you pass all the exams first time, so if you're restricted to, say, 4 weeks annual leave a year, this may delay you slightly.

After that, you need to do a CPL, IR and MCC. In my opinion, these are best done full-time, although plenty of people do manage to do them part-time. The CPL takes about 3 weeks, the IR about 6 weeks. I haven't got as far as looking into the MCC yet, but that's a very short course.

Your budget sounds quite tight, but possible - it certainly wouldn't leave very much to spare at the end.

At the end of all of that, you'll have a CPL/IR, which is colloquially known as a "frozen ATPL" or "fATPL". In theory, you could apply for jobs up the front of your jets, and you might even be lucky enough to get one, but the chances are you'll end up flying smaller aircraft for quite some time first, or you may even need to spend more time and money on a Flying Instructors course (6 weeks, £5000) and instruct for a couple of years to build up some experience.

A small point - you wanted to know about the "ATPL" - well, the requirements for that are 1500 hours, including 500 hours on a multi-pilot aircraft. I doubt very much if this is what you really meant - I suspect you intended to ask about the fATPL.

Hope that helps,

FFF
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[JohnnyPharm]

You could do some hour building on your lay-overs. If in USA will be a lot cheaper too. If you can request a certain route, you could continually request that route to say FL and get the PPL wrapped up pretty quickly, as you say you usually have 5 night lay overs.

[no sponsor]

I am currently doing my ATPL ground school via a distance learning course. I am scheduling around 3-4 hrs per day (six days a week). So in your scenario of doing 10-15 days per month full time you would get through the course quite nicely in around 8-9 months or so. As FFF mentions, you need to have two sets of three weeks full time to complete the brushup courses and sit the exams. I plan to take unpaid leave to complete the CPL and IR.

If you were doing a PPL full-time, budget for about 5-6 weeks full time in the US. If on/off, and done in the UK, then you are at the mercy of the UK weather. In addition, the UK is more expensive.

100 hrs or so hr building could be done during your travels too.

I reckon with your full time job you are looking at around 18-24 months, with some unpaid leave.

Good flying to be had in LA at Long beach, not far from LAX, and in Sydney (which you should be going to soon), and of course in Florida. You could join flying clubs at each location for the hr building!