A Dad lost by the way forward !!!!

[Tim8416]

Dear All

The Bristol Ground School told me about your site and I am pleased it has.

My dear son, who wants his inheritance now, wants to be a pilot :ugh::eek: Timing Not.

Now I do landscapes I do not do flying other than you guys taking me to places. So a simple question, how from a semi standing start, does my twit of a son, become a commercial pilot and then loose the will to live please.

Currently doing his PPL at Thruxton and A Levels in Maths and Physics plus English language.

What I do not get is the route to this great license in the sky and the cost. 80K has been quoted to me and not a hope from me.

So if any of you could tell me where we start, is it the Bristol Ground School, then of to where ever, how long and how much in outline, I as a dad, would be very grateful. :ok:

Thank you

Tim8416

[Frankly Mr Shankly]

Hi Tim,

Firstly, refreshing, and wise, to see a parent asking the questions on here, seeing as more often it's the poor parents faced with the financing.

The whole flying training thing can indeed seem to be a bit of a minefield.

Basically, I can give you the general run-through of obtaining the licence needed to qualify your son to then attempt to get a commercial flying job. However the costs of which have probably changed since my day (about 7 years ago) but I'm sure others here who are more recently through the training stages can give you up to date costs.

I'm assuming here that your son will be doing the modular route through training given the financial climate, as opposed to integrated.

Basically the difference is modular you can choose different training organisations to do different bits of the training, you can control the timing more to suit you, and it generally works out considerably cheaper than integrated. Integrated means you do a course with one organisation, all the way to fully qualified CPL/IR holder (the licenses needed for airline flying if you like), it takes a shorter time, but is more expensive. Voila. In a nutshell.

(Note to the integrated versus modular brigade. DO NOT turn this thread into a slanging match, this is about helping a parent understand the route through and help decide about his son's future, not a bun fight).

Sorry about that, where were we...

The way I went through the "system" was almost as cheaply as I could have at the time and it was as follows. First off, Class One medical at Gatwick to make sure I had two arms, two legs, and can cough nice and loudly. 400 quid for the priviledge thereof.

1. PPL

2. ATPL groundschool with Bristol Groundschool, distance learning. This allowed me to maintain my full time job whilst studying the enjoyable light reading material in the evenings and weekends. Took me just over a year to finish this little lot. Bristol are really very good, other schools also do similar, and I believe are also very good, just that I chose Bristol and can honestly say they were excellent. Think it was about two grand for it.

3. Then I went to Florida to do 100 hours flying, hour building as it's called. I Think that worked out at about $40 an hour to rent a plane for a 100 hour block. Roughly anyway.

4. Came back to Blighty then to enrol on a Commercial Pilots Licence course at Stapleford in Essex. This was 25 hours (Im think, it's been a while), and about £4000, £4500 quid, again, roughly.

5. Multi engine rating and Instrument Rating, again at Stapleford. About £1800/£2000, and £10000/£11000 (ouch!) respectively.

6. An MCC course, Multi Crew Co-operation. Did this at Wolverhampton, 2 week course, £2000.

And tadaaaaaaa, hey presto, qualified pilot, CPL/IR and MCC.

As said earlier, that is a typical way through the modular route. Your son could do integrated (ie a course taking just over a year at one particular school) but that will be more expensive and the timing of it right now ain't too advantageous. However I will say to placate some people that I know the quality of these courses is normally very good, however my own personal opinion is that it was better to get the licences done a bit cheaper and in my own time. It suited me to do modular, it doesn't suit everyone however.

Hope this helps Tim. Good luck to your lad. :)

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

With travel and living expenses its rare for people to get qualified for much under £40k. But it can be done for not much over quite easily.

Then budget £33k for type rating from Ryanair and he might stand a chance of getting a job.. :(


WWW

[JohnRayner]

I would add to the concise and accurate post from Frankly Mr Shankly in that I took some (hopefully objective) aptitude tests after my Class 1, to try to determine if I could even hack the training.

The link provides some more information.

SYWTBAP - GAPAN (http://www.gapan.org/career-matters/careers-information/sywtbap/)

I was nearly dragged in by the bright lights and glossy brochures from the big integrated schools. This place was mentioned to me during my medical by the Doc, and I'm rather glad he did! I'm now taking a slower route to the end, and taking in the scenery as I go...

