18 year old Trainee Pilot for Flybe

[boquera]

Hi everyone (sorry if wrong forum!), just got an enquiry after a strory i read in the mirror newspaper today (15/8).

There is an article someway in about a lad who has 'beaten' around 800 people to land a place training worth £88000 and afterwards a job flying planes that carry upto 400 passengers with Flybe :hmm:.

Aside from the slight reporting error (unless Flybe have bought some quite large aircraft recently), where did he "win" this place? Is it GAPAN or am i right in thinking that the selection for that hasn't actually finished yet?

It's nothing against the guy being 18 but i'l have to admit i'm a teeny bit jealous as i'm one of the many souls out here looking for sponsorship to pay for training and i'm still waiting to hear from CX

Cheers guys

found the article online
Teen lands top flight pilot place - mirror.co.uk (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/08/15/teen-lands-top-flight-pilot-place-115875-21598131/)

[4whites]

What a load of b&ll%cks! I trained with several younger guys who were 19 when they qualified, two of them went directly to BA, one on the 737 and one on the A320. At 20 he will hardly be the youngest, it's becoming increasingly common! Mind you, good luck to him flying those brand new Flybe 747s and the 400 brave souls onboard!!!

The press infuriate me with their coverage of this industry!

[boquera]

i had the ame thoughts too, i was sure a friend of a a friend wasn't 20 when he started but can't be too sure on that

[G SXTY]

A four hundred seat Dash eh? That'll be quite some stretch . . . :hmm:

[Sinbad_633]

"Pitch 6" becomes "Pitch 0.06"

[Ben178v]

I would hazard a guess that its the OAA (oxford) MPL scheme and he will be paying for his training be it upfront or with pitifull wages or a combination of both. Don't be too jealous the only benefit to these schemes is there is a POSSIBLE job at the end. Trust me its not all as rosy as it reads.

[G SXTY]

My thoughts exactly Sinbad. :ok:

I bet it would still only have one loo.

[Bealzebub]

Mum Jayne, 41, described her son - a former air cadet - as plane mad.

I wonder if she said plane or plain?

I suspect Mum Jayne 41, is having to stump up the £68,000, whilst the remainder is a deferred loan from Flybe for the new MPL course. It isn't really a sponsorship, although in the current climate it is a good opportunity. The advantage of this MPL scheme is that it has a tie in to an airline based type rating and a job from which the £20,000 loan is repaid over 5 years or so.

Callum would be very dissappointed if he expected to Britains youngest airline pilot at 20. To be fair these tabloid articles are rarely written with any degree of accuracy or careful use of quotes. Doubtful they stumbled across the story all by themselves either.

Still good luck to the lad. There is a great deal of competition for these places when they are advertised, and although they still involve a huge degree of financial risk, they do at least come with a better degree of infrastructure, mentoring and probability of employment than many others.

[planecrazy.eu]

Just wondering.

What age was/is the youngest airline pilot at time of entering an airline, not at time of entering training.

Do you not have to be 21 to hold an ATPL?

I thought it was 17 to start atpl training, and 18 to hold a cpl, and 21 to hold an ATPL.

So youngest you can be is 18 to enter an airline as you would have frozen ATPL/CPL, right

----

Flybe.com - Pilot sponsorship (http://www.flybe.com/vacancies/pilots_sponsorship.htm)

He's at Pilot Training College.

-----

If he completes the course he has a cpl, he then needs to pass the flybe stuff and then gets put in the holding pool if he should pass the interviews.

i bet out of 800 applicants, only 40 1st interviews and 10 second interviews took place.

Funny thing a friend who did this at jerez was picked up and employed by another airline i wont name.

[SW1]

I remeber the youngest fully qualified airline pilot was Ed Gardner, 19, who flys 737s fot Titan- his dad was a captain there. Youngest captain was a an Oxford grad at GB airways at 25 i think.

[fade to grey]

I doubt it, we had a 757 capt who was 25.I think BMi used to have a 25 year old trainer

[potkettleblack]

Will he be cleaning the sole loo and scooping up the rubbish at the end of his training should he be required to operate as cabin crew like those coming out of the mix at present.

http://www.pprune.org/professional-pilot-training-includes-ground-studies/383884-starting-atpl-modular-advice-needed.html

[MVE]

Although it's not a full sponsorship and he will have to pay his training by reduced salary at the end of his course, it's a good move for him and best of luck. Very unlikely that Flybe will want the adverse publicity that would go with the first MPL students in the UK working as CC rather than pilots. Watch this space.

[adverse-bump]

that is one of the worst researched articles I have ever seen!

I got my first job at 19 does that mean i get to go in the paper!

what a load of rubbish!

