PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Modular V Integrated (Merged) - Look here before starting a new thread!
Old 28th Jul 2013, 15:37
  #479 (permalink)  
OhNoCB
 
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Obviously you have made you're mind up about what you want to do and that is absolutely fine... but don't go into it blindly. Take as much information as you can, even if you don't agree with it, keep it in your mind before you make any final choice.

The Integrated schools spend a fortune in terms of time and money marketing their courses to make you believe that they are the ultimate in pilot training. People on here such as myself are giving our opinions based on personal experiences and we certainly won't be getting a 6 figure sum from you if you decide to go modular - unlike the integrated schools.

Just for some more information. I did a PPL, IMC rating and Night qualification. I then did ATPL theory, then went to continental Europe to do my hour building, my CPL and my ME-IR followed by a MCC and JOC. In total for this I paid around £43,000 this is including accomodation, test fees, living, travel, EVERYTHING. Post PPL (I did this partly while still in full time education and hadn't decided on whether to go to uni or not) it took me 7 months to do my ATPL thoery followed by another 7 months to do my hour building and the rest of my training. I was unlucky with weather even while abroad and I reckon I could have done the post theory bit in 5 months had it been a different year. Regardless this might give you some idea of time frame and costs.

There is not point in arguing about that, the instructors at the likes of ctc or oaa have many years experience flying as captains for major airlines however, instructors at modular school will be teenagers with less than 500 hours (they are instructing because they went modular and now can't find airline placement)!
I take particular issue with this because its stereotypical and not even true at that. At my FTO I had a <25 year old with no airline experience teaching me for part of the course. He was an integrated student who couldn't find work and he was a FANTASTIC instructor. I also had a >50 year old ex mil captain for other parts of training and he was equally fantastic. Most modular schools I know of in the UK have industry experienced instructors. Look up PAT in Bournemouth and Airways in Exeter and read their staff bios. The other thing I would like to bring to this is to defend both Integrated and Modular commercial flight instructors. There are 500 hour instructors who are amazing and 15000 hour instructors which are not so. It depends on the personality of the individual. Some airlines are now even starting to prefer younger instructors for the first parts of their cadet-ships because often when they have finished training more recently, they can relate to the student far better than some of the more experienced guys. Have a look at some of the instructors at FTE etc. I stress again its down to the instructor them-self, not their age or experiences in a lot of cases.
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