Professional Pilot Training (includes ground studies)A forum for those on the steep path to that coveted professional licence. Whether studying for the written exams, training for the flight tests or building experience here's where you can hang out.
I am indeed, but essentially for two main reasons;
1) I am 26 and have a decent, reasonably well paid job outside of aviation so it makes sense for me to learn modular over 3-4 years fitting around my current work, enabling me to keep any loan I eventually need to an absolute minimum.
It also means that, once I have all my licences, I am not stressing if it takes a year or two to find an airline placement.
2) Even if I wanted to, I don't have access to a £90k+ loan anyway, so integrated is not an option!
I think it depends entirely on your personal situation, and one man's horse is not necessarily another man's.
If you have access to the kind of funding required for an integrated course then I would certainly consider it, but do so very carefully and consider all avenues.
If it were me, I would say the best way is to try and get on the BA FPP, easyJet, FlyBe, Monarch or Qatar schemes that are run through CTC, Oxford and FTE seeing as they give the closest thing to a guaranteed job post-qualification without actually offering any guarantees. If I couldn't get on to one of those I would be quite nervous about having a £90k debt, no guaranteed job and the possibility of £30k more for a type rating.
Im looking into taking the modular with Oxford and worked it out to be around £40k excluding my PPL and hour building which is estimated to be around another £14 - £15k, this course with oxford includes; ATPL (A) theory, MEP, IR , CPL, and JOC if needed. do you guys think this is a good choice or not? i get confused by it all and could need some help and any suggestions with any other providers etc? thanks guys
As a long-term prune reader I've noticed that these discussions can be very one-sided. It's time to post and show a different perspective. Leenffc, don't get duped into going modular. Lots of people on here will try and brainwash you into making the wrong decision because they decided to try and do things on the cheap. Most of them are regretting their decision and simply want to bring you down with them.
I remember being in your situation, people tried to put me off the integrated route but I did my research and realised that you get what you pay for. At the end of the day you're investing in your future so why not give yourself the best chance? If you (or your parents) can afford it then you should stump up the funds, pay for the best training, buy a decent jet rating and get ahead of the game. You can get all concerned about morality but if you don't do it someone else will, that's how things work in the modern world.
I went to Oxford, brought a 738 rating and two years down the line I'm ready for Emirates. If you want to succeed don't cut corners, good luck.
I find the tone of that post a bit offensive if Im honest. Not sure you can be judging everyone by the same yardstick?!
Of all that you said, they key sentence was "If you (or your parents) can afford it then you should stump up the funds, pay for the best training"
Which essentially sums up your own privileged position. Unfortunately, not all of us have access to £90k and so the modular route is the only option. It is not that we regret not going integrated, as most of us on this post (myself included) are only just starting out on our journey, we are simply trying to help out others at a similar stage.
Your opinion is as valid as anyone elses of course, but try not to come across as quite such an arrogant arse next time you give it!
in all fairness, Jetlad does raise a point, if that money is at ones disposal then why not use it? No use flaming someone for having money. Though, that dosent mean integrated is the only route!
You might be ready for EK but thats no garrantee that you will get it.
Also thats cost 150k at least including living expenses proberly more likely 175k. Call it over 200k
You will be a Captain before that gets payed off. And lord only knows what your going to do if you loose your medical or get payed off when the deliverys stop to make room for the new cheap cadets.
Where as you can be modular and do exactly the same route for 60k. Including selling your soul to the devil.
I can only base my views on personal experience and the experiences of those around me. Obviously people come through the modular route and end up where they want to be and I sincerely hope that those of you who've started training this way are successful.
Unfortunately I know too many people who have started their training under the illusion that they can get into the right hand seat of a shiny jet by taking the cheapest route. I don't care what you say, airlines do look for quality and continuity in training and unfortunately that rarely comes cheap. I'm not in a privileged position by any means, I mentioned the point about parents money because a lot of people do have the backing of their family and if you have this option then I think you should use it.
Obviously you may be happy to get any job flying, I wanted to get a return on my investment and I felt that the route I took provided me with the best chance in this highly competitive industry. I didn't want to fly some gaffer taped Jetstream around Eastern Europe because I knew it wouldn't provide me with the lifestyle I wanted. At the end of the day whether it be 60k or 100k we are still talking about a serious amount of cash and I still maintain that if you have it and are prepared to work hard then don't be afraid to use it.
I can only base my views on personal experience and the experiences of those around me. Obviously people come through the modular route and end up where they want to be and I sincerely hope that those of you who've started training this way are successful.
Unfortunately I know too many people who have started their training under the illusion that they can get into the right hand seat of a shiny jet by taking the cheapest route. I don't care what you say, airlines do look for quality and continuity in training and unfortunately that rarely comes cheap. I'm not in a privileged position by any means, I mentioned the point about parents money because a lot of people do have the backing of their family and if you have this option then I think you should use it.
Obviously you may be happy to get any job flying, I wanted to get a return on my investment and I felt that the route I took provided me with the best chance in this highly competitive industry. I didn't want to fly some gaffer taped Jetstream around Eastern Europe because I knew it wouldn't provide me with the lifestyle I wanted. At the end of the day whether it be 60k or 100k we are still talking about a serious amount of cash and I still maintain that if you have it and are prepared to work hard then don't be afraid to use it.
It doesn't matter if it worked for Jetlad or not, this is a general discussion.