JR

[betpump5]

A few months back,

a dad came here asking the same thing regarding his 20 year old boy. It was written in such a way that the responses on that thread beggared belief - in a good way. I don't know if something was in the water but a lot of professional and senior members gave up their time and wrote detailed responses at length.

The pprune link below is golden:

Family Member Advice (http://www.pprune.org/interviews-jobs-sponsorship/378016-family-member-advice.html#post5003090)

This thread looks at the approach to be a pilot, what it entails, market conditions, and what to expect once you are actuallyin the job. Getting your fATPL is actually the easy part!

My posts could not compete with the in-depth detail others gave. So I came at it from another angle.

That is your son could be the most intelligent guy in the world with 100% passes in ground school and in the air. But is he actually 'pilot material' to get a job - regardless of how many interviews he gets. This is as important and there is no way of testing this. Only you will know what kind of person your lad is from the type of posts I wrote.

Have a read.

[UAV689]

Hi Tim

Its great to see a parent on here asking for advise rather than blindly following some marketing speel.

I would strongly recomend that you encourage your son to before he starts training to

1 - go to university or get a trade. The economy is awful at the moment, it will pay to have a back up plan. Also at uni you can continue to fly via UAS, gliding clubs or even instruct for the air cadets. Not to mention the life experience will put him in good stead later in life.

2 - Please try not to go the integrated route, dont be fooled by shiney marketing leaflets, there are 1000s for pilots out of work, as a new CPL you will be at the bottom of a long distingushed pile of qualifed people. Tell him to take his time, going to be a couple of years to ride this storm out - plenty of time to get a degree or work full time and save up himself whilst studing part time for this god for saken dream! Have a search on here and you will see lots of out of work experienced pilots, no rush to train to end up unemployed.

3 - Attempt to save for some of it himself! then any inhertance can be later put to buying a house. I personally get wound up when people plan to spend their inhertance, I think it is a vile thing to do, its like your looking forward to losing your parents. I am encouraging my parents to spend what ever they have, they have worked for it, they should enjoy it! I stand no 'right' to claim it. Don't mean to preach, its your money but you spent many a cold day landscaping to get where you are, why shouldn't he!!

Not sure if you know but this Sat there is a trade show for flying schools at heathrow called 'Flyer' - go and speak to some schools, but take what they say with a big spoonful of salt, they want your buisness remember, and will tell you and your son what you want to hear to get you to sign away 50K plus!!

UAV

[Parson]

He could try the military route - not everyone's cup of tea, and not easy to get into, but it is an option.

If going the civil route, I'd suggest going modular at a steady pace. He could get a job and pay for PPL, hour building, ATPL theory and CPL as he goes along. You could then pay for the IR for him at the end (about £15k). He will then be debt free and hopefully qualifying when the job market is better than now.

[12Watt Tim]

Don't be too put off by the market. I qualified at a terrible time, the downturn hit just after I finished my IR, and I knew many of those going through training and qualifying into the continuing bad times after. Everyone I know who persisted eventually got a flying job, almost all have survived the current downturn, although many are flying less. Your son is young, he has plenty of time to pay his father back in cheap flights and in treating you well in your (distant I hope) dotage. Being young he will also find the flying training easier.

Personally I would suggest he seriously considers not going to university if he is really serious about the flying, unless he really wants to study. He might be better off trying to find work in the aviation business, even if it would be menial, while completing his courses. In that way he does not accrue even more debts, can earn some money, makes contacts if he is in an airline (or even in some flying schools where airline pilots fly for fun) and if he works at a flying school for example will benefit from the conversation, the (admittedly sometimes dubious) advice and from cheap flying.

If he finishes and really can't find a job, then he can consider a degree.

£80,000 is an integrated course. A modular course is much cheaper.

After PPL he needs to build up hours until he has 150 and complete the ATPL exams. Within that 150 hours he must have 100 hours as pilot-in-command (PIC), and once he has 70 hours PIC he should do a multi-engine rating. If he is bright he can do the groundschool on a distance-learning course. With 150 hours and ATPL exams he can do the CPL and the IR (actually he can do the IR earlier, and the CPL after the IR which can be slightly cheaper if he is really good). He will need 200 hours to hold a CPL, but he should have that by then (minimum I heard of for this route was 205 hours, and I gave him a job, he was a great pilot - he was about your son's age when he started, 20 when I signed him off to line flying).

