Pilot career options

[scroggs]

A look in the Military Aircrew forum will show you that the RAF is not too fussed about recruiting new guys just now - some of those currently in training may lose their aircrew status (and possibly their RAF commissions) because of the forthcoming defence cuts. Whether this will have an impact on the UAS system is a not yet clear, but don't imagine that the RAF or a UAS would take you on just because you fancy trying it out!

There is a great deal of information about the CTC McAlpine training scheme in this forum, you only need to search for it. Essentially, the training is funded by a loan (about 63,000 pounds) which is planned to be repaid once you are in employment. There is no guarantee of employment for those who enter the scheme, so you could find yourself bearing that debt with no job at the other end of it, just like any other self-funded wannabe. Study the info here, and think about it carefully before you leap off thinking that this is the answer to all your prayers.

There are a few partial sponsorships around which leave you with a smaller (though still substantial) bill to pay, but they absorb maybe 12-20 people a year. You have to be incredibly fortunate to land one of these deals. There are no fully funded, debt-free civilian sponsorships. At all. None. So forget them.

So, you have to face the fact that you are almost certainly going to have to fund this training yourself if you want to be a commercial pilot and that means you've got to earn a decent living right from leaving school, college or university to pay for modular training (maybe 45k). So think carefully about WWW's advice.

Scroggs

Edit: the latest on the RAF's student pilots facing the axe is that about 30% of the holding pool of pilots will be restreamed to rotary or multi-engine. It's not known how long it will take the system to absorb all those awaiting training, but it's likely to be years rather than months. At least no-one (at this stage) is going to lose their jobs. This will seriously affect recruiting for some time to come, I would suggest.