Airlines pilots- how many hours did your PPL take you?

[liam548]

Reading another post that says if it takes you much more than 45 hours for your PPL then this will quickly be picked up on in future by prospective employers..


Just wondering how many of the airline pilots out there actually did it in 45 hours or so?

Problem with doing your PPL in the UK is obviously the weather what with cancelled lessons etc as well as from a personal perspective, trying to fit the lessons and studying around home and work life.

Indirectly the post states that take much longer than 45 hours and dont even bother trying to get a job with an airline... Which concerns me.

Liam

[Bealzebub]

Codswallop!

Airlines do not employ PPL's as pilots. How many hours you had when you obtained your PPL is irrelevant. You might have flown P/UT for years before going solo and later doing a General Flying Test, and have aquired lots of hours. There may well be interviewers who notice how many hours you had when you went solo or did your GFT, since if you have few hours there isn't likely to be much in the logbook to talk about? They tend to more interested in your experience, character, personality and background.

I wouldn't pay too much attention to this type of flying club bar banter. I cannot remember how many hours I had when I completed my PPL. That was 7 log books and 19,000 hours ago. I don't care and neither has anybody else.

[PilotPieces]

I haven't seen the post that you have quoted but if you believe that then when you have 44 hours and take your skills test, are you going to be asking the examiner if he could assess you within an hour so that you can be an airline pilot?

It is more about being realistic. If you complete your ppl in 45/50/55 hours, so what? However a potential employer see that you took 100 hours to complete it, they may be a bit wary. Edit: And thats only if it was an intensive course.

It's all down to more important things anyway. CPL, IR etc even so, you don't have to do the minimums in everything.

[CABUS]

As the post above says this is total rubbish so dont worry. When you get into commerical flying you will soon realise that most guys with a PPL who seem to talk the talk really cant walk the walk. My PPL instructor said to me once, those who can do those who cant sit around telling each other how good they are in the flying club bar! Not only that they seem to profess to know all about the commerical world and often know so little it is amusing. Dont let this bother you what so ever, I took loads of hrs due WX, lack of money and greedy flying instructors and then got employed with 206hrs on the A320 with a UK charter airline so just laugh it off, you will do it.

Have fun with the PPL its a great laugh and brilliant for first dates;), enjoy!:ok:

[Superpilot]

Liam,

You've got the wrong end of the stick. No offence but may be you should brush up on your verbal reasoning?

Verbal Reasoning - Comprehension Exercise (http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/tests/verbaltest.htm)

:E

[ElitePilot]

IMO the amount of hours it takes for the ppl is not touched on when it comes to the airlines.
The ones that do check your history would be more looking at first time/series CPL/IR passes thats not to say its the end of the world if you don't get it first time round.
I reckon it's more down to the check flight/interview/aptitude testing and total time... And of course the old who you know.

[a797]

i did it in 45ish hours. however at my airline interview they only looked at the pages in my logbook containing cpl & ir hours.

[bad_attitude]

my log book wasn't even looked at until after i had been hired ...

[liam548]

Liam,

You've got the wrong end of the stick. No offence but may be you should brush up on your verbal reasoning?

Verbal Reasoning - Comprehension Exercise (http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/tests/verbaltest.htm)

:E


looks a good exercise.. ;)

"Likewise, in the early stages of a PPL, most people find the going tough. If you take significantly more than 45 hours to complete the PPL however, I would seriously look at the viability of becoming a professional pilot. Taking 15 hours more at PPL, then CPL, then IR with addition costs for re-sits can very quickly mount up financially and would be quickly noticed by prospective employers."


thanks for the replies.

Liam

[eikido]

I don't understand.
So what if it took 100h to take the PPL if you want to take a CPL? Doesn't those 100h count for the CPL?

Eikido

[corsair]

It depends on the reason it took you 100 hours eikido. If it took you 100 hours because you were slow to learn or failed a few flight tests. That would be an issue. Because the PPL is relatively easy compared to other tests. You would probably struggle with other more complex ratings and licences.

If on the other hand it took you 100 hours because of lack of money or bad weather leading to large gaps in the training process but otherwise you progressed. Well that's different.

It's common enough for students to take 60 hours or more to get a PPL, particularly when they train part time. If the airlines cared about stuff like that, there would be a serious shortage of pilots.

45 hours is the minimun as laid down by the JAA. Not a target. You do the test when you're ready not when you hit 45 hours and have ticked all the boxes in your training record. I'd say there are very few pilots out there who did their test on the 46th hour.

It is entirely possible for someone to get a PPL after 45 hours. If they are full time at it with good abilities. Lucky them. But it's hardly a common situation.

[clear prop!!!]

Was never asked!

Interest will almost certainly be in your MIR pass...never had any interest shown beyond that .

When instructing, students who went hard at it during summer months would obviously pass in min hours. Those who did their PPL over a longer period took more hours. That didn't make them worse pilots.

There are far too many factors to take into account for anyone to judge you on hours taken to gain your PPL.

[ElitePilot]

The other thing huge thing is contingency of learning. For example if you got out to the states you get a good run of it in a short space of time due to weather and more than likely get there in the minimum time. However when you get back here there is usually a bit of a shock with differences in airspace etc.

