Can I have some MORE advice please!

[Halfbaked_Boy]

Hey, despite the title, I am not going to continue on a topic I have already started and got boring, no, I would just like some more help from the pros or other to-be-pilots who have the experience.

Haven't posted here for a while, so a quick background; I'm 14, based at Sywell (EGBK, very popular so most of you in England should have heard of it :) ), am ready to solo but cannot due to my age! (although this isn't the issue today ;) )

Anyway, after my lesson yesterday I spent about 40 minutes talking to the instructors about airlines, careers, money and other stuff along those lines... In a nutshell, my CFI told me there are three main airlines which offer sponsorship schemes, two of which I had heard of; easyJet, British Airways and Air A******* (no chances being taken :p ).

What I would like to know is this; laying aside all grades and degrees (I will have all and all before I apply), should I apply for sponsorship to all three airlines and then go by a fact that at least 1:3 should be successful, or try one, then the next and so on, attaining my answers before moving on.

If I type anything else, I will be blabbering on all night I know, so I'll just leave it right here! :)

Any replies will be greatly appreciated,

Thanks,

Jack.

[P T Flea]

Three main airlines which offer sponsorship schemes, two of which I had heard of; easyJet, British Airways and Air A*******

I would not say there are three main airlines that offer sponsorship. If there were then BA might have been one, if they were sponsoring. If your CFI thinks that they have are offering sponsorship then he must have been living in a little cave for the last couple of years.

It is not strictly true to say that easyJet offer sponsorship, it is all conducted through the CTC McAlpine training scheme.
http://www.ctc-mcalpine.com

As far as I understand the 3rd one you mention make you cut grass and clean toilets for a few years to pay for your training.

Britannia and FlyBe ran a sponsorship program last year and may run one again later this year. You can never really tell who will be sponsoring, how many pilots are being taken on, when it will be etc.

If you were lucky enough to be presented with 3 airlines that were sponsoring then YES apply to them all. As quickly in succession as possible or at the same time if you can juggle it without clashing. You could apply for them all indivually one at a time but you never know when they might all suddenly stop.

In a dream world where you were offered 3 sponsorships, take your pick and bin the others.

PT
:ok:

[FlyingForFun]

You are 14 at the moment, and you're talking about getting a degree before you apply to airlines (which is a very sensible thing to do, I should add). Assuming you go straight from A-Levels into a 3-year degree course, without taking a gap year, that means you won't be ready to apply to airlines for another 7 years.

At the moment, no one on this forum knows what state the industry will be in in 7 months time, let alone 7 years!

I would agree with PT, in that you should, when the time comes, apply to everyone who's offering a sponsership. But, unless the market dramatically improves between now and then (and realistically, we're talking about such a dramatic improvement that you're more likely to see Britain win the Eurovision Song Contest, with France and Germany both awarding us maximum points!) the best advice would be to make sure you have a backup plan for the extremely likely event that you're not fortunate enough to get sponsored.

Good luck!

FFF
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[Halfbaked_Boy]

Hey, thanks for the replies; as to the last reply, Iwouldn't say it is unlikely at all; I will be sponsored by someone; I have quite a few very good points that most people of my age couldn't ever have... not to brag or anything, but it is the truth :)

One way or another, I will get what I really want, and I am prepared to make sacrifices, large or small, to get there, no matter what it takes :D

PT, what do you mean exactly by 'scrub the toilets'? My CFI's husband works for them (before you ask, yes, my CFI is female lol), and she says to me it is a great airline which treats its pilots very well... also, are you sure about British Airways not offering a sponsorship any longer? If so, it must have happened quite lately; last time I checked was about four months ago, and they were doing it then...:)

Anyway, thanks for the advice guys! Sorry if I gave you an 'ignorant' impression of myself... wasn't meant! :ok:

Jack!

edit: FFF, no way will I be taking out a gap year; the sooner things get done the better, plus I wouldn't want to forget all the physics I have learnt! :D

[Halfbaked_Boy]

You know, I look at myself a year later and realise what a stuck-up ignorant little bastard I really was!

Briefing; school's going well, flying's going well (five months to solo now as opposed to the disagreeable one year and five months that I was waiting for in the above post), seen quite a few instructors enter the airlines and leave for a various manner of reasons.

Also, brought a few of the ATPL manuals over the past few weeks to read up on... would any of you agree that it is a good idea to do this and keep 'ahead of the game', so to speak, or am I indulging too far too early?

Any and all replies would be much appreciated, but this is really just to say that everything is on track right now; just trying to get the river flowing as fast as possible before hitting the incline is all.

Many thanks,

Jack.

[witchdoctor]

Nothing wrong with reading up on the subjects that you will encounter during the ATPL theory exams. Just be careful that you don't get too carried away with the details. Whichever school you decide to use in the end for your training will most likely produce their own manuals, and these may disagree to some extent with what you are currently reading, or have a different emphasis on the subject, or a different approach to teaching it.

