@sonic69,
My apologies if I sounded harsh but the fact of that matter is advertisements are NO basis for indicating that you will get there. You're talking about tens of thousands of dollars to get the license and if you do a search on DCA, there are some people who felt fleeced. Is it good? I can't tell you but there's NO such thing as a guaranteed job. I'm only trying to advise the people who's going for it to think twice, or even three times before committing such a huge sum of money into it and not getting a job in the end. If you can get a J1 Visa program, great, but if not? Having a very glossy brochure or website can substantiate your claims? Great! Good on ya, matey!
A piece of advice, if you will. Always take things with a pinch of salt until you've signed on the dotted line that you're employed as a professional pilot. Of course, you are correct in wanting your money to work for you (ie. getting employed) but since your friend is a CFI in Calgary, you can probably get a job at his outfit but not everyone is as lucky as you are. And it's also good to hear that a FIR can be obtained as quickly as 7 months from scratch. Kudos to that.
@Yantz,
No worries, mate. I'm cool. I got my CPL 3 years ago in Sydney. I was impressed by the brochures I see online too. It looks great! In reality? Reality is always a lot harsher. If I didn't get my current job, I would probably be an unemployed pilot because I was hunting for a job even before I got my CPL and times were bad. Am I a picky about jobs? No, but my main concern as I got my CPL is really unemployment and which part of the world I should be looking at. I have been down that path so I know how miserable it feels like to have a CPL and not being able to land a job.
In a previous post, I've already mentioned that most Singaporeans have a hard time getting to work in the 5 major cities cause of immigration and
PR issues. No
PR? No work. Plain and simple. You can work in the smaller towns/cities but it won't be easy building your hours.
Generally, I'm skeptical about getting jobs THAT easily, and I don't mean an airline job. I mean ANY job because some of my classmates who have their CPL are still jobless and they're still roaming the world in search of a job. I kid you not.
Oh... All these posts and I didn't get to the point. The main point of all my posts is that, there's NO such thing as a guaranteed job! Anyway, my posts are all linked in that it's always cautioning against having hopes too high cause it makes your gamble all the more riskier.
Firstly, there are a LOT of pilots out there who have a whole lot more hours compared to a fresh CPL holder. Secondly, if you're keeping abreast of current events, some airlines are facing financial difficulties and might lay off their pilots. You're competing against such people. Think about it.
I'm not cautioning NOT to self sponsor, cause I've been there and done that, but I'm cautioning against wearing rose-tinted glasses to view things. I do not want people to embark on that path and to regret it later.