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Old 12th March 2006 | 05:53
  #4 (permalink)  
Scudsy
 
Joined: Jul 1998
Posts: 59
Likes: 0
From: M.E.
Humble Opinion

You've got youth on your side so there is no huge rush. Don't go to a flying school on the other side of the world and hand over a pile of cash for some instant commercial licence which is really no use to you. 10 lessons later and they will go bust and run off with your cash and you'll have no recourse. This used to happen alot when I was training but luckily I took the advice of someone who had been through all the mistakes and I just took my time. Paid for it one lesson at a time and worked a "normal job" in the mean time.

You've got a European passport. Go to Ireland or the Uk or Spain and get a JAA licence, easily the most transferable licence to hold. If you get an FAA (USA) licence first as I did then there is only so much of it that transfers to the JAA. More cost and duplication involved. Ryanair may be considered 0 by you but is without question one of the best places to learn to truely fly a jet. It has difficult working conditions and very long working days but the pay is good. Few airlines ask you to fly 2 cat 2/3 approaches and 2 circle to land approaches at airports right next to mountains and procedural ATC, short wet sometimes contaminated runways IN ONE DAY. Thats right, huge exposure to true experience. Often flying to minima in crap weather large crosswinds and so on. Non precision approaches, lots of go arounds and diversions. Since I've moved on to the big flashy world of long haul where you hardly ever see those conditions once in a year let alone all in one week people often say to me "well at least you Irish boys known how to fly". So it's not really a zero, it's actually very difficult to make the grade there.

Don't try to rush it. Remember every thing will cost double the advertised price in reality and take 50 % longer

Good luck

It's a tough road and it's not the career it used to be

Scudsy
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