What's wrong about having a CPL/ME/IR

[donPablo]

I'm curious about why are we worst than the ab initio guys, why all this stupid ab initio courses couldn't be just changed for CPL recruitment... I wanna know WHY ie. Etihad takes everyone except CPLs, are they afraid of us or what ? This could save them a lot o money and they could even bond/contract us on the same terms, but people who paid lot of money would get some return and an airline woudn't have to worry about all this medicals and other "not beeing the right person" stuff, which they take into account.

Just don't tell me that it's better to teach ab initio than a guy with some experience, beacuse it's simply not true, as person with 250 hrs or a bit more don't get bad habits.

[tiger2411]

very much agree!

[ravanelli295]

totally agree....even though i dont have any licenses yet....i guess they just want to sort of "breed thier own" and mould them into the etihad culture how they like....still doesent justify the cost of training these guys..

[boeingbus2002]

If the cost of 0 to 200 hr FATPL cadet is about £65,000+ (depending on training location), add to that accomodation and living expenses for 12-13 months the cost of a cadet will be close to £80,000 if not more just to be ready for a type rating course.

Now compare a CPL/IR holder. 200 hrs already with proven Multi-engine instrument flying experience. If they were to undergo 50 hrs refresher training to bring the candidate upto speed (assuming a long gap since completing flying training) and to "mould" candidate into company culture and practices, and to monitor quality of training, the cost to be ready for TR course would be no more than £20,000. Thats a considerable saving of both time and money.
This assumes 13 months for the ab-initio and 4 months for the CPL/IR refresher.

At the moment there are many experienced jet pilots on the market, however not all would be willing to work in the Middle East for various personal reasons. However airlines like EY and GF (who operate smaller jets like A320/A321) could use CPL/IR ready pilots much sooner than having to wait 13-14 months for a cadet to complete the course. Of course they wouldnt have had the influence in the training from day one, however the 4 month refresher period would still be a saving in both time and monetary terms.

I know I am missing something big here, but the figures surely speak for themselves. :D

[ColonialFlyer]

Carrying bad habbits and more difficult to stick to the company procedure could be the reason.

[PPRuNeUser0215]

When you are coming out of training, bad habits are not a factor. In 200 hours, habits are easily written off. In 2000 not so much, in 20000 never.
Keep your hopes up. You may not be going through the Etihad (and whatever else way) but if you stick to it, you will make it. Bear in mind that times are bad so you not making it is not related to your performance so much . It is just that hardly anybody needs anyone... It might take months, years but I promise you, the light is there, at the end of the tunnel... Only for the people most suited to it. Been there, done that, got the T-Shirt. Unfortunately it is now you turn but stick to it... It is well worth it.
Parents, friends might not really understand it, yet the day you will succeed all will be fogotten (for them). you ? You will know better and enjoy it even more.

Please ! Please don't give up !

:ok:

[happyhour2010]

Nice to hear something encouraging on this forum once in a while. :ok:

[MVE]

Couldn't disagree more about bad habits, having taught CPL/IR, the worst thing about teaching someone who had not come through our training system, whether they were PPL, part finished CPL or completed CPL doing an IR, was having to train out the bad habits picked up from flying alone or poor training. If you want to train someone to fly to your high standards it is nearly always better to start from as close to zero hours as possible. If you have a CPL/IR and don't keep current and by that I mean fly every 20 or so hours with an instructor to ensure you don't get into bad habits, you risk getting sloppy. I'm not saying give up if you already have a license but be aware that without training and high discipline you will inevitably get steadily less sharp.....best of luck with the job search.

[PPRuNeUser0215]

MVE I was actually to radical in saying that bad habits were not a factor. Of course bad habits are a factor but at 200 hours they will be cured fairly easily with discipline and the right environment (either through training or work in a good standards operation which is training in a way).
It will be easier to cure a 200 hours guy when compared to a guy who has accumulated 2000 of bad habits (and by 2000 hours of it, I call it poor standards).
So people, keep your standards high the best you can but just to reiterate, a 200 hours guy is not lost cause. He is trainable easily given the right environment and a will on his/her behalf to achieve something good.
Generally speaking companies like to see there is potential in a guy. Not that they are god's gift but that they are showing signs of progression during say, a sim ride, a willigness to listen and learn from either experience (mistakes mostly) or feedback given.
That tends to please the recruiters...

