A pondering Monday afternoon...
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PPRuNe Secret Agent!
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From: West Sussex, UK
A pondering Monday afternoon...
Just a thought, after replying to a thread on this forum a day or two ago...
When I was doing my Modular CPL/IR training, (over 10 years ago in the UK!) a common question was:
"where did you do your ground school/CPL/IR?"
Common answers were:
"Oxford, BCFT, Cabair..." Never did anyone of us from the UK say: "I went to Latvia"!!!!!!!!!!
Now, I recently started instructing at the school where I completed my PPL in 1990, this has been the most fun, rewarding and positive thing I've done in aviation in a long time. Doing my day job, I don't experience much of this general positive and fun environment anymore, in short, it's become "just a job" with pilot bashing management and T&C attacking accountants and in my airline, even Rostering have Key Performance Indicators driving bonus structures.
As the latest generation of future Pro's want to learn flying "Pink Strings" with Garmin 1000's from day one and the first step on the road to be a pilot seems to be to give CTC ridiculous amounts of money and very serious, dull study towards assessments and join the un-passionate airline world as quick as is humanly possible, how about every pilot on this forum with advice to hand-out, when asked about this/that school, routes to become a pilot just says "go down to your nearest GA Airfield, join the flying club, do your PPL, get involved socially and do exactly why we all followed our dream...because it's great fun..."
Maybe some sort of passion for all this might just return...and the debt ridden "zero to hero" crowd will wake up and get it!
When I was doing my Modular CPL/IR training, (over 10 years ago in the UK!) a common question was:
"where did you do your ground school/CPL/IR?"
Common answers were:
"Oxford, BCFT, Cabair..." Never did anyone of us from the UK say: "I went to Latvia"!!!!!!!!!!
Now, I recently started instructing at the school where I completed my PPL in 1990, this has been the most fun, rewarding and positive thing I've done in aviation in a long time. Doing my day job, I don't experience much of this general positive and fun environment anymore, in short, it's become "just a job" with pilot bashing management and T&C attacking accountants and in my airline, even Rostering have Key Performance Indicators driving bonus structures.
As the latest generation of future Pro's want to learn flying "Pink Strings" with Garmin 1000's from day one and the first step on the road to be a pilot seems to be to give CTC ridiculous amounts of money and very serious, dull study towards assessments and join the un-passionate airline world as quick as is humanly possible, how about every pilot on this forum with advice to hand-out, when asked about this/that school, routes to become a pilot just says "go down to your nearest GA Airfield, join the flying club, do your PPL, get involved socially and do exactly why we all followed our dream...because it's great fun..."
Maybe some sort of passion for all this might just return...and the debt ridden "zero to hero" crowd will wake up and get it!
Joined: Nov 2013
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Hi there, I found this interesting to read and I thought I should reply and inform you I feel exactly the same when I hear about intense integrated studies.
I haven't yet started my PPL training - I'm currently a first year aero engineering student. I live 10 minutes away from my local airfield and can't wait for September to come around so I can start my PPL. It's important to me that when my time comes to going to the airfield, that I get involved and help out in anyway possible. I feel as if there's a lot to learn & a lot of fun to be had in doing so!
I'm in no major rush to start & complete CPL training etc with the economic climate at the moment - my degree is the worrying/stressful part, flying should hopefully be the fun part for me.
I can put my foot on the gas pedal with further pilot training when the time is right.
That's where I'm up to anyway
All the best & I hope you continue to have plenty of fun instructing.
I haven't yet started my PPL training - I'm currently a first year aero engineering student. I live 10 minutes away from my local airfield and can't wait for September to come around so I can start my PPL. It's important to me that when my time comes to going to the airfield, that I get involved and help out in anyway possible. I feel as if there's a lot to learn & a lot of fun to be had in doing so!
I'm in no major rush to start & complete CPL training etc with the economic climate at the moment - my degree is the worrying/stressful part, flying should hopefully be the fun part for me.
I can put my foot on the gas pedal with further pilot training when the time is right.
That's where I'm up to anyway
All the best & I hope you continue to have plenty of fun instructing.
Last edited by pilotfromsheff13; 16th June 2014 at 23:06. Reason: spelling error
