How I did it! How you can do it!
 

Good morning wannabes,

As the aviation industry is starting to boom I thought it appropriate to write a short blog on how I got into aviation, so people like myself, with not so privileged backgrounds can get into aviation with hard work and dedication!

Like most from a very early age I had a massive obsession with aircraft, I was totally mesmerised about aviation, at every opportunity I was either looking up at the sky looking or reading about planes, I knew where my future career lay!

I was lucky enough to start and obtain my PPL at the age of 17.

During my school days, I was never the brightest kid in my class in fact far from it, I struggled my maths, I remember quite clearly my career advisor telling me to think about another career path because being a pilot was so far out of my reach! (How wrong could one be!!) that being said I left school at the age of 16 with not one GCSE above the C grade.

*disclaimer: The school did not fail me, I failed myself and I learnt the hard way.

So with my aviation dream in tatters off I went and got a job scaffolding (which I still dabble in today) very soon I realised that this is not the career I want to spend the rest of my life doing, so I had to make a plan. I calculated that if I save my salary for 4 years, with family help I can fund a modular aviation course, this is exactly what I did! In the mean time I was attending night school retaking my flunked GCSE in math and English to which I passed with very high grades!

At the age of 20 I finally had enough money saved to fund my training and survive not working for two years, I embarked on ATPL in house course (14 written exams) at London metropolitan university. I studied here full time for about 6-8 months, even tho hard work and lots of studying I made some fantastic friends and had so much fun! Out of the 14 exams, I passed 12 first time and had to retake POF and perf which I passed second time round. Not bad for a lad that left school with no GCSE's

Once the ATPLs was completed I went straight to stapleford flight centre for my hour building and commercial IR. I cannot fault stapleford, it's by far one of the best flight training organisations out there and I would recommend to anyone!!

Hour building: duration about 4 weeks flying a 152 up and down the country, I spent most of this time brushing up on my nav exercises which I knew I would need once the commencement of my CPL. Please please please make sure you have fun when doing the hour building as it's pretty much stress free.

Commercial pilots licence: duration 18 days, this was by far my favourite course. My instructor was fantastic majority of flying was done in the piper arrow, passed first time. The nav exercises during my hour building really paid dividends.

Instrument rating: duration 5 weeks. This was the course everyone feared, in fact I throughly enjoyed the IR, I seemed to gel with the instrument flying. Majority was flown in the DA42 and the DA42 sim. Passed first time.

MCC and JOC was done at OAA duration 5 days. Was a good introduction to working as a crew in an airline environment.

If you want me to elaborate any part of my blog please feel free to send me a PM!

In total I paid around £55,000 for a frozen ATPL modular at stapleford.

A few weeks after I completed my training, I was sending hundreds if not thousands of CV's to every single operator you could think of. Finally Ryanair contacted me and Invited me for an interview, I paid the 300 quid for the pleasure and after a week I was told I didn't make the grade. I was shocked and gutted by determined not to let it deter me!

Over the next year, I continued to make contacts in the industry, had a part time job at ipilot (fixed base 737 simulator company) and back scaffolding full time.

Finally an opportunity arose for Wizz air, I managed to pass the interview and spent 4 years flying the 320 based in Gdnask Poland. Wizz is the perfect company to start your career, flying lots, hard winters and difficult destinations, it's the ideal place to learn your trade.

I must say, that prior the the Wizz interview I had interviews with 4 smaller operators lined up and that was from making contacts and networking.

Next I left Wizz to come home to the UK and work for another fantastic exciting company called Air tanker flying the Airbus 330. This was a new and exciting place to work flying to worldwide destinations including the Falklands via Ascension Island. I spent about 15 months in air tanker before an amazing opportunity arose to fly for another long haul operator based at LHR to which I fly for to this day, I won't mention the name but put it this way, my favourite colour is red.

On my days off I do consultancy work for CTC teaching Airbus ground school to cadets, another job I obtained through networking.

All in all I've been flying commercially now for 6 years and I very happy with what I have achieved at the age of 28.

Please free free to message me any questions and for those who want to follow me on Instagram: gym_aviator

Good luck

Well done!

You deserve your success.

My story is similar to yours, in that I had meagre school certificates and I paid for a slow, 'modular' course (but it wasn't called that in the 1970s). The main difference was that I spent quite a while instructing and doing classic GA jobs like air survey, air taxi and light exec-jet charters. That route to an airline doesn't seem to be as possible these days, which is a pity as I believe it teaches one a lot of things that MCC and JOC can't replicate.

