Trying to make it !

[Jasdent]

Alright folks ?

This is my first post and I am hoping I have finally found the place to help me.

I would love to be a first officer and have always wanted to be a pilot but never really saw this as an option until speaking to a first officer recently at Glasgow airport.

I have been looking into options and as far as I can see there are three:

1. through armed forces (not an option for me)

2. Self funded

3. Sponsorship

Looking for advise and possibly help on how to do this. Firstly, ideal situation would be that of sposorship however there appear to be few airlines that do this. Does anyone know of any recruiting at the moment ?

Was also considering sending some E-mails to certain people in order to gain some help or advise on this, would anyone know of anybody that would be worth E-Mailing ?

If I was to look at self funding then obviously this is expensive (£62K) so wondering how people manage to fund this kind of money ?

My details are the following:

Based in Glasgow, Scotland
Age: 25 years
Education: 8 Standard grades, 5 Highers and
BSCHONS Combined Mathematics and Statistics from the
University of Glasgow

I have been working as a police officer in one of the busiest area's in strathclyde for the last 2 and half years so have plenty of life experience and have the level of maturity and determination to train as a first officer.

The only problem is how do I do/ go about getting on a training course.

Any help at all, links or usefull names to E-mail would be a superb help to me in order to carry out my career ambition.

Many thanks,

Gareth.

[World of Tweed]

Gareth Hello,

Its great that you're on pprune seeking advice.

May I make a polite suggestion? Try the forum Search Function for "sponsorship" "Cadet-ships" etc. as I'm certain you will find tens if not hundreds of threads on the subjects. Filter by date to get the most recent stuff. I'm afraid that'll take time but there is a mine of information on here just waiting to be found.

However, In short, the only "very-little risk to you" scheme i.e. sponsorship-ish and I make that point clear as you are still liable for costs in certain circumstances is the CTCWings program. Google CTC and its easy to find.
If you have 65K or at least can secure a loan for that amount you might want to investigate Flight Training Europe and one of their Airline Mentored schemes. GB/FlyBE/Thomsonfly all run courses of cadets there with a view to employing them straight away when they finish - however it is not guranteed employment.

Also Air Atlanique offer a limited number of full sponsorships (I believe you need a PPL) each year although most wannabees tend not to find their operation matches their medium term career aspirations.

Above all of this will be your medical fitness - A Class 1 medical ought to be invested in early on to save dissapointment later on. (approx £400 from the CAA in Gatwick)

All the very best

WoT

[bri1980]

Initial Class 1 medical is currently £310.

B

[Jasdent]

appreciate your swift reply.

Yeah I used the search and didn't really know where to start although I suppose the obvious place would have been the beginning, lol !

I have heard of the CTC programme, think this is the one based in New Zealand. The medical shouldn't be a problem I have 20/20+6 vision and won the police fitness trophy at tulliallen, I like to keep fit and healthy. Healthy mind, healthy life and all that.

I think the big thing is taking the risk, I am trying to find the least risky method of becomming a first officer. obviously I wouldn't want to be paying out money in the wrong area's if I didn't need to.

I doubt I would get a loan for 65K if I didn't still have a regular income although I may be wrong. I know it is a bit of a personal question was kind of hoping that existing and newly qualified first officers would give me an idea of how they got trained or got the funding.

Pretty nieve when it comes to raising money as I have always kept myself financially simple. one current account, one savings account and live out of that.

will start the long process of sifting through the existing links but if anyone can provide any up to date info, help or assistance I would be eternally gratefull.

Many thanks again WOT.

[PPRuNeUser0165]

hi there,
sounds like to me you need to get out and see a few training schools, only that way will you get to gain knowledge of how you might be able to fund your training. may i suggest visiting oxford aviation, they will gladly show you round and go through all the loan details. They also do alot of sponsership schemes, i would suggest trying one of them, perhaps the netjets scheme as your age and life experience is valuable to such a company. Also have you had any flight traing? How do you know its for you and is what you want to do in life? with oxford they have a 2 day assessment program, it is 200 pounds but will give you an insight as to whether you have the aptitude to be a pilot, well worth splashing out on that and a medical. I can only give you what advise i have found, as 2 years ago i was in the same position as you but much younger!!! It has taken me a good 2 years of searching visiting and flying to get to the point i am now. and im only just trying to enrole into a school.:}
if you need any advice just pop me an email,
good luck m8
:ok:
tom

[BitMoreRightRudder]

I did my training through the CTC wings scheme. It is certainly worth applying to them and any other airline mentored schemes before you start considering going it alone.

In terms of job prospects for low hour pilots it is currently probably as good as it gets - certainly as good as it has been for many years. How long it will stay this way no one can really know.

As for your attitude toward risk you're very sensible to look to limit your exposure to borrowing large sums of cash. However, and this may be a bit blunt, you have little choice in the matter. You are going to have to borrow something, probably quite a lot, to finance your training. When you borrow the cash you have no guarantee that you will get through your training and have even less guarantee you will find a job with an airline at the end.

I'm not trying to dissuade you from going for it, it's a great job and well worth all the effort to get there. But the least risk strategy schemes, eg CTC and the like still require you to gamble a lot of cash with no promises of employment.
Good Luck!

