PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - My dream - advice please (collective thread)
Old 24th Oct 2014, 07:01
  #133 (permalink)  
Genghis the Engineer
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Join Date: Feb 2000
Location: UK
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Basically - fly something.


I'm guessing as a final year undergrad, you're up to your eyeballs in debt, and also fairly busy. However, not all flying needs to be expensive.

Most universities have a university gliding club - go and join them. Get some time with air under the tyres: at this early stage it really doesn't matter what, and actually gliding does tend to create good "stick and rudder" pilots which should help counteract the bad habits you've probably been developing from unsupervised mucking about on computer flight emulators.

Once you do have time and money, then the next stage is to do a PPL. It really doesn't matter what that is in - microlights, gliders, motorgliders, helicopters will all serve the basic function. That said, if you do it on light aeroplanes, then the hours are most portable to civil professional licences. The main issue here is that you need to learn:-

(1) Whether you have an aptitude for real flying (and don't think that simulator time has told you that, it hasn't).

(2) Whether you have enough real passion for flying to keep going through the exams and training.

(3) How the real world flying environment works - from contact with the various professional pilots who will be teaching you.


Once you have a private flying qualification of some description, then you're in a position to decide if you want to go pro or not.


And don't forget at your relatively young age, everything is open to you - not just the standard default of airline pilot that is all most people see. Military careers in particular - either as (say) a PT Officer with access to service flying clubs, or as a military pilot.
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