When to start
 

Hello,

I am coming to the end of my time at University and had always planned to start my training fairly soon after this, however in the current climate it seems that this would be unwise. What I am wondering is if anyone has a rough estimate of when may be a good time to start.

(for arguements sake lets assume that I take an Intergrated route, although in reality I may not)

Thanks

About now or in the near future. The market will turn around have no fear. You need to be hireable when this happens. The type rated etc will be swept up first and you need to make sure that you are in the next group once they have gone.

You don't state what you did at uni. But if you full time study you can knock the ATPL exams off in 3 months hard graft. If you got some free time post finals hit them.

If I were in your position I would let the finances decide. If you are taking out a massive loan for an integrated course, then best wait for a positive sign in the market. If you have easier access to the money, then towards the end of this year might be a reasonable time to start.

Could always go modular and crack on with PPL/Night/IMC in the mean time and fly for fun so that you are ready to hit the ground running with a few hrs when the upturn comes.

Aim to finish Oct/Nov 2010 at the earliest.

redstar

i agree with redstar!!!!!

after lay-offs there is alot of experienced pilots out there waiting to get back into the seat, so wait until things look a little positive before starting...

Start your ppl if you havent already,,, that will keep the taste for flying in you while you wait!!!!!

Thanks for all the responce so far, i'll have a MA in Politics at the end of it. I would not be in a position to start (if the situation permits) until around about October ish at the earliest.

Does this seem like a viable option, or perhaps things may get continually worse in the future?

If you bank on 12-18 months for integrated or full time modular training, 18 months + for part time modular, then an October 09 start should in theory have you dropping off the end of said courses sometime early to mid 2011, or even a bit later if you take modular training a bit more easy.

Unless something new's been said recently, the most pragmatic (Pessimistic? Realistic?) posters on here have said that's the earliest they can see low hours pilots being taken up by the airlines again is sometime 2011, so by their predictions, that should be well timed.

Note the word prediction. Note the word should. Lots of people argue a LOT of the time on here about when things might start to improve.

I like ewsd02's advice.

For my own part, I'm going to spend 12-18 months on the ATPL's staring this spring. I'm going to try and do CPL part-time after this while still working (4-6 months? Some places quote 6 weeks full time). Since the IR's the super expensive bit (as opposed to merely expensive!), I'm going to save that 'til I can see some green shoots of recovery, then hopefully knock it out relatively quickly (lots of sim time so less weather dependent)

But there are plenty of ways to skin a cat!

Good luck :ok:

JR

I'm aiming for 2012/2013, my main issue at the moment is funding. Trying to fund part of it without having to borrow more money.

Thanks for all the responces, they seem a lot more positive than I was expecting. Just wondering if there are any more opinions out there that people might like to put in?

Aim for late 2013.

This is 1990. In 1995 the market picked up and job hunting became a useful exercise.

Though this recession is already far worse than the 1991 one and its still not pulled out of the nosedive phase yet..

WWW

I would not give a time on it,,, experts cant even predict when the whole recession is goin to start recovering (as WWW stated) never mind fully recover...

WWW, what methods or aspects do you base your prediction of 2013 on as the recovery year? (just bearing in mind financial experts dont have a clue when it is going to end)

My prediction is whenever the housing market (i.e when the banks starting allowing cash through loans)

at the moment, there is no cash flow between the government, banks and the public!!!!

it's a stand-off with the banks!!!! when this ends, then start thinkin about training!!! (its all about timing,,,ie start at the end of the bad times before all the wannabes all jump onto the bandwagon)

Yes it is a difficult one, i am not really sure what to do at the moment, like I say I wouldn't be starting anything for at least another 7-8 months at the earliest. At least I have been given some advice already, but if anyone else has some more please let me have it, or indeed if you may need more information on my situation fire away.

But it's not 1990... it's 2009 - correlation isn't always correct. This could possibly be one of the deepest recessions ever. At the same time it could be on the up again in 8 months.

