mike9586

I was wanting to hear from anyone who has, or is currently doing their CPL on a part time basis? Is this not the right way to go about getting the licence? I ask this as I am currently considering changing to full time if work and other commitments will permit.

Genghis the Engineer

I did mine part time, on the grounds that I was working on the same airfield as a good school, and thus could save myself a lot of time and money - just take afternoons off for lessons, and so-on.

I passed, first time. That's the good bit.

I also suffered enormous numbers of delays, cancellations, and was regularly turning up still worrying about whatever had been that morning's problem at work. The erratic continuity meant that my rate of learning was much shallower than would have been ideal. My guess is that I ended up flying about 15 hours more than I would have done had I done it intensively - that's a lot of money at CPL training rates.

I learned a lot, and enjoyed it; the school were excellent and I'd be happy to recommend them to anybody. But I really wouldn't do it that way if I was starting again - I'd take four weeks off work, and spend it thinking about nothing else at a flying school somewhere the weather's halfway decent which, where I work, it isn't for a lot of the year.

Had I gone to Florida to do it, in retrospect, the extra cost of travel and accomodation would probably have been about a third of the extra cost here due to my too-shallow learning curve.

Bite the bullet and do it intensively, it will make the most sense.

G

UAV689

I am planning 4 days a week flying, 3 days a week working paying the bills. The schools I have spoke to have said this is doo-able, it is unlikely a school will schedule you in for flying 5 days a week anyway...

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olicana

Hi Mike,

I did my CPL multi part-time during 2010 (in the uk) and passed first time. It took me just under six months, and I was doing it while holding down a full time job.

Doing it part time probably meant I needed a few extra lessons compared to the full time people.

I would have had it done sooner but we had some terrible VFR weather and I only flew once in August!

AIMINGHIGH123

I started my CPL course at the beginning of March and have so far completed 7hrs in the aircraft and 2hrs in the sim. Doing it part time, weekends at the airfield, usually have a lesson in the morning and a lesson in the afternoon. I have managed to get a day or two during the week if I can start work later. I prefer to go flying before work, don`t want to have any distractions especially when you are paying £200 an hr. I thought about full time a lot but so far it has worked well. I find having the days away from flying during the week are good to sit at home and practise running through the procedures.

Poose

Can anyone recommend any schools in the North who train part-time?

BoeingDreamer

It is definitely doable, however the CPL itself if done full time will not last more then 4 -5 weeks, and in that sense you will probably be able to do it a good deal cheaper.
I found that the CPL was not to heard, but you need continuity and currency to deal with unusual attitudes, timed turns. If you choose wrong time of the year you will be cursing for half the period.

Now is the best time to do it, come autumn, and UK weather is hell.

I would rather take holidays and do it intensively then spread it out to long. End of the day it is a little more advanced then PPL, so you will be surprised how fast it goes.