But if you are crap, passing selections and sim rides will be tough so bear it mind.

Apologies for being slighlty misleading in my original post... Not on the "don't give up" part though.

[boeingbus2002]

Wise words AMEX. For many who already posses a licence and still after a few years with no joy, the current situation just seems to be another nail in the coffin. Of course many will not give up hope so easily. However how long will it be before "low hours" are considered for employment when there are so many more experience pilots available?!
One of the key points you mention is keeping up skills and flying. The instructor route doesnt seem so viable right now if schools are seeing a reduction in PPL/trial lessons.

[skyflaps]

Completely agree AMEX - Its about attitude, personality, intelligence, ability, the willingness to learn, to be able to recognise the good from the bad and be able to listen and learn from those with experience.

Sorry to say MVE but just because a guy is CPL/IR its no reason to right him off - it's a little arrogant in my opinion and hopefully in time this will fade away. In many ways, a guy that has done distance learning ATPL theory whilst holding a job, hour building in remote locations such as Africa (doing cross border flights cheaply) and IR/CPL courses in cheap places such as Spain and the USA, has gained a very wide level of experience. In addition it shows a huge amount of dedication, commitment and potential to do it this way - Integrated Courses are easier in some aspects, administration is sorted out for you, you are used to the same school, system and aircraft amongst other things, the whole way through your course - With Modular you learn to adapt early on in your career and this is useful. And of course you end up with more hours.

Nevertheless I havn't a problem with certain companies turning their noses up at CPL/IR - Im comfortable with my training and ability - with the money I saved going modular I was able to pay for a Turbine Rating - I have a few hundred Twin Turbine hours dropping parachutes in Europe - I feel this is more value than blowing it on an Integrated Course paying for expensive epaulettes on my shirts.

Someone will hire us - it might not be the well paid top job right hand seat in an Airbus - frankly this shouldn't be the case for a young newly graduated pilot straight out of school probably still a teenager - he needs to see the world, live, learn and grow - he will be sick of jets by the time he's 30! - secretly Im hoping for some adventurous contract work for my first job (a bush flying course in Africa as part of my 'modular course' gave me some preparation) and Im confident that Im ready for it. Hopefully this kind of start to my flying career will form me into a safe and respectable airline pilot one day in the future.

Good luck to all you guys

[Rj111]

It's actually quite a big decision to make deciding how rigirously you pursue training after PPL with the knowledge that Airlines won't consider you for cadet type things.

[mech500]

Not all people out there can afford the ridiculous amount of money to get a CPL/IR so im with the airlines on this one .... i think that cadet schemes should be for those without a CPL - im sure all of us would rather that an airline pay for our training then fork out the cash ourselves?
I think cadet schemes are great .. more airlines should pay the costs to train people to ATPL level.

[Kelly Hopper]

But of course most cadet schemes require you to input loads of dosh. That is the problem. They can get a guy with no experience, mould him the way they want him, run him off the conveyor belt as a company guy and he gets to pay for most if not all of it. In effect you are subsidising the cost of running an airline.
So if you put yourself in the shoes of Mr Airline Manager, who would you choose? And I dare say there are tax benefits for the operator too.
STOP paying for all this and it stands a chance of changing, but only in years to come. But we live in a dog eat dog world where every pilot is trying to be one step ahead of the next guy by having more hours, a jet rating, line experience etc etc etc.
Whoever was the first to offer to pay for a rating has a lot to answer for I'm afraid. :=

[corsair]

The reality is that airlines can ask for anything they like. Fairness has nothing to do with it. They are a business. If an airline only wants blond pilots, well then you better get out the hairdye. If they only want cadets with zero flight time then that's what they get.

Every airline has it's own eccentric notion of what they need from a pilot.

