Hi TF, I've been around this community for some decades, although never personally worked as an airline pilot, but hopefully my views can be useful.
Originally Posted by
T Father
Firstly I would like to start off by thanking anybody who replies to this thread as in this day and age forums are one of the last few places where you can find valuable information from industry experts and people with real-world knowledge rather than YouTube, Twitter and Facebook where adults and children seem to blurt out any old rubbish about any subject and everybody is an expert.....
I'm starting this thread as I have an enthusiastic son of 16 years old who has a dream to be a commercial pilot and fly around the world. We are very supportive of this and what an achievement it will be when he becomes a pilot, but the road is long and lots of effort will be required I know that bit for sure.
So to give you an overview you....we are a British family living in France where our son will undertake his GCSE equivalent in France, he is also currently taking lessons in flying light aircraft and within the next few months will undertake his first solo flight. He also takes additional lessons at college in physics and aviation so he can fast track his career as a commercial pilot.
I assume that's the Bac, which is a good qualification, accepted in the UK as well as France. Maths and physics are the two things he wants to put emphasis on - "aviation" as a school subject, where it exists can be a good motivator but unlikely to actually make a difference to his genuine prospects.
The questions I have asked him he hasn't been able to answer yet and of course he's only 16 so he probably doesn't know. My advice to him was to sign up to a forum full of experienced pilots that can give you some real world feedback about how the industry works.
He is toying with the idea of moving back to the UK at 18 years old as he is under the assumption that he will be given free training by a company and after 2-years will be given a pilot's licence and will start flying planes. I have my concerns around this as there must be a catch somewhere for example if you have to be 25 years old with 2 years driving experience to hire a van surely there aren't 20 year old flying 300 million planes around, but I am not a pilot and this is why I started this thread to ask these questions. Both his mother and I fully support what he is doing and we are currently paying for him to have private flying lessons so we also take it very seriously but if it sounds too good to be true it normally is and we are being told by him that after 2-years he will earn 60 to £70,000 and that's it- it's all done nothing more?!
Those schemes exist, but places are incredibly competitive. I don't need to know anything about your son to state authoritatively that his chances are tiny.
Those 20 year olds exist, both in civil and military aviation - it's all down to the training and examination, not the age, by and large.
Equivalent paid-for programmes are called "Integrated courses", and the current going rate is around £90k, 18 months, plus living costs. Are the chances of being employed after that good?, reasonable, but far from certain. If he does get a job from one, he may still need to pay several tens of thousands after that for a type rating course, and it's doubtfull he'll start on much above £30k, so the pay-back time is substantial. £60k after 2 years?, not a hope.
It is possible to get exactly the same qualifications through self management, this is known as the "Modular route", may take a little longer, may be slightly less good for employability, the costs are nearer £45k, done well.
Another option is to stay in France and complete his training here. I don't know if there is a school here that offers the same package as the UK but I would be interested to know from people's experience on here, is there a difference in the UK and France and would and in your experience what would be more beneficial to be based in France or the UK as a pilot? Do they pay higher wages in France or the UK?
The EU job market is bigger than the UK job market. The licence courses and syllabi are basically identical but for daft reasons related to the way Brexit was handled, a UK issued licence isn't valid in the EU, and vice-versa. The sensible workaround to this, if your son has the right to live and work both sides of the Channel is to find (a) school(s) that teach and examine for both in parallel. The actual teaching and training only needs doing once, the flight tests once, but he would need to take the 14 ground examinations twice.
He has also mentioned that you can pay around £70,000 for a 3 year course and at the end of that course again you'll be a fully fledged commercial airline pilot where you'll be able to walk into a job of around 60 to £70,000. This sounds amazing but one we definitely do not have £70,000 and our advice would be to not borrow the money at such a young age but of course at 18 onwards in the eyes of the law he is an adult and like us all he will learn by his mistakes.
As above, probably nearer 18 months than 3 years, probably nearer £90k than £70k, and probably nearer £30k than £60k. He's basically been listening to the sales spiel from certain organisations who may well provide high quality training, but are often more than a little bullish about the likely outcomes.
Of course I would love our son to stay with as and the rest of his family here in France but this is not about me this is about him and I'm not a pilot as I'm certainly not clever enough to pass any of the exams let alone fly a plane! I'm just a dad with a passionate about flying son and within the next 2 years he will make some decisions which will change the rest of his life and with all of our children I want to give him the best advice possible.
My advice would be to start more basic. Consider helping him to do the PPL, that is the baseline private pilot's licence. He can do it in the UK or France at this stage, it'll take 9 written exams, 45+hours of flying training, and around £12k. It will answer a LOT of questions about his motivation and aptitude, in ways that 2 days at an Integrated Course assessment centre won't. It will all count towards his professional licences if he carries on that way, it may show it wasn't a good idea, it may give him a lifelong hobby but he actually decides that other career routes are for him.
I won't be able to receive personal messages as I'm a new member here but any advice or feedback would be greatly appreciated. As a side note I have the upmost respect for airline pilots, our son has shown us some of the training he will have to go through and some of the things he will have to learn and it seems unfathomable !! I wouldn't even get close ! Our son is learning this in a foreign language as well which blows my mind even more !
By all means email me - boffin at engineer dot com will reach me if you want a more detailed private chat.
A further thought, military flying service is incredibly competitive to get into, but would give all the training, the satisfaction, the sense of service that any self respecting youngster could ever ask for. One day he can always go civil after that (but NEVER even in passing suggest that it's the route into civil flying, not nowadays, he'll be out the door before he's finished the sentence).
G
Once again thank you for your time and I apologise for any spelling mistakes or inaccuracies above.
Tim