44 years after my first solo, I finally made it into the LHS of a 'major', doing long-haul. I have enjoyed every step along the way.

Yours is an inspiring story and will hopefully encourage others who start off with less than ideal academic qualifications.

Again, well done!:ok:

Yep typo, started PPl at 16

Thanks for the post - I am on a very similar route, if not almost identical, and it's always great to hear when people have made it from similar backgrounds. Well done on your success and perseverance!

Not a choice for the faint of heart I'm sure you'll agree, but hopefully well worth it in the end.

How is it possible to only get one answer from hundreds of cvs sent ?
That looks daunting

Bearing in mind I finished training on the back end of a recession

Very impressed reading your story, congratulations!

It does however make me bit jealous to read these stories .. 2 years+ isn't that bad in the grant scheme of things, but weighs on me at times! Also went to SFC, best time of my life!

Best of luck with your flying, though reading your story I'm convinced you'll be a RHS driver soon enough.

A320 baby, you are a LEDGEnd

How did you get the 300hrs requirement for Wizz Air? Or was that not one of the requirements set out by them then?

In 2010 no such requirement

Until you have pulled the yoke back during your first lesson you don't realise how hard you can work until you have that goal! Congrats, this place needs more optimism and encouragement like this!

Too bad they have the 300hr aircraft total time now :(

Why would they ask 300 hours ? How is a 300hour pilot more proficient than a 200hrs one ?
The difference will most probably be 100 hours of piston...

@KayPam I'm guessing it was increased due to the large influx of applicants.

A320baby, did you continue flying between the time you had your frozen ATPL and the time it took you to get accepted into an airline (1 year from what I understand)?

Flying ppl for fun and to keep current.

I wonder did you pay for it all by yourself with your hard labor and sweat? fair play if you did

Fully support you!

fair play if that's how it happened. It's difficult to assess from the way story is laid out whether scaffolding came in after the PPL or before that. All that triggered me is that kids these days don't appreciate where stuff at their homes is coming from, thus if your mom and dad paid 10k to get you through your PPL some credit is due and you can hardly call yourself less privileged (than Arab kids with their lambos I suppose?)

If he got his PPL by working for it himself at the age of 17 I've nothing but utmost respect towards him

Martin,

PPL and Frozen ATPL was funding by myself and i do not appreciate being insinuated as a :mad: My family provided a roof over my head while I was completing the training. This thread was supposed to be aimed at wannabes that think their dream is not achievable due to personal circumstance. so if you have nothing constructive to say Bore off!

Guys Thank you for your PM's I've just got back from a layover and i'll reply within the next few hours :ok:

Cheers.

Scaffolder to long haul wide body pilot, serious kudos and congratulations to you.

Perhaps we need to look at scaaffolders in a different way:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJa7VzfWJQg

Mike haha that's brilliant.. sums me up to a tee

Nice to see that you kept the sense of humour though I hope that you and the skipper treat the stewardesses better than Harry and Paul treat the women walking past their building site.

To be fair, looking at the weather at the moment I would not want to be a scaffolder for any money.

Humour and thick skin is a must in both careers, always good to banter the crew but he prepared for the payback! It's been brutal

The banter would probably be funnier than the professional comedians sketches, though not suitable for a television show.

Only strongest man it could survives in this crazy field, with excellent skills, clearly. Thank you A320baby to share your story, 'cause is really important to motivate everybody us, little wannabes XD.

I want to apologize for jumping to any conclusions. I would have apologized a lot sooner, but my assessments earned me a week long holiday from this forum (well "earned", I admit). Inabw is right, this forum could use more positive stories

A320 Baby, I don't want to take any credit from you, but achieving what you did while single and free from commitments and also been able to live at home while training actually makes it relatively "easy".

I have to frequently turn down interviews because the starting salary, the location simply is not workable with wife, kids and a mortgage with out getting divorced or going bankrupt, If I was single I would still be flying for a living. But congrats on the job.

Very good point portsharbourflyer, I had to turn down an interview earlier this year as it was fairly short notice, my wife was working that day, could not get a shift change and we could not get reliable child care for our son at short notice. I asked for an alternative date but they just ditched me and gave the interview slot to someone else.

