Dignerf
19th Jul 2010, 16:54
Hi all.
I'm 22 years old, graduated from University last summer but have always dreamt of becoming a pilot so I decided to look around for a training course where I liked the look of the CTC Wings course. I decided to apply for that, went through the selection process and got offered a place where I would have been due to start in October this year as a cadet. After receiving the contract and be slightly alarmed at how tight it was, I decided to do some more research before signing it where, fortunately, I stumbled across these forums, and realised that things weren't quite as rosy as CTC made them out to be. (The nail in the coffin was when I discovered that cadets are having to pay around £10,000 for their line training - a fact that CTC never pointed out!)
I have since found a local flight school, St. George Flight Training (http://www.stgeorgeflighttraining.co.uk/index.html), which is based at Newcastle Airport (I live about 25 mins away) and decided to go for a meeting there with the owner. They offer a course that would get me a frozen ATPL for £24K, and then for a further £6K I could get my Instructor qualification. During the meeting, the owner, Eric, said that what people tend to do is go down that route and get their FI rating, and then teach people to fly at that school for 2-3 years so that they get their hours up to around 1000+, so not only are you increasing your hours, you're getting paid too. They then apply to the major airlines where he claims they will be much more attractive to employ than someone who has just came out an FTO with around 200 hours experience.
The only drawback I can see with this school and method is that they do not currently offer a multi-engine module, therefore at some point I would have to go somewhere else to get that and the instrument rating, also meaning that the majority of my hours will be in a simple single engine aircraft.
I would appreciate any comments or advice about this plan, especially if anyone has done this or knows someone else that has gone down this route.
I realise that the aviation industry is currently a mess, but this method would mean I'd likely not be applying to a major airline until 4 or 5 years time where, hopefully, things will have picked up by then!
Thanks
I'm 22 years old, graduated from University last summer but have always dreamt of becoming a pilot so I decided to look around for a training course where I liked the look of the CTC Wings course. I decided to apply for that, went through the selection process and got offered a place where I would have been due to start in October this year as a cadet. After receiving the contract and be slightly alarmed at how tight it was, I decided to do some more research before signing it where, fortunately, I stumbled across these forums, and realised that things weren't quite as rosy as CTC made them out to be. (The nail in the coffin was when I discovered that cadets are having to pay around £10,000 for their line training - a fact that CTC never pointed out!)
I have since found a local flight school, St. George Flight Training (http://www.stgeorgeflighttraining.co.uk/index.html), which is based at Newcastle Airport (I live about 25 mins away) and decided to go for a meeting there with the owner. They offer a course that would get me a frozen ATPL for £24K, and then for a further £6K I could get my Instructor qualification. During the meeting, the owner, Eric, said that what people tend to do is go down that route and get their FI rating, and then teach people to fly at that school for 2-3 years so that they get their hours up to around 1000+, so not only are you increasing your hours, you're getting paid too. They then apply to the major airlines where he claims they will be much more attractive to employ than someone who has just came out an FTO with around 200 hours experience.
The only drawback I can see with this school and method is that they do not currently offer a multi-engine module, therefore at some point I would have to go somewhere else to get that and the instrument rating, also meaning that the majority of my hours will be in a simple single engine aircraft.
I would appreciate any comments or advice about this plan, especially if anyone has done this or knows someone else that has gone down this route.
I realise that the aviation industry is currently a mess, but this method would mean I'd likely not be applying to a major airline until 4 or 5 years time where, hopefully, things will have picked up by then!
Thanks