[maxdrypower]

Jasdent , speaking as a fellow officer currently going it alone . You have 2.5 years as a cop . If you can get sponsored then all the better , if you decide to go it alone then do it modular the police is a waxk organisation but it does pay reasonably well. If you enjoy it then the the best way to go it start with your PPL this could take the best part of a year depending how often you fly . Then do the groundschool DL , your obviously not stupid so should manage it . By this time you should be coming up to 5 years service and eligible for a career break . Take one do your ME/CPL/IR etc etc then if you dont get a job you still have a well paid job to go back too. But you do need that magic five years to take one.
But if someone is prepared to sponsor you then jump at the chance , why is the military not an option , its definately free there and being a copper you'll piss the oasc

[Locarno]

Everything in this game is a big risk, really - a lot of money is at stake at all times.

Many sponsorship company's worries would be what have you done up until the present time to show that this is what you want to do. I.E have all your subjects been geared around being a pilot, have you ever been in the ATC? Just to show that this really is what you want to do. Or is it just a simple "yeah it would be cool to be a pilot"?

The reason this is important (especially with sponsorship companies such as CTC) is that they don't want to spend loads of money (training often goes into the hundreds of thousands) for you to take a career change in a few years.

So is this was you REALLY want?

[World of Tweed]

Lots of good advice on here but like everyhting you find on Pprune take it all as written and not as Gospel.

I would caution going to a Flight Training school to do an assessment of your aptitude....they may exhibit some bias as to your result. If you feel you need more things to "under-write" your fears then I would suggest going to GAPAN and booking in for one of their assessments - for acouple of reasons.

A: They are independant and are not trying to flog you anything.
B: they use the RAF facilities at Cranwell and some of the same tests as the RAF do.
C: Your results from this assessment can get you in to many flying schools without sitting 'their' tests.
D: You'll get an honest appraisal as to not only how well you'll do with the physical flying stuff but also a guide as to how employable you are.

And as a nifty sideline you might even get a few hints as to whether or not you could reasonably expect to cut it in the RAF - if thats your bag.

As the for the post by Locarno about "Have you ever been in the ATC".... "subjects geared around a pilot" absolute rubbish!!

Yes - companies will want to know your reasons for wanting to fly and perhaps would expect to see some steps towards that but as an ex-sponsored cadet I can assure you that most Airlines look beyond that and are looking at the person they could be sat on the flight with for 8hours at a time. In my group we had, an accountant, ex-IT managers x 2, ex-butlins rep, couple of fresh out of uni guys.

What the likes of CTC want is perhaps another story - not for this thread.

Clearly you are taking the appropriate steps to assure yourself this is the career you want. No offense to the ATC here but the fact that you didn't stand around in the rain on St.Georges in a little blue uniform and ill-fitting berret will NOT harm you!

[Locarno]

No offense was intended, i am not in the ATC either - I used it as an example.

[dartagnan]

Locarno is right.

if they ask you" what other job you want do if not selected to become a pilot?"
if you can answer to this question, they will not take you.

policeman? that's a good job, no??. want a change? I give you my licenses, against your uniform!

[Life's a Beech]

Where did you get the figure £62k from? That is the price of some of the most expensive courses.

[StraightLevel]

Highland Airways run a cadet scheme. Although you are at the upper age limit they state that they do make exceptions. Link below:
http://www.highlandairways.co.uk/cgi-bin/airkiosk/I7/191003?070718095003.84.64.5.164.7396+/highland/I7/EN/static/cadetschemes.html

Hope it's informative.

StraightLevel

[Jasdent]

Loads of good advise still coming in and totally appreciate it.

62K was with the Flight Training Europe price €96,987

The police was a good job, It was very exciting at times and would take me days to tell you of some of my experiences. The problem comes from the politics within the job.

One is the working enviroment, when I joined the police I wanted to get the bad guys off the streets and feel as if I could make some sort of difference. I have been out running my own car for about six months now and I work hard from the minute i'm in the door to the minute i leave bringing in a string of bad guys. However this was where the final straw came from.

Following jailing 6 people in 5 days, a major drug dealer, a minor drug dealer, 3 category A arrest warrants and a drunk drunk driver I got told to stop !

I couldn't believe what i was hearing, I got criticised and told to stop generating my own work and go back to concentrating on calls which I did amongst everything else I was doing anyway.

I also think the justice system is useless in this country, I put an accused to court with 10 charges that I had solid evidence for 8 of those charges following a lot of work to get the evidence, the other two charges met the criteria of the accused . . . . . He got charged with 2 ! and they were the least severe !

This happens time and time again and accused' are being released when they should be getting the jail !

Anyway there is a lot more behind my gripe as can clearly be seen, it's only the tip of the iceberg so to speak ! but I am not allowed to do my job to the best of my ability . . . . and thats a disgrace !

As I said I would have preferred to have been a pilot but didn't think it was possible when I went to University. I was only made aware of the possibility recently I would love to get on the right track so please carry on giving the advise you have as it is all extremely helpfull to me.

Many thanks,

G.

[maxdrypower]

Welcome to the police Jas , never been any different , and probably never will be its a **** job , if anyone wants o stop heir commercial licences for my uniform you can have them