If you want a job with them you jump through their particular hoops or you exit by the nearest door. Simple as that. No use whinging about the unfairness of it all.

[borat33]

tell them that you dont have cpl ..
show them excellent performance by the end of the course ..

[daria-ox]

They'll find out that he has a CPL sometime :E

Oh gosh! Polish guy.
..I'm not alone :E

[bfisk]

You won't believe how fast bad habits starts forming until you've done some flight instructing. When I was a fresh instructor I though I had an advantage when taking over students with some experience (from other instructors or other schools/aircraft). Fact of the matter is, those were the hard-to-teach students. Newbies, completely fresh, would be a lot easier to teach. Never underestimate the power of mind-set...

[boeingbus2002]

mech500;
Of course not everyone has the money to obtain a CPL/IR up front. (Costs can vary depending on route taken). However what we are trying to say is when an airline is recruiting at the "lower end" of the experience spectrum, they can choose:
* A zero hour cadet and a bill for £80k+ or
* A CPL/IR qualified pilot with 200 hrs minimum. There are issues of course regarding bad habits and so a course to provide some sort of revision or adaptation to the company procedures would cost considerably less than training a new student. The time also would be reduced. (13 months compared to a 2-3 months).

Of course there are many wannabe pilots who would want to get that first step on the ladder with a cadet position. Not many airlines are offering such an opportunity either.

[mech500]

I just want to put a different slant on things:

With reference to the above posts, it is quite obvious that a candidate with a CPL will cost less to train.
However if all the airlines took this view, then it is reasonable to expect that eventually, zero hour pilots won't stand a chance of getting a place on a cadet scheme. Consequently paying for a CPL becomes the only option for zero hour'd guys :\

Similarly a candidate with a type rating (low-hours) cost less to train than a non-type rated pilot .... but if all the airlines took this view on-board than self funded type ratings become the norm and perhaps in time they will become the only option :\
and i'm sure no one would want this?

Cheers,
Mech500

[Ivor_Novello]

I really don't get this "bad habits" thing.

So a CPL with over 250 hours will have picked many bad habits to make him not attractive to the airline. The same guy becomes a FI, with 1500 hours and now he's attractive and hasn't got any bad habits ?

If someone's been through 250 hours, a CPL test (which I believe is carried out to the same standard whether you are ab initio, or modular or training with the local farm strip ;)) sure he's reached the standard excpected by the CAA examiner, and would assume he's equally qualified as someone who started flying last week and has done an intensive ab initio course !

The bad habits thing is probably an excuse to cut the modular students out and keep monopoly between airlines and certain flying schools.

[VNA Lotus]

pprune forum

[VNA Lotus]

pprune forum

[mech500]

VNA, do you think the low hour'd guys who fly for Ryanair WANT to pay for their TR? lol. surely they would rather Ryanair pay?

[VNA Lotus]

No what I think is you have the choice. FR is not the only one I guess.
I did not pay a tr for my job, but you have to be patient... few youngs are patient.
it was an example, I have just wrote that "no one" is a little bit optimistic really! and that's the truth.

[scallaghan]

Shame that people pay for type ratings, if everyone refused the employers would have to pay or at least bond you

[nuclear weapon]

In my own opinion i think if you approached an airline with cpl/meir you've already saved them close to £80k on training a zero hr pilot. If i were an operator it will still be cheaper to take you train you even if it means an extra session or two in the sim.
I know some here wont see it that way but thats the way i see it.

[timzsta]

I think the idea you wouldn't want to take on a CPL/IR guy with 2000 hours because they will have 2000 hours of bad habits is a load of rubbish. The point is that they have 2000 hours of experience.

Lets look at the typical profile of somebody who has gone down the self improver route. After getting the CPL/IR they most likely took the FI course, at then end of which they had to take a Flight Test with an FIE. They have to show they can fly well, teach well and are made of "the right stuff" so to speak.

They then set about Instruction, under supervision of an experienced FI to start with, and then became a full FI. Almost certainly they then undertook training to teach for the Night Rating, and then Applied IF, which would have involved another flight test with an FIE.

