Advice Warmly Received

[spitfire747]

Dear All

I am a PPL holder with night, IMC and 122TT. I am being persuaded by various flight training schools here in the UK that now is the right time to join up for a ATPL, CPL-IR course. As i am borrowing the money from a bank and have been talking to a friend who is a CAA examiner who suggests holding back for a year, i am CONFUSED.

Is there any people out there, not involved in the marketing dept of a FTO, who can offer some useful advice, should I go for it now or wait

Any advice kindly received

SpitFire747

[frigatebird1]

There has never been a better time to "go for it". To fund your training, why not sell your house and all it's contents immediately.

[MJR]

I think it depends on how old you are, All flight training organisations will tell you its an excellent time to get trained. If you are under 25 then it may well be, if you are over 35 and want to fly for one of the majors then it probaly isn't. Why not save the money during this depression and then train when you've got the necessary funds.

cheers

MJR

[scroggs]

Inevitably, the FTOs are facing a leanish time ahead, with the almost total elimination of sponsored cadets, and will try to persuade anyone they can to sign up now. Equally inevitably, any advice they give that this is the ideal time to train will be 'commercially influenced', to say the least!
That said, that doesn't mean that this is necessarily a bad time to consider starting your training. With the temporary demise of sponsored cadets, and the reduced number of self-sponsored students, you may be able to drive a fairly hard bargain on course charges. You should also be able to expect better continuity and priority from your FIs. But, and this is very important, your chosen FTO may well be on fairly dodgy financial ground with the relative lack of custom, so you should be very careful about paying for anything up front. Use a credit card for payment if possible, and have a go at arranging a deal where you pay, say, monthly in arrears. It may not be possible, but it's worth a try - remember, it's a buyer's market.
As for the overall market conditions when you graduate, who knows? I would try and time your entry to the marketplace for about 12 - 18 months time. By then things should have settled down. The good news is that the low cost airlines are, or are about to be, recruiting. EZ is looking for 140 pilots annually over the next three years, and Ryanair must be thinking similar numbers. These jobs won't be all filled by the redundant pilots ex-VS, BD, BA and others - many of them will look overseas for work. In any case, I'm beginning to get the feeling that we've already bottomed-out and can look for some cautious expansion from a year's time onward. You could be quite well placed....
However, this is the most difficult market to predict just now, so don't quote me on any of the above - I may well be wrong!

[Barnacle Bill]

Spitfire 747........save the money. don`t borrow yet. Of course the schools will tell you that now is a good time etc etc......they are trying to stay in business!! Enjoy your leisure flying, maybe do the difficult bit [all the ground exams] but DON`T borrow vast amounts to sponsor yourself `cos in the short term you won`t get a job that pays enough to re-coup it. Things may get better [or even worse?] but look at the amount of airline recession and the amount of pilots now on the market. [I`m atpl A and H 12000hrs and working, luckily]

[Di - Hedral]

I can understand why you have been advised to leave it for a year or so. It should be clear from the replies above that the state of the industry is the worst it has been for a long time.
:(

Being optimistic, things have got to improve dramatically over the next two years (my opinion), so depending on how you feel about the whole situation you may be as well to follow Barnacle Bills advice and perhaps look over the ground subjects. If you are self studying you can spend as much time as you want absorbing all of those delightful topics, and when the market stabilises tuck into the compulsory ground school prior to sitting your exams. This will give you an opportunity to feel more relaxed, rather than working to an hectic time schedule :cool:
Hopefully by the time you get to do the flying training the schools will still be 'falling over themselves' to help you. It could work to your advantage ;)