Having too much advance knowledge of the subject can, believe it or not, be a distinct disadvantage for the ATPL exams. The JAA do not require an in-depth understanding of each subject, simply the ability to recognise the correct (or most correct) answer from a choice of 4. Often this only requires the most rudimentary understanding of the basics. A number of my colleagues during groundschool had degrees in physics or aeronautical engineering, and knew that the basic, over-simplified explanations sufficient for the JAA were in fact quite incorrect in a strictly scientific sense. They therefore found it difficult to ignore their own knowledge and accept the 'correct' answers required by the JAA.

Your most valuable asset though, would be to use your time now to try and gain as full an understanding as you can of how the airline business actually operates. You are extremely unlikely to get sponsorship (the odds are quite literally thousands to one), just as you are also extremely unlikely to end up with a major carrier. Research what other options are open to you once you finally get that CPL, as this is where you will probably end up post-training.

Go into this business with your eyes wide open, rather than a head full of dreams. Whilst you will undoubtedly enjoy the experience anyway, it is best to avoid focussing too strongly on a very narrow set of options, as failure to attain these may cause a great deal of disappointment. Speaking as someone who has had a rather large and unexpected spanner thrown into the works of my flying ambitions not once but twice, I hope you will take some well-meant advice to broaden your career horizon.

[EGAC_Ramper]

Sponsorship is a dream come true to the few that get it.I was speaking to the pilot recruitment officer for FlyBe last year when they were running their sponsorship.He stated that on average when they offered it up that around 700 applications would be recieved for only 6 places!!
I myself am on the road to self funding of the FAA CPL/ATPL


Best of Luck (Until we are after same job:) )

[scroggs]

British Airways were not sponsoring when you wrote last year (nor were they four months before that), and they are not now. The last sponsored course was in 2001. There is no word on whether they plan to sponsor again.

Britannia and FlyBe have both operated part-sponsorships this year. EasyJet is sponsoring via the CTC-MacAlpine scheme. Air Atlantique is still running the 'Fugly' setup as far as I am aware. I can't think of any other sponsorships currently available.

It's worth noting that many sponsorships specifically disqualify anyone with a significant number of flying hours. All the information you need to discover whether that may affect you is on this forum.

As you still have 6 years before you can contemplate entering ATPL training, I would spend more time on your schoolwork and less on your flying for the moment, but good luck for the future.

Scroggs

[Lucifer]

Concentrate on school as noted above; get a plan of action and join Air Cadets perhaps? Consider joining the UAS if military interests you prior to airlines. Speak to people at flying clubs and go up with them if they offer, ensuring that logged hours remain minimal if you are aiming for sponsorship. Join the Royal Aeronautical Society at university to get an insight to all areas of the business. Bear in mind that the training materials may change prior to you embarking on the course, so try not to spend cash on what may become obselete in some aspects.

[Halfbaked_Boy]

Thanks to all who have taken the time to reply, and indeed mate schoolwork is all what it comes down to at the end of the track isn't it and lately it's finally hit me to pull my finger out and get down to business.

With regards to joining to military, my eyesight is unfortuantly not up to scratch to meet their 'unnecessarily' high standards (-1 and -2 diopters in the right and left eye respectively). How are the USAF in relation to this particular matter... am I hallucinating seeing fighter pilots wearing glasses on a certain TV programme a few years back?

Just one question; do any of you know or have heard about this supposedly 'life-saving' Multi-Crew License? I read about it in a recent issue of Flight Training but it did not really dig in very deep, except to say it was due to be officially recognised and available for use by the JAA and students from 2006 onwards?

Any insights would be very helpful because if what the issue was saying was indeed true then this license could prove to be most useful to people like myself and those already embarked on such a journey.

Regards,

Jack.

p.s. Lucifer, all I ever do when I have spare time is try to figure out a sensible plan of action! It's the one thing that drives me through school (amongst 'other' things), because I know that if I do not try and don't get straight in there I will spend the rest of my life wondering why... but yeah school is running like a nicely oiled V12 right now. Trust me to pick a career that involves so much stress so long before you embark upon it!

[EGAC_Ramper]

Your eyesight does not trick you,their are military pilots wearing glasses but these pilots have in general passed through the medical initially and eyes deteriorated.Thus no Air Force in their right might constrained by military budgeting is going to give them away after spending £2-3million training each and every student to join their ranks.


Regards

[Lucifer]

Your eyes are not deceiving you - the RAF will only take those with good vision initially, however many will deteriorate later in their careers. Ironically the requirement for WSOs in the back seat is not as stringent, despite them being responsible for much 'looking out' from fast jet backseats.

I too have heard about the multi-crew licence, however I believe that it is still in its initial phases of formulation and discussion at the moment - it was mentioned in the RAeS' Aerospace Journal a month or two back. It does sound like a step in the right direction, which could be useful especially if it place the onus on the employers to pay for licences in the first place. Which is of course going to be unlikely.

Good luck in the future.

[witchdoctor]

There is a thread running eslewhere on pprune (and I'm too lazy to find a link for you) with regard to the new licence proposal. From a student point of view it seems to be a useful way around low hours and little or no multi crew time and more helpful with a career in multi crew flying, but many chief pilots have concerns about the lack of time in the air building up even the most basic of flying skills.

It should be interesting seeing how things progress. I suspect initially that airlines will bias their entry requirements in favour of those with high flying hours rather than the new licence.