Hi there,
You need a Commercial Pilot Licence (Aeroplanes) with a Multi-Engine Single Pilot Instrument Rating, usually called a CPL/IR
Your also have to have passes in all of the Air Transport Pilot Licence (ATPL) theory exams - having CPL/IR with the ATPL theory exams is often referred to as a Frozen ATPL.
This is the minimum qualification that airlines require for you to fly for them. Most people add on an extra MCC course (Multi Crew Co-operation) as an extra foot-in-the-door.
Assuming you do the majority of your training in the Europe, there are two ways to this licence:
Integrated
Do 15 months study and flying full time
End product: Frozen ATPL + MCC and 200 hours
Cost: £45-60,000 assuming no overruns, depending on choice of school and location.
Modular
Do a Private Pilot Licence
Build your experience to 100 hours Pilot In Command
Do the ATPL Theory course and exams by distance learning or full time
Do the CPL
Get the Multi Engine Piston rating
Do the Instrument Rating
Do the MCC
You can mix and match schools and even do some of the modules concurrently or in a slightly different order
End product: Frozen ATPL + MCC and 220ish hours
Cost: absolute minimum £30,000, usually more.
Once you have the licence, then the fun really starts when you discover that getting the first job is almost as hard as getting your licence. Having more hours sometimes helps: >1,000 seems to open more doors. There are many ways to getting those, the most popular in the UK being instructing for a (paltry) living (but then there's the additional £5,500 cost for the Flight Instructor Rating)
You don't normally need to build hours on a multi-pilot turbine aircraft - however there are schemes in the US where you pay to fly as a First Officer for a small airline. That gives you some nice multi-pilot turbine time in your logbook, however the schemes are of varying repute. There are a few pilots around in the UK who used these to give them a leg up, but for the most part pilots build hours in piston aircraft, usually single engine as an instructor.
Salary-wise, a brand new First Officer is paid £18,000- £34,000 per year, depending on the airline and aircraft size that they are hired to fly.
Hope this helps for a starter.
cheers!
foggy.
Last edited by foghorn; 12th Jun 2002 at 20:50.