[G SXTY]

Frankly Mr Shankly has given an excellent description of what modular training entails. That’s pretty much how I trained, for a total outlay of around £45k, including accommodation for time spent away from home. I qualified with pretty much minimum hours, and the only avoidable cost was £1,000 spent on retesting part of the CPL exam (which is very easily done and should be budgeted for), so £40-something thousand is probably about as cheap as it can be done. Note that was around 2 years ago, so the prices are reasonably current - although the job market has changed dramatically since then. I also undertook the aptitude testing mentioned by JohnRayner and would strongly recommend it.

The best advice I could give, considering the woeful state of the economy and your understandable desire to avoid writing cheques for £80k, is for your son to take his time with training, and avoid the lure of the big schools’ glossy brochures. When I qualified, the UK’s four biggest employers of pilots (BA, Ryanair, Easyjet & Flybe) were all recruiting in significant numbers, but even then it was tough finding a first job, and many people struggled. Today, recruitment is pretty much at a standstill, so the task is nigh-on impossible. Things will improve eventually, and if your son is currently doing his PPL and spreads his commercial training over a couple of years, his timing could be good. Beware, however, qualifying when the job market is stagnant. Airlines value currency ( i.e. recent flying experience) very highly, and it is difficult and expensive to maintain this at your own cost while you wait for things to improve. Someone who qualified last week will be more attractive to a recruiter than a candidate with a year-old licence and 20 hours’ flying experience since then.

Best of luck, and remember never to trust any ‘careers advice’ from a flying school (BGS excepted – Alex is a very straight guy!)

[XXPLOD]

I went to an open day at a big integrated school and had a conversation with a parent on the 'university or not' debate. I get involved in recruiting from time to time in my job for new police officers/PCSOs and civilian staff.
My view is don't go to university for the sake of simply having a degree. If your son is bright and can get in to a 'good' university (one that big employers will take notice of, i.e. Oxbridge/red brick) then by all means go. But bear in mind at the end of the 3 years there will be a debt here as well - average is approaching £20K now.

I have no wish to offend anyone in terms of the choice of uni. I am simply saying that for a wannabe pilot with good A-levels, a degree in some lightweight subject from a uni (ex-poly) and £20K of debt to go with it is probably not a good investment. Personally, I would be more impressed to see a lad of 21/22 with 3 years of work experience where they can demonstrate their development and evidence their workplace skills rather than someone the same age who has spent 3 years getting a degree that really doesn't mark them out as anything special. This is part of the issue with Nu Labour - far more people go to uni, so a degree in itself is not the big thing it once may have been.

And BTW - on the subject of groundschool - he could of course do it full time in about 6 months if he didn't want to go to uni. Depends how disciplined he is likely to be doing it distance learning? Cost would be a bit more maybe £4K inc the exams, plus accomodation if req.

Good choice for his PPL - I did mine there!

[mad_jock]

What's happing to wannabies 2 two very sensible threads in the space of two weeks.

I would say Uni is not the way to go either but....

Before you go any further researching get your son down to Gatwick and get a class one medical. If you have a look at The UK Civil Aviation Authority (http://www.caa.co.uk) in the medical section it will give you all the details.

After that he really does have time in hand if he is still in school. He has 10 years to train and still be young in the industry.

The goal is to come out of training with as little loans as possible and hopefully a trade which will stand you in good stead if everything goes wrong. Which unfortunately is all to common these days even after you have got the first job.

Of the top of my head.

Sparky and Corgi gas fitters seem to be in very short supply The Gas fitter who just did my new boiler charged 3K for supplying and fitting, the boiler was £750 and he did 4 hours installing it. Now £500 quid per hour cash in hand seems a pretty good rate of pay to me.

[AlphaMale]

Mad Jock, the fitter probably saw your pilots cap on the hook and thought ££££. If he saw a job seekers allowance book on the side table he may have gone a little easier on you :ok:

[mad_jock]

You must be joking. That 3K was by far the cheapest estimate going. And my works jacket at the time looks more like scaffy wagon driver than pilot

British Gas were coming in at 5k for the same unit.

[Halfwayback]

Tim8416

Welcome to Pprune and I hope that you find the forum interesting and informative.

