Freak
5th Mar 2003, 16:20
Hello Everyone.
So I'm 23, live near Brighton, have a degree in Aeronautical Engineering, have done a fair bit of Gliding in the past and currently have a PPL(A) with around 55 hours total. I'm working at a small engineering firm which has nothing to do with what I want to do in life, but it pays the bills for now and [insert CV talk here].
I'm looking to jump off my current ladder and onto the flying one, even if that means starting off at the bottom again (not that I'm high up where I am now).
Ideally - and like a lot of people - I'd like any sort of aircraft operator to give me a fully sponsored training scheme and guaranteed job, but we all know that the chances of finding one of those are, well, zero. Self-sponsoring myself through would require £50k and I just can't see how I would come across that sort of money.
So the next best thing for now would be to find a job doing anything in the flying arena and build up my hours in my spare time to at least the CPL sort of stage. I'd love to do something like dropping off parachutists at the weekends, but I think you need an instrument rating for that (due to the class A airspace you'd need to penetrate)?
Does anyone have any similar-situation-anecdotes or advice on what I should do? (Or Job offers come to that....)
I'm filling in a form for Air Atlantique at the moment (although I don't quite meet the hours yet), but if that doesn't work out then I need to change my current job for the intermediate stage and I'm a bit overwhelmed with options.
Sorry to be a pain!
So I'm 23, live near Brighton, have a degree in Aeronautical Engineering, have done a fair bit of Gliding in the past and currently have a PPL(A) with around 55 hours total. I'm working at a small engineering firm which has nothing to do with what I want to do in life, but it pays the bills for now and [insert CV talk here].
I'm looking to jump off my current ladder and onto the flying one, even if that means starting off at the bottom again (not that I'm high up where I am now).
Ideally - and like a lot of people - I'd like any sort of aircraft operator to give me a fully sponsored training scheme and guaranteed job, but we all know that the chances of finding one of those are, well, zero. Self-sponsoring myself through would require £50k and I just can't see how I would come across that sort of money.
So the next best thing for now would be to find a job doing anything in the flying arena and build up my hours in my spare time to at least the CPL sort of stage. I'd love to do something like dropping off parachutists at the weekends, but I think you need an instrument rating for that (due to the class A airspace you'd need to penetrate)?
Does anyone have any similar-situation-anecdotes or advice on what I should do? (Or Job offers come to that....)
I'm filling in a form for Air Atlantique at the moment (although I don't quite meet the hours yet), but if that doesn't work out then I need to change my current job for the intermediate stage and I'm a bit overwhelmed with options.
Sorry to be a pain!