PPL at Humberside, exams with Bristol, CPL with EFT, IR with Atlantic, MCC with Oxford, first job at FlyBE, now with BA. Need any more?

Paul,
The CTC structured modular scheme, use (or used to use) Bristol GS for the theory phase.

Thanks Ham Phisted
You have restored my faith.Was it mentioned at interview level,and was this your first job offer

Hmmmm

I'm not convinced by this... "only one provider" concept. I used in total 6 training providers prior to employment. And just casting my thoughts to anecdotal evidence of my collegues, many came from a "multiple provider" background.
Each person's predicament is different. When choosing a training provider, there will be factors already discussed such as reputation, results, facilities, instructor and aircraft availabilty, atmosphere, etc. There will be further personal factors such as home location, finance, learning styles, family commitments, work commitments that will, and I believe should, all contribute to the decision making of where you train.
So long as you can come to a rational and well thought out explanation for your choices then I don't really see the problem in chopping and changing. After all, that is one of the benefits of the modular route.

The problem with this whole dicussion is threefold:

First, Pprune is an anonymous forum. People here are not always who they claim to be. I attended a Pprune pilot training seminar back in 2001 odd, I met lots of the Pprune characters. Some of the people who had been talking with authority on the website over the previous few months to that seminar tuurned out to be 14 year old schoolboys and people who hadn't even achieved a PPL yet.
So always take what you read with a pinch of salt.

Secondly, there are no accurate figures on how many modular, modular one school, or integrated students get jobs. I don't believe the CAA hold these figures. Bear in mind the larger schools process more students. Therefore, if every school had a 50% employment record the larger schools seem to place more people, although the chance of getting employment though any school would be exactly the same.
Anecodotal employment stories are more likely from the larger schools where courses of 12 or more are together for other a year and mix with many other courses. There is a ready built large network to spread any good news about.
Modular students often spend three to five weeks at a smaller school where there may be only a couple of people on their course.

Therefore if it seems that integrated schools place more people, they probably do; but not necessarily as a proportion; as there are more to be placed and more to spread the good news.

Thirdly, anyone involved in either moduar, modular one school or integrated training will always try to defend and talk up their own preferred route. They are spending a lot of money in the process and don't want to beleive anything other than their route gives them the very best chance.

My story, PPL at school near Witney and school in LA, BGS, CPL at EFT, IR at Aeros, MCC at OATS. On my original airline course which was at the very start of the current recruitment boom when there were hundreds of low hour pilots out there had 3 x Integrated, 3 x Modular (form different schools) and 2 x ex-RAF.
If I had the time and money to train Integrated I probably would have done so some where sunny:cool: , or perhaps I would have gone modular with a cash reserve for a TR in needed!

I want people to thoroughly research their routes to fATPL and choose what is right for them and to see through the hype.

I have it on good authority that Gazeem is actually a 12 year old girl who's still in short dresses :p :p :p

ps was never asked much about training background in the 3 interviews to which I was invited.

Dungarees actually!:)

HP you must be thinking of your other website!

Dungarees? It'll be comfortable shoes next :) My other website? You need to be over 18 and possess a credit card to get into that one!

And to think I was about to set up a meeting with you on match.com, Gaz.

Good advice. Don't plunge headlong into anything without a plan, both financially and in terms of realistic jobs.

Just to add up another bit from my point of view.

Im currently doing the modular route to a fATPL, and really choose is over the intergrated route purely on the cost sides.

At the moment im doing a 6month full time groundschool course at one of the UKs well known schools.

Im heading back to the school where i did my PPL to do my MER, CPL and IR, and then back to this well known school for my MCC.

Having looked into these big 'guinea pig' airline pilot factories like oxford and cabair i cannot see the pros to do the full modular course with them - i could rant on about these for hours, but i wont, if you would like to know my insider views feel free to PM me though.

I to have had the talks on it doesnt matter, you come out with the same qualification, which is true. Doing training at a couple of schools i dont think is a problem, but for example it would be good if you could keep your own personal record of all your training.

The school im attending at the moment offers one of these full modular courses andhaving started the groundschool i have been put off doing it. I had heard many negatives before going, but now im there seeing and hearing what i do, i see no reason why a full modular course at one school is better than doing a mix and max to suit yourself.

At the end of the day, as people have said before me, look at every option and be careful where you put your money. Choose sensibly and hopefully it will reward you in the future. Just remember you get the same qualification in the end.

Scott

My understanding is the benefit of doing modular with someone like OAT is the potential for recommendation to airlines. Simply having the name of the school on your CV won't make any difference unless they have recommended you.

Yep, that's why I said "potential" for recommendation. You're correct, OAT will only put forward modular students if airlines ask for them (apparantly some airlines have in the past asked *only* for modular). So of course it all depends on whether they have an airline asking them for modular students at the right time for you.

It can be slightly more nuanced than that. OAT obviously push their APP product to the airlines as there is a bigger margin in it for them, it is just common sense. However usually the airlines coming to OAT for recommendations will have criteria of their own eg. 85%+ in groundschool, all first series/time passes....etc with no particular preference for APP or modular.

If this happens to occur when the cream of the APP has already been whipped away by BA, GECAT etc. and there isn't a sufficient number of remaining eligible APP candidates, OAT then proceed to put forward modular candidates who do meet the criteria.

That was ye olde systeme before Waypoints was presented as a package. Things might have changed.

sr

Hi CliffordFW,

There's a wealth of old posts on a lot of the stuff in the 'sticky' at the top of the page, but as I'm in a charitable mood...

- Don't know what the hours requirement is off the top of my head, but to be honest whatever it is it's only academic. