PPL before Airline Training

[tobster911]

I have been thinking of obtainiong my PPL for ages, and, hopefully, will have one on my 17th Birthday. I was wondering whether or not having a PPL would decrease my chances of getting a sponsorhip with an airline. Some people have been saying that it does, whereas others say it doesn't.
I contacted CTC Wings and they said that it increased the chances as it tells the airline you are motivated, however, some students come to us with bad habits. So, what do you think would be best?
Thanks

[BackPacker]

Gliding perhaps?

That shows motivation but will possibly form less bad habits. At least you won't get any bad habits wrt. engine handling...:ok: And it's cheaper, so you have more money left for your airline training.

[Pull what]

CTC will obviously try to get you to do a full course with them. It should make no difference at all if you get a PPL at 17,it shews initative and dedication and could not fail to impress most interview boards. Just try and make sure you do it with a professional school, finding one of those is your hardest task!

[Genghis the Engineer]

I would say absolutely do a PPL or something equivalent.

It shows commitment, it tells YOU whether you have an aptitude for flying, and equally important whether you enjoy it.

For those purposes, any of NPPL(M), NPPL(SSEA), JAR-FCL-PPL(SEP), NPPL(SLMG), JAR-FCL-PPL(TMG), FAA-PPL(SEL), or a gliding club taking you towards, say, Silver C will do this.

However, if you are aiming at the airlines, you'd be well advised to shoot for an ICAO aeroplane licence since those hours will count towards your eventual ATPL.

So, I'd recommend doing either a JAR-FCL-PPL(SEP) or a FAA-PPL(SEL).

Also, do pick a good school, and don't assume that your chances of getting sponsorship are high - so also position yourself to self-fund through a modular fATPL.

G

[A and C]

The first thing to grasp it that CTC and a number of others are only after your money, they charge you a lot to get the ATPL and then take a rake off from the airline they place you with.

The selection is all about making sure they can that they can get you through the training in the minimum time as this gives them the best return on their money.

Flying before going to CTC or the like is just the same as handing them money as you are going to decrease the amount of work they have to put into you.

Having had some dealings with them I have no doubt that they will tick all the boxes, however there is something that I found slightly unsettleing about the place, a mate of mine discribed it as aviations answer to the church of scientology.

If I was doing the ATPL thing for a second time I think I would look as Stapleford or Bristol filght centre, both places have good reputations and will cost you a lot less.

[Genghis the Engineer]

If you plan to do an integrated course, they can only count 20 hours of PPL. So if you do a PPL beforehand it will cost you more money than if you don't! Drop into your local airfield and see what people there have to say about it.

Commercial training on an integrated course costs at-least twice what PPL training at a local school will cost you per hour, so actually it's probably cost neutral.

Also most of the experienced people in this game will tell you quite actively that unless somebody else pays for it, integrated courses are an unnecessarily massive expense and that you should go modular.

G

[tobster911]

So, an integrated method isn't more likely to land me a job, (if you pardon the pun)? So, if I can't get a sponsorship, I should go modular and my chances aren't lessened? For example, A friend gets the same GCSE and the Same A-Level results from the same school. We both have a PPL before commencing ATPL training, however, he goes integrated and I go modular. We both have a 50:50 chance of being chosen, the deciding factor being an interview?
Thanks

[flyinkiwi]

I contacted CTC Wings and they said that it increased the chances as it tells the airline you are motivated, however, some students come to us with bad habits...

Now that's a laugh, after sharing sky with some of their students I can tell you CTC are definitely not immune from teaching bad habits either. The total and utter lack of airmanship shown by some of their students is, to be honest, downright scary when you consider they may be occupying a right seat in that A320 you might be a passenger on some day in the future.

[XLC]

I am quite close the recruitment process [for the cadet program] of one of the main airlines here in Hong Kong. Having a PPL is not necessarily a plus, what is much more important (for them) is the attitude (personality), passion and social skills. The more experience you have in aviation is of course a benefit.
I also second the suggestion made by BackPacker: gliding. How many times did that experience save lives when forced to do a deadstick landing? The latest famous case being the ditching of an A320 in the Hudson under command of Captain Sullenberger. I am not sure but I think that Captain Piché and his famous landing in the Azores was also helped by his experience in gliding. Not known at all but also remarkable is the perfect deadstick landing, some years ago, of an C150 in a extremely small rice paddy in Thailand by a British retired airline pilot (Tony S) - he has over 4000 hours gliding experience under his belt.

[flybymike]

Not to mention the 767 dead stick landing from 41000 feet.
Gimli Glider - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider)

[Genghis the Engineer]

So, an integrated method isn't more likely to land me a job, (if you pardon the pun)? So, if I can't get a sponsorship, I should go modular and my chances aren't lessened? For example, A friend gets the same GCSE and the Same A-Level results from the same school. We both have a PPL before commencing ATPL training, however, he goes integrated and I go modular. We both have a 50:50 chance of being chosen, the deciding factor being an interview?
Thanks

Basically, yes. A small number of the bigger airlines prefer integrated for somebody in their first job, whilst many of the smaller employers (air-taxi people, flying clubs...) prefer NOT integrated because they'd rather have more hours and a bit more "PPL type" flexibility.

Once you've been flying a few years, neither will care at-all how you trained, just what licences and hours you have. The licence itself is exactly the same.

G

[LH2]

I also second the suggestion made by BackPacker: gliding. How many times did that experience save lives when forced to do a deadstick landing?

Zero times? :E

"Captain! We seem to have run out of fuel! (and I told you those were litres, not gallons)"

"Never mind young lad, I've got lots of gliding experience under my belt. Ah, there is a nice cumulus over there... see if we can get under it."

...or...

"Aren't we lucky? Those are the Himalayas, that's going to be some cracking orographic lift--think we can beat Steve Foster's altitude record, FO?"

Yes, I can see how essential a life-saving skill gliding experience is to an airline pilot :}

Nothing against gliding, btw (I've done a couple of hours myself and enjoyed it) but that was a bit of a preposterous comment you made there. Pilots have attributed their coming out alive of a sticky situation to all sorts of things, some more reasonable than others: from military experience, to gliding, to luck (:ok:), to riding motorcycles (the DHL shot down in Iraq, IIRC). To my knowledge however, no objective studies have ever been mind to back up any of those assertions.

[Genghis the Engineer]

I think there's truth in that; there really isn't much mapping from a glider to a big jet in terms of handling, regardless of conditions.

Chesley Sullenberger was a fighter pilot, and a glider pilot, and had a lot of hours in Piper Cubs.... Then later he flew an airliner.

I suspect that in reality, his real strength was the adapability that came from flying a lot of aeroplanes in a lot of different conditions - and simply having done an enormous number of flying hours dealing with an enormous number of "issues" - good and bad. Read his (really very good) autobiography "highest calling" and you'll get the idea. Gliders were doubtless in the mix there somewhere, but I suspect that unreliable and cranky 1960s jet fighters were a bigger player.

Frankly, get passionate for flying, and do lots of flying. What you fly is really a lot less important.

The downside of this is when you realise that being an airline pilot has very little to do with flying, and you'll probably hate it but get trapped by the money.

G