I believe that quality in training is very important not only for the obvious safety reasons but for your career, especially during your first steps. When I was looking at different schools (in Greece, where I live) to do my training most schools pushed for the modular route and I was convinced that this was the right move. However, when I started talking with graduates and current students 8 out 10 told me that integrated was the right choice, provided you have the money to complete the training. When I started my ATPL Integrated course with a school in Greece (the only one which advised me to do the integrated btw) I understood why most graduates advised me to do that. The integrated is a complete course and the school has much more responsibility towards the student. The quality of graduates from integrated courses (at least in Greece) is much better than that of graduates of modular courses and that is reflected in airline hiring. Integrated graduates accounted for around 75% of newly hired first officers (fresh out of the school) of Olympic Air in Greece, during 2011 and 2012.
I believe it is not just the flight skills that matter. Determination, standardisation, discipline are just as important and you definitely have a better chance in improving in those areas if you follow a well-structured programme. I am not suggesting that all integrated graduates are perfect and all modular ones are crap, I am just saying that the programme you choose is just another tool (like the choice of a particular school, training material, instructors etc) that can help you become a better pilot and professional or not. At the end of the day it is up to you.
The fact that 75% of new FO's are from integrated schools is nothing to do with the quality of the pilot, and everything to do with the fact that the schools have contracts with all the major airlines to provide a proportion of their new pilots, and the airlines can offset huge amounts of money against tax for training purposes when you come through an integrated school which is registered as a learning establishment.
The cold hard facts are that it is in the interest of both the integrated schools and the airlines to take on integrated pilots for these reasons, it has absolutely nothing to do with quality of pilot. Why else would the integrated schools be able to charge £70k+ for a set of licences which will cost you almost half that if you did a modular course?!
At the end of the day you pay for two things when going integrated; speed, and contacts. If you have the money to pay the premium then go for it, but dont kid yourself that it has anything to do with becoming a better pilot
I have line trained 12 FO's in the last year all of which are modular and all get payed more than flexi contract and ryanair and fly a crappy manual TP. And morethan likely will be LHS in under 3 years. earning I might add more than a Norweign 787 Captain
The question I want to ask is, who ever went down the modular route, where are the majority of ye working now? Did the majority of ye manage to get into the right seat for an airline compared to the people that took on the intergrated??
Thinking about giving it a go over in Florida as I usually spent a few months of the winter each year galloping horses. I can expectect to make around $1k a week so that will certainly help me out.
Go on then cost it out including living expenses and then add the compound interest you will have payed over 10 years.
I fly with these poor sods that have that much debt.
Just to help out with no capital pay back just compound.
80k at 5% interest and 10 years is 130k
110k is 180k
And 130k is 210k.
Now 5% is a bloody cheap interest rate.
Whats the current rate for an intergrated course? Shall we be nice and say 70k?
Living for 18 months at 1k a month which is pretty low including accom.
So thats 88k so far.
Now add in a type rating say 30k for that and a couple of months accom so another 2k
So we are up at 120k is that unreasonable?
120k at 5% and 10 years is 1300 a month and 150k payed back
the same with 6% is 1332 a month and 160k payed back.
7% is 1380 a month and 166k payed back.
Now before tax thats going to translate into I will just times it by 1.3 to give a rought estimate.
5% 195k 6% 208k 7% 215k
So I ain't to far off am I?
Now modular shall we call it 80k including type rating? which i might add is high but trying to play fair here by putting Intergrated costs low and modular as high.
That at 7% over 10 years would be 920 a month and 110k repayed and 143k before tax and 143 after so 72k saving but in reall life I would expect it to be over 85k if not 100k.
On the other hand, it is extremely hard to discern the quality of training received from many smaller, modular training providers with a large number of flying instructors passing through, resulting in potential for non-standardised and erratic training - not to mention thinking carefully about how to structure hour building to gain and build on the experience.
In my experence its actually the opersite, the smaller mod schools actually proved the better quality pilots. Exeter for example produce extremely good capable pilots and would be on the top of any CV pile that I looked at. Mind you if you look at the list of instructors that work there its not suprising.
But being a good pilot is not what some companys are looking for. They want a known quanity which fits thier training programs. Handling and PIC skills arn't required because they will be sitting next to someone for years who has the PIC skills. And they are trained to work in an automated managed cockpit. They are the ones that like the mentored schemes through the schools.
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Do a simple spreadsheet and accumulate the cost of that debt - many would be shocked at what they are getting themselves into. On the basis of that, it might be argued that someone who has cleverly structured their own modular course and carefully built themselves up to the requisite hours to be hired, alongside another career, over the course of a few years, would be the personality who is not only a better judge of risk but more sensible and a better employee.
I payed 35k for my training and had a year as an instructor. This isn't uncommon in the other Captains I work with we all got LHS in 2-3 years and have been working on a Captains wage for the last 7 without paying off any loans in fact most of us have cleared our morgages as well.
A couple of mates in flybe are in a regional base that they want with 4.5k disposable a month. It might not be a fancy jet, it might go tech alot, they might have to put up with flying with MPL's. But they are home most nights and don't have to commute.
Mad_jock, Which Exeter school are you talking about? I'm asking because I live close by and I've heard some fantastic reviews of the training providers there.
Aviation is really screwing with my head. Don't know where to go. I've also looked at the PATH program up north which looks promising too.
!
modular route?
about 75%?
