Where to Train????????

[willit]

As is the case for probably 100% of the people that will see this I have always dreamed of piloting a commercial aircraft. Unfortunately, or realistically as it is for most of us, Daddy was not in a position to put me through the training required when I finished school, so I begrudgingly went off to University and did engineering. I graduated in the midst of the IT boom in my native Ireland and so went on to many contracts in this field, moving to Australia where I now work as a project manager. Having never given up on my dream of flying I started to save about 4 years ago with the aim of having enough to put myself through the required training. This is where I now find myself and where my dilemma begins.

At only 29 I know, from reading many pprune posts, that I am at a good age to start my new career path, however I really need some guidance from anyone willing to help. I fully intend to move back to Europe as soon as I can, hopefully to fly with any airline that will take me, but the cost of the integrated fATPL courses in Europe are more than double the price that I would pay here in Australia. Also, if forecasts are anything to go by, the jobs market for low hour pilot's looks like it will be pretty good in Aus for the next few years. My main question is whether my best option would be to do the course down here and spend a few years building up hours or to bite the bullet and spend the big bucks in FTE or OAT??????

I get the impression that pilots fresh from training that go the SSTR route are frowned upon back home so I don't want to get into a career whereby my peers will immediately look down on me for doing so. However, it seems, this is the only way for someone to get into the rhs of even a TP, a la Aer Arann. Any guidance / information / help that can be offered will be very gratefully received as I am in the final stages of what will hopefully be my last contract in my soon to be old profession and therefore will need to act on this early in the new year.

[md83driver]

You are faced with the usual dilemma tons and tons of hard earned money to go to OATS or the better option..... Go and do everything FAA in the States spend a fraction of the money gain 1000 hours of valuable flight time then go back and do the JAA exams, breeze the flight tests and get hired by the airline of your choice in Europe.

As it turns out most of the training at OATS is in Arizona anyway but why should you pay in sterling at today's exchange rate when you could be getting about 3 times the value at any US school?

Ask the OATS graduates who are out every year in the states hour building and still jobless which option they wish they had taken

[willit]

md83driver,

Thank you very much for your reply, I was starting to wonder if I would get any responses, although there are a myriad of pages on pprune relating to this topic.
I fully agree that training in Europe is probably the last option to take due to the prohibitive costs involved, I just want to give myself the best opportunities that I can. My wife is fully supportive of my decision to change careers, mostly because in the 6 years she has known me it's all I talk about, but I sometimes worry how supprtive she'll be if in two or three years time I'm unemployed having spent soooooo much money on training.
Anyway, thanks again for the advice. If anyone else out there has any more perils of wisdom they might like to share I'm on pprune for a couple of hours every day checking.

[152Jockey]

Sounds like you are in a similar position to me. I'm 33 and am also lucky enough to have a Missus prepared to let me train as well!
I'm currently doing my PPL across the water from you in Dunedin, New Zealand - for the whopping figure of $8000 NZD (about 2700 quid). The PPL,CPL and IFR courses together will cost me less than 25k Stirling. The good news is that prospects in the industry are not too bad here in the Antipodes.
There is a company in Hamilton in the North Island of NZ called CTC Aviation, loads of European airlines send their pilots there for training - you should have a nosey at them as surely prospects from there would be better still (and a third of the price of Europe).
Remember that there are plenty of Oz and Kiwi trained pilots working for European and Asian airlines so maybe we can have our cake and eat it?! I'm willing to try!
Good luck.