Though on the day of the interview I was unwell with a bad case of D&V so there was no way that I could complete the interview unless they were happy to hold it in a toilet!!!!!!!!

I don't want to sound like an argumentive bugger but I also have a 7 year old son who was born same time as my Atpl

Good luck

Portsharbourflyer,

There's also another way of looking at it.
Some of us have refrained from having their own place, girlfriend, wife, kids, dog, hamster etc... so they can follow this path.
All the while, putting our lives on hold for that elusive hint of a job.

Does that not require a greater sacrifice or self discipline?

Personally, I don't take on things I can't afford.
Emotionally or financially.

A320, I'm pretty sure I know who you are. :)
If you are, who I think you are, we have a few mutual friends.

Poose,

Sometimes some-things in life are not planned; my first child was not planned. Had I stayed in my first turboprop job I can guarantee I would have been divorced by now; I did full time instructing before the commitments arrived in life. In-fact that was my error, trying to do the instructor-turbo prop route because the low pay associated with that route is what made it unsustainable. Had I funded a jet type rating just after training then the chances are
by the time commitments arrived in life I would have been making a decent income so could have stayed flying. I have remained part time instructing and still normally get a couple of interviews each year but most rarely offer something that is sustainable.

I have travelled to Asia for interviews, I could go on, so don't think I haven't sacrificed things in life. I would have been on the property ladder ten years earlier had I not done the fATPL, so please don't insinuate that I haven't made sacrifices.
Also I wasn't prepared to see my wife and daughter live the early years in some dingy town centre flat (which the rent alone was over 50% of my FO take home pay) where a lot of the other flats were occupied by DHSS types while I was stuck down route.

A320baby, please could you explain how you juggled a child with all this, you mentioned you lived at home while doing the training? And you were in Poland for four years?

Did your partner and the son live with you in Poland? Again not all of us have partners that are understanding and are prepared to follow where the flying work is.

So the overall message here is funding a jet rating would have been the better route than FI-turboprop. In summary all your post reads as is, I lived at home to save money and got a job by funding an A320 rating; there is a lot of credibility what you have achieved but it is also far from the most onerous route that many have taken into aviation.

Portsharbour,

Some of us still aren't on the property ladder and have ended up with absolutely nothing, well into our mid thirties - all because of flying.

With all due respect and it's not an attack on you, but I just tire of how patronising people with children can be at times. I don't believe in 'unplanned' children either...
I've seen that card played by the opposite sex too many times.

I'm sure you've put a lot into this, I don't doubt that. Never questioned it.
But don't think that the single lads have it easy. Some of us have given up everything and are gutted at some of the relationships that have not been pursued or fell by the wayside in order to finally get that flying job. Only now, starting life at a snails pace on meagre turboprop wages while your friends are all a decade ahead of you in life.
That gets you down at times.

Not attacking you, just telling an other side of the tale.
It's very hard being a parent while doing this, I hear that. But it can be just as hard on other people, albeit in different ways.

Poose, I have no wish to start any arguments and normally I prefer to keep my posts more constructive and less personal; but it still stands when you get invited to an interview in South Africa or some far away place it is more readily achievable if you are single.

While the job done (scaffolder) to raise the money was a physically demanding difficult job which deserves a lot of credit in itself; when a post is entitled this is "how I did it this is how you can do it", I was expecting to read some story about a hangar rat working his way up through working at flying clubs, doing air taxi, night freight in 1950s turboprops then to an airliner. But when the overall jist of the story is someone living at home with the parents, saved money and paid for a type rating it is a touch watered down in my opinion.

But I suppose it has shown a route than can work if you are under 24 and can stick living with the parents.

Push button, every single A320 pilot is using some of my work every single day, so please do refrain from making puerile comments when you know nothing about my background.

Further you are based in the US from your profile; the 1500 rule in place means 200 hour pilots are not allowed to undertake part 25 type ratings, so in the US the route taken by the original poster would not have been possible under current rules. So I don't feel a US based poster has much right to comment on something in EASA land.

Pushbutton; the point I am trying to make is a lot of people do not have the luxury to live at home while undertaking modular pilot training; over a 18 month period the additional cost of living along side training in the UK would easily amount to 10000 pounds plus; not to mention not living at home previous to this would also limit the ability to save. The title of the post was this "How you can do it", while a good percentage of those reading are in the 16 to 22 age bracket and there are also a number of late twenties / early thirties even forties career changers who read this and the described route by the original poster would hold little relevance.