[Dihaz]

adverse bump, im the same.

What a load of tut, i had my class1 by 16, PPL by 17, CPL/ME/IR by 18, frozen with MCC etc by 19 and working with an airline at 19 too!

Never trust the mirror!

[MVE]

Never trust the press, can't get a proper job, join a 'news' paper.:yuk:

[Otto Throttle]

For those mocking the pilots who have accepted CC jobs, just bear this in mind. They are already on the seniority list, as it is based on date of joining. That by my reckoning, gives them a significant head start over any of the sneering Maccy D workers when the flying training eventually kicks off, as they get preferential first dibs on base and fleet, and will almost certainly be several months closer to flying the E195 than any of their compatriots.

Not to mention the close working relationships they will have formed with a number of very lovely young ladies, where they have the opportunity to pour poison in their ears regarding the late comers. :E

Good luck to them. Smart move I reckon.

[Matt101]

Although it's not a full sponsorship and he will have to pay his training by reduced salary at the end of his course, it's a good move for him and best of luck. Very unlikely that Flybe will want the adverse publicity that would go with the first MPL students in the UK working as CC rather than pilots. Watch this space.

Well done to the lad but to be fair it's not any sponsorship at all. Pilot College run a MAPS scheme with Flybe but I think the only monetary thing Flybe will provide is the JOC. The £88K will come out of his wallet.

I should reiterate how good I think Flybe is in offering MAPS and PSAPS courses (the later offering some sponsorship) but this Mirror article makes it seem something it isn't, which gets hope up unnecessarily.

And I know one or two FO's at my last airline who were on the line at 19 surely this chap will be more like 20?

As you say though good luck to him:ok:

[shaun ryder]

Will Flybe be providing the wet look hair gel, wrap around sunglasses and pointy slip ons for this new recruit I wonder?

[cityfan]

It is quite interesting to see everyone fawning over someone who got hired somewhere so young, but HAD TO PAY THROUGH THE NOSE FOR THE JOB?! £88,000? For a job that pays what?

One need not wonder why airline managements continue to rein in on T&C every cycle, when they have already managed to convince every wannabee pilot in the world that for a king's ransom they are "qualified" to work there.

When I was a Captain on the 737-300/500, I hopped on a BA aircraft from LHR to MAN. At the end of the flight I stopped up to say hello to the crew and had a chat about life at BA (this is about 7 years ago). FO said he was still paying off his training costs, which sounded astronomical to me, and that he needed a partner (who was ALSO a BA 737 EFIS F/O) to enable him to afford rent in Brighton, where he lived. I was astounded.

We have debased the profession by constantly touting "I would do it for nothing," and it is slowly but surely getting closer and closer to happening. Now, please do not get me wrong. I do not begrudge the 20 year old posters from getting a job in aviation. However, the willingness to pay whatever it costs to get the job, and do whatever it takes to keep it, has provided management with more leverage than they could have dreamed of a decade or two ago.

We are on the brink of making the airline industry almost exclusively a single, young person's job, where prehire "experience" is an MPL, hundreds of hours of MS Flight Simulator time and the willingness to accept poverty level wages for responsibilities almost unmatched in society. Benefits will be a thing of the past and pilots will be "guns for hire" to the highest (of the lowest) bidders. Somewhere, somehow, a floor will be set and then, without anyone realizing it was possible, it will be lowered once more as another "fourth world" aviation mecca produces MPL "pilots" even cheaper, and brings people into the industry expecting even less....because that is what they were used to in their home country.

Marriage will be out of the question, because no self-respecting spouse would want to go through the constant upheavals and dirt poor living standards required to "live the dream" of aviation. In short, we will all become the proverbial lav truck driver, who, while visting his doctor, was told "If you want to stop your hands from cracking and peeling and being blue all the time from the harsh honeybee chemicals, you will have to quit your job," replied with "What? And get out of aviation?!"

As a middle aged Captain, typed on the 737, 757, 767, and A320 family, plus a few thousands cycles in a 727, when I look back at who is chasing my job, I shudder to think what is coming up, and what WE ALL are allowing to happen to this profession in the name of the global free market (which is a COMPLETE ILLUSION, especially in such a government controlled industry as this!).

We need to check the mirror and our six, and try and MENTOR some of the people who are in such a rush to the top. Recycling one's "career" every few years is the path to loneliness, sorrow and misery. Being able to join a company that values it's employees, requires more than the minimum qualifications to ensure the highest standards, and rewards those standards with commensurate T&C, enables a person to have a family, live in a decent house and raise that family with a spouse that does not have to check your ID every time you come home just to be sure. Is that too much to ask OF OURSELVES, that we insist on such standards? I certainly hope not.