You will find a wealth of information here combined with a genuine desire by the 'old hands' to welcome and help those with a desire to follow a flying career to get onto the first rung of the ladder.

Given the positive responses that you have already had and some of the links to similar threads I intend to combine these threads at a later date and put them in the 'sticky' folder for reference.

Regards

HWB

[Triplespool123]

Apologies mad jock. Although I fear I have started "the usual nonsense".

...and I've just tried to stop it. Please stick to the thread if you want your post to remain.

HWB

[12Watt Tim]

Icelandflyerinvesting a lot of money in something that may not pay off immediately, Uni i feel is definately the most solid option.Errrrrmmmmm ... surely some mistake? University is '... investing a lot of money in something that may not pay off immediately ...'! If it also doesn't lead somewhere the lad wants to go and he therefore has to pay more to get into his preferred career it is certain to be a waste of money!

Certainly no-one in England should seriously consider going to university to then pay for flight training. The costs involved in university and three years of lost earnings mean that it will take a long time until the university pays off. At the same time he could be working and trying to make contacts or at least learn a littel about flight operations.

As for life-building skills, it has not taught you those that will get you a job! If you later go into management you might use what you gain from university, but that is a long way down the line, and can be undertaken in the next downturn. Having worked in a company where I was the only graduate (flight crew, directors and in the office) I did not think we suffered for it.

[Slopey]

The reality of the current job market is that if you want a job which you could use to fund flying training to a significant level in the future, you'll need a degree.

I work in recruitment, and for any decent paying position, graduate or otherwise, you won't get a look in without being "degree qualified".

Whether the degree is relevant to the job or not is another matter. Some employers specify what they want, others (usually the non-technical disciplines) just want to see that you got the ticket as it affirms your ability to learn/some semblance of academic ability.

Not having a degree won't stop you from getting a job, but it will limit the opportunities you can apply for at the start of your career.

And as said above, if you lose the Class 1, you're scuppered and having a degree gives you a bonus over others looking for a job.

[12Watt Tim]

Slopey

That does not address the fact that in order to acquire the degree it is necessary to forego three years of earnings* and spend over £10k on tuition fees and course materials. That deficit can easily exceed the entire cost of flight training and living expenses for a year. You are assuming that a graduate-level position is available (there are far more graduates now than positions requiring a degree). Then the lad has to actually get that graduate job, probably after a bit of temping or flipping burgers, work for a couple of years before he is earning any more than his contemporaries who have three years' work experience or vocational training. Even if he then earns £10k a year more than they do he could take more than 5 years to return to the level he would have been at had he not gone to university. Then he starts saving for flight training. So realistically he is looking at ten years in a job he dislikes, after three years reading a degree that he will only ever need if he goes into management in a large company.

It is also not really true. I know plenty of non-graduates who earn well - I wish I had ever earned as much as the truck driver I met who is doing his helicopter CPL at the moment (something I could not realistically afford even now), and I have a degree from a proper university. Ask some of the tradesmen in southern UK how much they earn. Mad_jock's gas fitter might be waiting to follow that driver's instructor, who was also a gas fitter before his CPL.

It might be true that recruitment professionals ask for a degree, but (sorry to be harsh about your job, I'm not being personal) that is just lazy filtering done by recruitment agencies and large firms' HR departments. Most jobs don't need a degree in practice (my first graduate job I was the only graduate on the team, even though my degree was relevant!), and small and medium companies often don't use recruitment professionals. Many jobs are gained by word-of mouth and through contacts, so that filtering isn't needed.

All that is without considering that nearly everyone I have ever worked for (earning more than I of course) managed very well without a degree. OK so they had started their own companies, or worked up to a high position, but that is another non-graduate route to pay for flight training. I know many people who did so.

Yes a degree will limit opportunities. However this lad does not want those opportunities, he wants to be a pilot. That is not a career that requires a degree.

*e.g. my job before I went to university, recalculated to today's earnings I was paid about £16k plus food and accommodation. Three years of that compared to three years of earning nothing and paying for accommodation and food in term time has to be over £45k (after tax) without taking tuition into account.

[Slopey]

I'm not a recruiter myself, but our clients mandate the qualifications required, not the recruiters. Out of the many thousands of jobs which don't require a degree on our database, they're at the lower end of the pay scale - and on some of those wages, you'd find it hard to build up a flight training fund given living expenses etc.

