Originally Posted by
Uplinker
Of course it will help !!! It's what you will do every day on duty at an airline - and you won't necessarily fly; you might be on airport standby. (Granted, airliners can fly in IMC, which training aircraft cannot).
Getting up early and going in fully prepared to fly is exactly what you will do when you get an airline job, so better get used to it now.
She will be seen and noticed by others - students, instructors, admin etc, who will start to remember her.
Smartly dressed and turned out, pleasant, engaged and smiley, checking NOTAMs on a clipboard and maybe discussing the MET with whoever is around - "looks like that front will be coming through here at around 1300, should be OK after that.....", "and there is a Royal flight at xx:xx in xxx and parachuting at xxx "etc,
Chatting with the other students: "Hi, how's it going? which exercise are you doing today ?......Oh cool, I haven't done that one yet, any chance of me riding in the back, just to get my head around it ?".
And ask an instructor or a student about a theory or flying question that you are "trying to work out".
Etc.
The fATPL won't be handed to you on a plate. Yes the school should be helping, but you have to work bloody hard for it and put in lots and lots of hours yourself, (see next post).
.
I'd just like to endorse this.
Experienced pilots have planned hundreds upon hundreds of flights that didn't happen. Due weather, due scheduling, due tech problems, you name it. We generally don't have a record of them, but we learned from every occasion we checked the met, NOTAMs, tech records, weight and balance - and a dozen other things. Take every planning exercise seriously, and you'll learn from every planning exercise. Then when the aviation gods smile on you and you end up starting the engine(s), you've rehearsed all this so many times in your mind it all goes very smoothly.
I recall as a young professional being there in ops at before first take-off every morning I was able, routinely when I didn't have a flight booked but often did manage to grab a back seat, and learned from every such opportunity. Throughout my life there are trips, from cross countries to test flights that I planned, sometimes actively trained for, that didn't happen - and I learned from every occasion. When you're there in uniform in ops first thing every morning, it becomes normal and expected, as does the regularity of your flying because "oh yes, she's here, instructor X has a spare slot as does aircraft Y this afternoon, put them all together". Won't happen every day, but she still needs to be there so it happens at-all. And it will steadily get easier.
It won't all turn around in a week, but if she shows the determination and professionalism to make her own luck, it'll all come together. If she gives up because it's not solving itself in the first week then, bluntly, she's not Captain material. And nobody's going to recruit a co-pilot, or an instructor, who isn't Captain material.
G