[Grass strip basher]

Cityfan you are of course spot on.... however the wanabees won't listen.... half of them have no idea just how hard it will be to pay back 80k.... probably take the best part of a decade and then you have to worry about getting a mortgage.... what a life....:ugh:

[potkettleblack]

For those mocking the pilots who have accepted CC jobs, just bear this in mind. They are already on the seniority list, as it is based on date of joining. That by my reckoning, gives them a significant head start over any of the sneering Maccy D workers when the flying training eventually kicks off, as they get preferential first dibs on base and fleet, and will almost certainly be several months closer to flying the E195 than any of their compatriots.

I take your point but in reality seniority in an airline like Flybe is not much use unless these kids aspirations are to make a career out of flying a TP and stay put.

These 18 year old kids more than likely want to fly jets - and big ones at that. When the market picks up they will be off to BA, Virgin, BMI, Emirates, Ethihad, Cathay, Easy and all the usual suspects just like they have done since adam was a babe. Considering the guys ahead of them on the seniority list will be moving onwards and upwards as well then they would have naturally moved ahead of the pack in anycase if they are taken back at the front of the queue when Flybe recruits next. If it was me in that position then I would take a hold pool and my seniority and be trying for a better paying job elsewhere with a fallback to Flybe. I would send a copy of Flybe's acceptance letter to other operators in the hope that I would get an interview elsewhere since I was good enough to pass the entry tests at Flybe. Its been done before believe me.

Showing a willingness to work in a role other than what you were originally hired for is just making a rod for your own back and giving management the ability to push you around. What next - fly a few months a year and do ground operations when the winter schedule comes in? Or maybe just work the summer as a contractor like the CTC guys. Its all getting a bit FR if you ask me and needs to be nipped in the bud before this sort of thing becomes an industry wide practice.

[MVE]

Whether to work as CC or not has to be considered with what else is on offer?
What about chasing Ryr to work as a contractor with no job security and a further huge debt?
The point of these cadets taking the CC job is to get into the airline and have there faces at the front of the Q when the job market improves, which of course it will. If they take it as an opportunity and think about the future rather than the immediate present then it's a good move.
Personally I'd rather fly as CC for Flybe than for Mol as a contract pilot anyday.
Flybe has a working business model and it looks like RYR is failing as they can't afford to operate out of major airports like MAN or Stansted anymore (never mind operate into them!).....

[Maverick8701]

I flew with one of the "pilot" cabin crew the other day said most of the people who were doing it were loving it for the time being getting to know all the staff aircraft etc. From what he said most of them have all been rostered dash courses now anyway and only flew as CC for 3/4 months which is a useful way to pay off the loans!!

[Artificial Horizon]

Hey when I joined BA at the age of 25 after a couple of years at another airline and a couple of years instructing I thought that I was doing rather well. Until my simulator course on the A320 when I had to go out and celebrate my simulator partners 20th Birthday!! And he had also come from another airline:eek: So 19 for a first airline job is not that rare these days.

[Grizzle]

All of the Flybe cadets, from whatever school, were placed on a post scheme holding pool list. Their position on the list was decided by their date of finishing. Any cadet who had money invested in them will go ahead of any cadet who has not, irrespective of their date of finishing training.
All cadets will be offered CC jobs (if available) in order to give them some money to fund their loans. There is no disadvantage to anyone who does not take up the offer of a CC job. There is no TR seniority gain for anybody who wishes to take a CC job.

Having said all that, Flybe have just announced a course for 16 FOs on the 19th October and a further 16 in Jan 10. These courses will empty the scheme pool of any current swimmers.

Good news at last!

[Bambe]

Flybe NEVER offered any CC job!! They only notified their pilot that no FO position was available but that they were more than welcome to APPLY for a CC position... Some did and some didn't get the job...
Not as kind as it seems.
"Any snacks, drinks. Coffee, tea?"

[BAe 146-100]

I flew easyJet a couple weeks back, and the F/O had to have been only barely 20.

A lot of these must have very rich parents. ;) :rolleyes:

[L0wFly3r]

he could have rich parents but then again he might know someone who works for Easyjet and put a word in for him.

[mad_jock]

I don't know about 18 but there are a couple that look about 14. :p

And apparently they are a good pair of hands and a pleasure to share a cockpit with. Quite switched on, listen to advice, ask sensible questions, when an technical discussion comes up they go away and do some book work and come back to have a mature professional discussion on the subject. But this is only a couple of Captains views, they could get right on the tits of the others.