Maybe after 1000 hours Instructing, which for some may have included teaching CPL (which means they have to be deemed suitable by the authority to Instruct for the CPL), our self improver then gets a position with a air taxi operator flying Navajo's and Chieftains for example, maybe going onto fly a Titan if he is lucky. Our self improver is going to have to undertake some form Line Training and an OPC/LPC with the air taxi operator before he/she can start carrying the punters/freight as Pilot In Command. And the LPC/OPC check will need to be done at regular intervals during his/her time at said Operator. During this time he is flying single pilot IFR, in the airways, and making Instrument approaches, probably sometimes down to minima, in aircraft with very little automation compared to a modern airliner.

So perhaps after 4 or 5 years flying experience our self emprover sends his CV to a regional turboprop operator or perhaps a charter airline. Do you seriously think the recruiters are going to through it out because "he's got 2000 hours of bad habbits?"

If you have ever been to a BALPA employment conference and talk to the people who do the recruiting for many companies hours are important and with only 200 you are really going to struggle to find a company that is going to take you on.

The 200 hour integrated route works fine for people who are sponsored by an airline or under one of the mentored type schemes. If you choose to do modular or go integrated but not under scheme with an airline you stand very little chance with 200 hours of finding employment. Once you start adding hours to the logbook you become more employable.

[PPRuNeUser0215]

I think the idea you wouldn't want to take on a CPL/IR guy with 2000 hours because they will have 2000 hours of bad habits is a load of rubbish.

It's not that everybody with 2000 hours WILL have bad habits but IF they have bad habits. The original guy asking the question has 200 hours or so and worries about his 200 hours of potential bad habits (an assumption he makes) hence why it is better to have 200 hours than 2000 hours, in this very particular case.

2000 hours is better than 200 if they have been flown according to a good standard, used to learn airmanship, situation awareness, thinking on your feet, sorting out/dealing with the unexpected, practice of good CRM etc... This is most of the time the case but not always.

Finally 2000 hours will make a difference for most jobs in a certain market state (ie when the requirements is for a certain level of experience or when times are bad) but not that much for others. Airlines such as my previous employer had guys joining with 250 hours (not cadets), others like me with 2000 hours (bush, commuter, and other type of flying) and finally guys with 10000 hours on all kind of medium to heavies. All on the same day of joining, on the same (Boeing) aircraft. Worked fine for all of us with only occasional differences. It was a very "standard" driven airline with a very good training set up, topped up by a long experience in the industry.
Today, if I was an airline flying large Jets and recruiting people and if I could only interview 1 person out of two. One with 1000 hours TT including 500 hours with people like Flybe, Easy and the other one with 2000 hours spent in a C152, I would go for the less houred guy. He might turn out to be rubbish but overall I would have more chance with him and since hiring people is always a bit of gamble, I would be trying to minimise the risks.
If I need more people then it is a different story as all sorts of background can be very healthy too.

Overall though, there is no doubt that the more experienced you are, the easier it is to get a job. Having been there and done that, from years to get my very first commercial job (I do not include instructing or towing), it only took me days to get another one each time after.

[Romeo Kilo]

I agree it is strange that Etihad do not seem keen to take on qualified and experienced flight crew. However, one though that occurred to me...

Etihad has set its sights on being the number one operator out of the middle East, and plans to expand its current network greatly over years to come. They have placed huge orders with both Boeing and Airbus, and it have shown no signs of letting up. A lot of these aircraft will not be on the scene foe at least another 2 years, indeed some are still very much in the design phase, i.e. A350 XWB. Perhaps Etihad has all the pilots it needs for its current capacity, buyt realized that it will need a lot more in the mid to long term, ans as such they have decided to invest in creating a workforce that has been groomed just the way they want it, to ensure that they can achieve their goal of being the very best.

Perhaps once the Etihad fleet begins to expand at an increasing rate, there will be more oppurtunities for qualified pilots, as they will have the aircraft for them to fly...

Thats my 2 cents anyway!

RK