Also having a good instructor makes a huge difference if they make every hour count. Theres no point burning holes in the sky for the sake of it etc.

[Mikehotel152]

The PPL is the basic foundation of your flying career. It may take someone 55 hours of hard work to build those basic skills but they may establish a more solid foundation than a naturally talented person who passed on 45 hours, continues to boast about it and lets their easily-gained but unreinforced skills stagnate. I wouldn't worry about it too much - unless it takes you 75 hours and you still don't know what you're doing.

Mind you, I think the original poster was actually making the point that a person who struggles through all stages of their flying training might wish to consider whether commercial flying is their bag! :{ Airlines expect solid basic skills and might not be so keen on a candidate who takes 65 hours to get a PPL, fails the CPL test a couple of times and it takes 75 hours and 3 failed test to get an IR...

Let's face it, Airlines assume you can fly a Cessna 152 around the countryside in search of bacon butties. They're far more interested in whether you can pass an Instrument Rating and a Type Rating without too much trouble, neither of which concentrate on handling skills because it's assumed you can handle an aircraft by that stage. When I did my IR, the FTO gave you sod-all training on the Twinstar. They concentrated on instrument training as it was assumed you would be able to fly and land their £400,000 piece of plastic without any difficulty...and they're right...

The commercial flying training courses aim to weed-out pilots who haven't a minimum physical ability to twiddle knobs and flick switches in the correct order, who struggle to fly a precision approach with 20 knots of crosswind, or who find it difficult to communicate effectively with someone with whom they only have a cockpit in common. By the time you get to that stage you'll have forgotten how to fly a 152...;)

[BitMoreRightRudder]

By the time you get to that stage you'll have forgotten how to fly a 152.

Yep, and after a few years of airbus flying you'll wish you could remember how to fly anything that doesn't have auto-trim and auto-thrust! If you want to fly for an airline, how you got on during the ppl isn't going to have a huge impact on finding employment. What you do in the hour building period after you have a ppl might.

Your commercial training is a far better indicator, and most tellingly it is your level of performance during the mcc/joc and type-rating on a jet or TP transport aircraft that will convince an airline to employ you.

I have no idea how many hours I had when I did the ppl flight test, and it was only 5 years ago, though I do recall failing it quite spectacularly!

[daria-ox]

As others said, I don't think that PPL is what you should worry about but Instrument Rating and ability to pass Type Rating.

Good luck !

[larry231]

hi Liam,

well working as an instructor I can tell you one thing, I'd prefer my students that go for a Professional Pilot Course to spend a bit more time on the PPL if they need that extra time to become better pilots as it's going to build a good solid foundation for the rest of their training. So even if it takes you let's say 65 hours or so, you'll see that the rest of your training won't be that hard, on the other hand if I get a student that's been handed over to me after PPL that just got his license with the minimum required (40 hours in the US), I'll struggle more with him and I'll definitely need to catch up a few basic things as we train for Instrument and Commercial. So in the end, I can't tell what the airlines might wanna look at as I've never worked for an airlines yet but I never heard such a thing, my advice will be don't worry about PPL, focus on Instrument Rating and Commercial Licenses and get good, that will be all good for you when you go for your airline interview, know your stuff, even when you think you know it, study more and learn more, there's always something more to learn in addition to your training.

Have fun with your training.

Cheers

[Mikehotel152]

IIRC I had about 60 hours in my logbook when I got my PPL, but that included some time doing spins and loop-the-loops in a Firefly, two Club fly-outs to the Low Countries and a few 'fun' flights...:p

[BigGrecian]

What about the guys who take their test at the 35 hour point - do they get to fly concord or the first generation of space craft?

PPL doesn't really matter, at Commercial and IR level can be used to find out whether you can learn and assimilate a large amount of information in a short period of time.

The only thing I've ever heard of is people being asked for their skills test report form from their CPL and IR,
Then as long as you weren't on third attempt or beyond, it didn't matter, as long as you could explain what you learnt from it and how you went about correcting your mistakes.

[DC-ATE]

This has pretty well been beat to death but I'll add my two cents anyway. The number of hours it takes to get your Private is meaningless. You can't get hired without a Commercial and Instrument Rating anyway. I've never heard of an airline looking in your logbook. What difference would it make. The logbook could be phony. It's the Official License in your wallet that counts.

[supramkiv]

I didnt include the amount of hours it took me to do my PPL in my CV, or my CPL or IR for that matter, even though it was all done in min. time. The airline I fly for didnt even ask for those details. Concentrate on getting the maximum benefit out of your flying lessons no matter how long it takes you to get to the test.

Good luck!

[Private jet]

Ditto to what has already been said....In addition; Make the most of your flying hours, after all you are paying good money for them! Not just the instructional time, when you are building your hours you should go places, different airfields, plan a flight and stick to it, don't just float around to burn off time. Fly at night whenever you can, personally i enjoyed it far more than daylight flying. I did an FAA IR first and after that I did lots of IFR flying. Its not about total hours, its about doing the maximum you can with the time you are in the air.

[nuclear weapon]

Mine took 53hrs but was due to bad wx ws at the time i started. From my experience they (most airlines) dont give a toss. First time passes is more important.