Could be a product of the training system but I doudt it. In other words looks don't count and neither does age ;)

[AviatorJack]

Hey guys,

Age should not be a factor in any job, I had my first flying job at 19 and I'm still going now a few years later. I have flown with guys with tens of thousands of hours and they're terrible pilots but I'm the one who can't get taken seriously because of my age. It gets really tiring, I have substantial experience and do my job well and I hate people bringing me down.

I think seeing a young person in the left seat in any aircraft is good, age DOES NOT reflect experience.

Nuff said........

[Bealzebub]

I had my first flying job at 19 and I'm still going now a few years later.
Hmmm. 4 years later. That is quite an achievement!
I have flown with guys with tens of thousands of hours and they're terrible pilots
Well it takes decades to amass that sort of experience. If they are so "terrible" I assume they must either be very lucky, or your own wealth of experience is not placing you in a serious position to make a truly qualified judgement.
but I'm the one who can't get taken seriously because of my age.
I wonder why?
I think seeing a young person in the left seat in any aircraft is good, age DOES NOT reflect experience. Well in some cases it really does, and I think you are a perhaps a prime example.
Nuff said........
Yes more than enough (nuff) really. :ooh:

[Canadapilot]

Pretty scary really, thank god the country I moved to chooses pilots with experience! What if the Captain had a coronary and the newbie FO who'd never flown in ice or even cloud before had to land the plane! I shudder to think. One good thing stemming from this recession is hopefully an end to the "buy yourself a jet job" culture.

[balhambob]

What if the Captain had a coronary and the newbie FO who'd never flown in ice or even cloud before had to land the plane! I shudder to think.

Yes what if!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

The 'newbie' would have a valid IR so you would have been trained to fly IMC.

Training for icing conditions would be given and I know its a massive assumption but you would think they would teach him/her to land the aircraft before getting released onto the line :ugh:

[potkettleblack]

Experience doesn't count for much when you start pumping good fuel out into the airflow. Nice glide approach though but lucky nevertheless.

Canada doesn't exactly have a shining track record of aviation safety so you might want to consider your position before generalising about 250hr wannabes over this side of the pond.

[airborne_artist]

Let's get real - 19/20 year olds have been the sole pilot of RAF/RN jets for a long time - one of my early instructors in my RN time was carrier-deck qualified a few days after his 20th birthday, with just an Observer (navigator in RAF-land) to rein him in.

[Bealzebub]

Yes that is true, but with an accident record that reflects the risk. The requirements for a pilot in a primary weapons delivery system are in many respects very different from those required to transport 300 assorted members of the public routinely from A to B. The two approaches to risk versus experience are markedly different.

[airborne_artist]

True indeed, but you don't let a pilot loose on the deck of a carrier who is not ready for it. Good 19/20 year olds can be ready for it, just as they can be ready for civil transport operations. There is still a fundamental block in some peoples' minds that this is the case, though.

[Bealzebub]

Yes, although I would suggest that the applicant screening process is significantly tougher and the subsequent training more intensive and unforgiving with your military pilot. In addition (and with this thread in mind) there is an arrogance that can be honed into a determination to succeed in one arena, that is a more dangerous and difficult element in the other.

That isn't to suggest that 19/20 year olds are not suitable for airline transport operations at an entry level. Many are, and many display a level of maturity, ability, and a desire to learn that ensures them a successful career. Of that there is no doubt. However unlike the military, there are often few opportunities for what I would term the "fear factor" whereby an individual frightens themselves enough to better understand and appreciate their own limits. In a civil environment that is something that cannot be allowed to happen for the first time with 300 passengers down the back. To some extent this relies upon the transfer of experience and the use of better awareness training in far greater measure, to provide an element of compensation. Nevertheless I think this is far from ideal in a world where a bag full of cash and 250 hours can potentially put somebody in that position, without the same degree of screening and attrition that would certainly be the case with your carrier pilot.

It is a problem to some extent, and one that the FAA administrator amongst others, has recently voiced his own concerns over (see R&N.)

[mad_jock]

What do you mean 250 hours the lowest houred FO I have flown with was 170 hours. Single crew never :p

[acepilotmurdock]

How many sponsored bods are in the hold pool for Flybe from last year?

[Finals19]

Ah, thats the golden question. If only we knew the figures and the throughput!

[AviatorJack]

Only just seen your reply Beazlebub, reason being I don't come on here for the very reason your displaying. Then your reply on forces pilots contradicts your previous comments (which is where my flying career started out) so why are you on here, just to argue with everyone who doesn't agree with you?

Oh and another quick question, do you have any friends?

[Torque Tonight]

AviatorJack, you've had two weeks short of a year to hone the ultimate killer riposte to Bealzebub's post and the best you can come up with is:

do you have any friends?

Banter not your strong point, eh? ;)