Originally Posted by
jaydotbe
I think that the university program is worth it in my opinion, although there is a mixed opinion with the students. You can tell which students have been forced by their parents for the sake of having a degree but I think the airline management modules etc do truly make you an avaitor. Obviously not everyone's cup of tea though. Bucks newuni is the second worst uni in the UK by uni rankings but that's not because of the air transport degree, rather nursing, social sciences etc etc. Kingston uni do a similar degree but it's engineering / maths focused where I'm doing an economical/management focused degree.
As for hour building in USA, I'm not so sure, it's just a preference of mine to stay in the UK - booker is close to me so I can commute and the competency based IR depends on doing your hour building with them so they can assess you through it if I recall correctly.
I did my PPL at Booker in the 1970s at the British Airways Flying Club.
It took me 18 months to get a PPL and 115 flying hours.
I would listen to the assistant flight instructors talking as they looked up at 300 feet overcast.
Comparing notes on last week’s tally.
Three point two hours, to the next ones five point one.
It looked to me that they were wasting the best years of there lives.
I knew I had to break away.
A fellow British Airways engineer had a Cessna 150 that he kept in Miami.
He’d rent it out to other engineers to hour build.
I found it far more fun, productive and cheaper to fly to America than stay in the U.K.
Personally I loved it.
Something about landing at as many airports in a day as you can for free.
But hey, if freedom isn’t your thing.
The written exams were a huge struggle for me.
I barely scraped by.
But Thurston Aviation at Stansted saw me straight.
Eric still hangs out at Stapleford I understand.
Real down home honest good people in my opinion.
Back then places like Poland wern’t an option, unless you defected.
So I had to go the cheapest UK route.
I did it by working as an aircraft engineer, and as a motorcycle dispatch rider.
Nobody would have loaned me anything anyway.
As my prospects and credit wern't good.
And you know what?
It didn’t make a hill of beans difference where I went.