Who knows...... if anybody did, we'd all be fine :ok:

Suggestion here -
xxx
I lived long time in the USA, 20+ years, and very familiar (native) of Europe.
With 40 years of airline career - 1968-2008...
xxx
In any worldwide recession, the USA were first to hit bottom.
Maybe by 3 to 6 months, before Europe-Asia.
And USA was first to recover (before Europe-Asia), by some 3 to 6 months.
xxx
I would factor 6 months for a European recovery (after USA).
And another 6+ months for European air carrier to recall/rehire their pilots.
So, if you see USA (Wall Street) getting better again, it might be first clue.
A recovery of European carriers (new pilot selection) might be 15-18 months later.
xxx
Wild guess I know, but maybe along these lines, give or take 3 to 6 month.
You financial experts, better monitor USA stock exchange and financial news.
Right now, I would do nothing until at least 2009...
Any better idea...?
xxx
:(
Happy contrails

Playing Devil's advocate here, what would someone say to a start date around Jan/Feb 2010?

Hey all,

Don't normally browse Pprune any longer, but just popped in and came across this post.

I'm just leaving my full time job to concentrate on the ATPL groundschool part-time. Luckerly for me I have the savings, night, IMC and hours behind me, plus gone modular.

Let me just add it's taken me around 8 years to get where I am now, but this in my mind seems the best time to get the wheels in motion and into gear for the future.
Things will improve over time, it's just patience and I'm now use to that! lol.

I'm going to get the groundschool out of the way now, should take around 7-10 months (perfect to do during a recession!), then after my final exam I have 3 years, until which I need to get my CPL/ME/IR in and complete. ...... so in short, about 4 years to play with.

Keep plugging away, aim high, think positive and with luck, you'll be amazed what can happen over time.

Cirrus :ok:

So when is the absolute best time to start training in order to have a good chance of job after training, this year or in 3-4 years?

fabbe92 -
xxx
The pessimists should start training tomorrow afternoon.
And the optimists just started yesterday evening.
xxx
:ugh:
Happy contrails

I have planned to start my training around april/march time this year. I'm going to do my ppl and hours build in the summer, ATPL's in the winter and then (depending on my funding situation) CPL/IR/MCC spring summer 2010.

imo it's a great time to start because their are currently not allot of people training (certainly at my FTO the numbers have dropped) and thus you can negotiate a huge discount - (i got 2k off my ppl course) and the fuel price is at a all time low. I will be doing this whilst continuing to work for Virgin Atlantic (lets hope i'm not one of those 600 people losing my job).

Anyhow i'm an optimist and have been through one recession before and it eventually will get better - chin up :ok:

The point is that there is no 'absolute best' time to start. If anyone had absolutes about the future, they'd stand to make a large profit! As you may have noticed, we're currently in the midst of a global recession. As others have pointed out, no one truly knows the depth or time scale of the thing. All people have are (un)/educated guesses.

If you take the middle ground of predictions, you'd arrive at the conclusion that we're likely to be just about recovered by about the time the next Olympics rolls around, give or take. In that case, add another 18 months or so for the airlines to catch up and start hiring 'business as usual' style. You'll arrive at a date some time around 2013-2014. So then the question of when to start becomes 'how long do you intend to take to train?' You could start now and slowly eek it out until about then, or you could start in a couple of years and bang out the process a lot faster.

But the take home point is that no one knows, all we have are best guesses based on economic and historic factors. I see you're 16; that's great news for you. You can do some post compulsory education schooling, then reassess the situation when you're 18. If in the meantime, you absolutely must be flying, well no one's stopping you from doing so recreationally. Whether you intend to fly for leisure or professionally, you'll still need that PPL. So why not start saving, and go ahead and get that done, and have some fun while you're at it. If the economy shows signs of recovery, you might then want to move it to the next level. Just stay well away from any debt, don't even think it's worth getting into when you have your whole life ahead of you!