Hope I'm allowed to answer. I don't have an fATPL yet, but I'm getting there slowly, and I've got most of it planned out.
PPL: Started flying for fun at West London Aero Club at White Waltham airfield. Took about a year to get PPL, flying once a week.
Post-PPL: Got a tail-dragger check-out, because most of the interesting aeroplane I saw were tail-draggers. Friends told me I should become a commercial pilot, I told them I couldn't afford the time or the money to train. Flew most weekends, just for fun.
Redundancy: After becoming more and more resentful of my current job, I was offered voluntary redundancy. This was the chance I'd been waiting for! I took it, and used my redundancy money and new-found freedom to go to America and do some hour-building.
Hour-building: Based at Chandler Air Service, Chandler Airport, Phoenix AZ. Main aim was to have fun. Secondary aim was to meet all the requirements for the start of the CPL. Managed to log 100 hours in 2 months, including about 70 hours of tail-dragger time, a complex check-out, night qualification, 11 hours of aerobatics and 5 hours of twin time. Flew to Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Tucson, Sedona and Los Angeles amongst other places. Had the time of my life!
Back to work: Unfortunately, I have had to find another IT job to pay the bills while training. Oh yes, and to pay for the training, too. And to buy myself a share in a Europa so I can carry on flying while I'm doing the groundschool. Big disadvantage of this (apart from being in a job I don't enjoy, and not being able to fly as much as I want) is only being able to take a limited amount of time off work for flying training. This will dictate the timescale of most of the remainder of my training.
Ground school: Distance learning with Bristol. Passed Mod 1 first time in August. Mod 2 exams booked for February.
IMC rating: Will do this next year. It's not required, but I won't be able to get time off work to do the IR until the year after next, so I figured I may as well do the IMC first. This will mean I can fly more weekends, since I'll be less restricted by the weather, and should hopefully make the CPL and IR training easier.
CPL: Plan on doing this late next year. Will probably go to Florida or Spain - I can only take 3 weeks off work, and I really need to be reasonably sure that the weather will co-operate, which means that training in the UK probably isn't an option.
IR: Planned for early 2004. Not sure if I'll be able to take enough time off work to do the IR in one go. If not, I'll probably do an FAA IR (much-reduced training requirements if I've already got an IMC) then conver that to a JAA IR (15 hours), which might result in more total time (or might not!), but will require less time off work in one go.
Multi-engine: Late 2004
Multi-crew: Either late 2004 or early 2005, depending whether I've got enough holiday time left in 2004. Or I might do a flight instructors course instead, and leave the multi-crew for a while, depending how the market looks in a couple of years time.
Very interesting to see how this compares to other people!
FFF
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