If you are at the pinnacle of this profession one would have thought you could have presented a more rational coherent argument rather than simple insults.

Push button;

I have good reasons to take a negative vibe on this post? This original post actually represents quite a few negative aspects of the industry.

You are aware of the Air France Incident aren't you? A contributory cause of that incident was the fact the two pilots up front despite having lots of hours essentially went form ab intio training straight to an Airbus with little experience of flying anything else. The fact a lot of cadets are now training on twin stars means they are no longer acquiring traditional instrument flying skills; so no I will not positively endorse any one who goes from a Twin Star straight to an Airbus without attempting to build some alternative flying experience.

Our poster has a lot of experience flying an Airbus but has little experience of flying anything that is challenging and demanding.

As far as I am concerned every twin star trained cadet going to an Airbus is increasing the probability of another Air France incident.


Everyone on this forum a few years back use to flame anyone who did a self sponsored type rating; all the experienced pilots use to say, go instruct, go fly turbo-props don't pay for a type. As said I don't disapprove of SSTR as such, but neither should anyone who has entered the industry by such a route really be praised or celebrated.

The original poster has merely gone through a system available to him and there is a lot of credit due. But at the same time the inference of this post is encouraging and telling wannabes to just go and pay for an A320 type rating. So push is this really want you want to encourage and endorse.

Are you aware of the harm Self Sponsored type ratings have done to the industry?

Firstly the poster obtained his first job by paying for a type rating? That is what wizz air do,they run SSTR schemes. I don't object to people paying for type ratings but irrespective of the how the money was obtained it means the job was not obtained on merit or experience but merely on the ability to pay for rating.

But the consequence of the proliferation of SSTR schemes means a lot of instructors
and experienced turbo-prop pilots have been unable to move on while Airlines have elected instead to employ low hours candidates through self sponsored training schemes.


Secondly people training on a twin star and transferring straight to an airbus means they will have never have done any flying that develops actual raw flying skill.

A lot will say that with modern airliners traditional skills are irrelevant; well look at the Air France incident.

Push tell me when your family is in the back of an Airliner and the systems kick out please tell me who you want up front, Chelsey Sullenburger some one with experience; who are you happy to have a couple of people who just paid there way into the industry and have never actually experience flying anything more than a twinstar and an airbus.

I hope EASA follows the FAA route and brings in an hours requirement for the sake of future flight safety.


I am not been negative out of personal bitterness I am talking on behalf of a lot of other instructors and turbo prop pilots that have attempted to build experience, develop, learn the trade and who haven't just paid their way into the industry.

Having trouble with the edit function, so please excuse the odd grammar error above.

"Instrument rating: duration 5 weeks. This was the course everyone feared, in fact I throughly enjoyed the IR, I seemed to gel with the instrument flying. Majority was flown in the DA42 and the DA42 sim. Passed first time"

You did your initial IR on a twinstar: Go back do the IR in an analogue Seneca 1; then tell me you gelled with instrument flying. Then you will realise why people dreaded the IR course. The above shows this Twin Star to Airbus generation has no comprehension of the limitations of the training route they have followed.

This is what concerns me.


Certainly do not want some one who isn't aware of his limitations up front. This is the exact reason why I have concerns for the Twinstar to Airbus generation.

The training regime you have suggested your children will go through sounds excellent and it is that kind of training route that needs to be encouraged.

Agreed the Airbus side-stick was also a major factor in the Air-france incident. But I do still feel that had the two pilots involved had an instructional background (where they would have been teaching stalling frequently) the out-come would have been different. I know it is easy to sit here on the ground and criticise an incident and one can never tell how I would have reacted personally in that situation, but ever more systems reliability and procedures seem to potentially compensate for lack of basics.

Glad to hear procedure have been changed, but surely unreliable airspeed is back to basics, set power, set attitude.

Push button, it was not my intention to argue with you or discredit A320B; but I don't feel that any more 200 hours straight to Airbus is a something that the industry needs.

The kind of training regime that pushbuttonignored has got line up for his kids is truly exceptional. His kids are truly fortunate, sadly not everyone is fortunate to have a father who owns an aircraft, instructs them and has contacts who can hook them up with employment right up to jet work. Any of us would do the same for our kids if we were in that situation, I am sure push has ensured that his kids are well balanced and appreciate their privileged situation. I wish them luck as they develop into professional and competent crew.