Hi all,
it's been a while since i looked a pprune with any frequency, about two years infact. back then i was in the position that the majority of the readers of these forums seem to be in - i.e. looking into commercial pilot training and not knowing which of the many routes to follow. I was in the position of knowing very few pilots, and the few i did have contact with had trained many years before, so their advice on current self-sponsored training schemes was limited. After trawling around the internet (and clicking on a link on 'airliners.net' as it happened) i ended up on pprune.
It is amazing how similar the theads are today to those of 2-3 years ago. All the same debates rage; integrated vs modular, fte vs ctc vs oat, dergee or not, how old is too old etc.
As helpful as everyone's responces to these threads were/are, the result to any particular question posed was a long list of conflicting opinions. Some of these opinions were quite measured, some more extreme, some from veterans of the airline industry, some from people who'd never sat at the controls of an aircraft.
With such a variety of views of a given subject, i was invariably more confused after reading a thread than before. The conclusion i came to was that the only opinion that really counted was the one of the person interviewing for your first job. Unfortunately, in my experience, this group of people (airline interviewers/recruiters) are very guarded when it comes to divulging their personal opinion and are usually very vague when commenting on their airlines official policy on age, int v mod etc.
Getting to the point (finally), what i suggest is a factual poll of people who have completed training and have either landed a job flying aircraft or are in the process of looking. I believe that if enough people complete the poll honestly the results could be an invaluable source of information to those considering embarking on a career in aviation.
I appreciate that people may wish to maintain a degree of anonimity (myself included) so answers may be a little vague, dates and figures approximate etc.
As a final note to the many people who may take an occasional look at pprune but do not actually post (like myself), please take 10 mins of your time, set up a yahoo mail account, register with pprune and fill out the following questionaire. Also, please ask your pilot friends to do the same.
People can copy/paste this blank questionaire when replying:
Training route (integrated/modular):
Were you self sponsored/preselected by airline & self sponsored/fully airline sponsored:
Training School(s):
Date you commenced training:
Approx Age when you commenced training:
Did you have a degree when you commenced training? (type):
Date you fininshed training (MCC completed):
Approx cost of training (to MCC) only:
Did you have any exam resits (if yes please include costs) :
Did you resit the IRT(if yes please include costs) :
Approx cost of accomodation:
Did you have a job during training:
Have you obtained a flying job?:
Airline/Company/Training School (if instructing):
Date of first successful interview:
Date of joining payroll:
Date of first line flight:
Aircraft Type:
Did you pay for the type rating (yes/bonded/no):
If bonded, did you have to take a loan from your bank?:
What was the cost of the type rating?:
That is about all I can think of in terms of usefull questions/information. I appreciate that people may not be able to remember the answers to some questions or may not wish to answer some questions. If this is the case please still complete the rest of the questionaire as the info will still be useful.
Hopefully if enough people reply we will see whether trends exist or not in whether certain criteria really effect your chances in the job market. Also, if we could keep the info as factual as possible and keep personal opinion and comments out until we get a decent number of replies that would be nice.
I appreciate that the people who take the time to fill this out will not be the people who benefit from it, but i think (if enough people answer, and answer honestly) it could be of much use to any current/future wannabes.
Many Thanks