Yes a degree will limit opportunities. However this lad does not want those opportunities, he wants to be a pilot. That is not a career that requires a degree.

Fair enough, but if he loses the Class 1, he needs a fall back position. The market is dire for training now, so the choice is:

- go to Uni, get a degree, be more employable, have a laugh, maybe do something you are interested in, train at a more advantageous time. If not, you have a fall back position from your degree (provided it's not something which doesn't lead to a career). If you're Scottish and go to a Scottish Uni, your debts will be far less than the southern options.

or

- try and get a job now in the current market, without a degree, and save for three years. Depending on your location/aptitude/interests/luck, you could be working in a bar for the next three years only covering your living costs, and having nothing to show for it.

or

- Train now, and throw your hat into the ring with all the other pilots on the job pile with a big loan. And keep current, and don't lose the Class 1.


It's a personal choice granted, but a degree is a sensible option while the aviation market is rubbish, unless you can line up something lucrative through a contact.

[12Watt Tim]

But you only have on our database the jobs that people approach you to fill - and regardless of who makes the requirements it is still a lazy filter for most positions. That is a really restricted subset, probably largely those that are difficult to fill, possibly either because they require great qualifications (and so are highly-paid) or are low-paid. I am not sure why you expect Tim's son to choose one of the lowest paid of those in preference to perhaps a more highly-paid job in the rest of the market, considering that if he has any chance of a graduate job then he must have the character and attitude to get one of the better non-graduate jobs.

Surely if he loses the class 1 he can then go to university to study for the degree, in a subject that might be currently relevant, with the maturity of age, funded probably by an insurance payout. He might choose at that point to use his skills and experience to gain a job or to start a business.

Remember that having "nothing to show for it" is actually a rather large step up from the debt recent graduates have. Considering if he does have nothing to show for three years work then he was probably never suited to a degree, let alone a well-paid graduate job (or the aviation industry for that matter) then avoiding the degree was probably a very good idea!

[Slopey]

We can agree to disagree here before it gets off topic :)

It's up to him. If it was me, I'd get a degree, as before I had a degree my career options, and earning potential, were very limited. Either way, he likely wants to be anywhere but flight training for the next while.

I'm sure he'll decide what's best for him.

[mad_jock]

It all depends what the degree is and where they did it.

There are very few degree's these days which allow an automatic guaranteed uplift in your income for life. And even then if you go to the wrong institution you might as well not have bothered.

Also as well there is now a huge divide between scottish students and the rest. Your talking 12-15k's worth of difference over the course( lets call it an IR). The economics of degrees and which subjects are available is becoming a national disgrace. It is even more shocking when you have any insight into the methods and reasons that dictate policy in the higher education system.

Aberdeen is not and hasn't been for the last 35 years anywhere near a normal employment market.

[Slopey]

Correct, but I'm not talking about Aberdeen as such, but in more general terms across our offices worldwide.

My wife works inside the bowels of academia (and I hover on the periphery dealing with academics), and the stuff that goes on inside that "world" is just shocking.

One interesting industry which is always crying out for people (at least, we have no luck finding them and have to train them ourselves) is railway trackside maintenance. A Personal Track Safety course (PTS) is 2 days (no degree required), and if you then work up to PICOP (person in charge of posession), if you're not bothered about working un-sociable hours/travelling the money is pretty good for a very achievable level of certification - and there is usually high demand.

[Tim8416]

Ladies and Gentleman, more gentleman me thinks.

There was I waiting for an email form this forum saying you have a reply. Nothing came and I thought, typical, nothing :mad: ect ect.

So just popped back to see, if just in case, you know.

What can I say but a very large and big thank you for all your comments and suggestions. The time some of you have taken to reply has been overly generous and all I can say is....

THANK YOU VERY VERY MUCH. :D:D:D:D:D:ok:

This has been of great interest and I have obtained a flashy broucher from a company down by the cost, which does read very well. However nothing like the voice of experiance and there is much on this thread. Thankfully BGS is all of ten miles away and already have cd, lucky me :rolleyes:

Once again thank you and I wish you all happy flying in what ever form it now takes you.

Tim Lynch 8416

[12Watt Tim]

Good luck to your son!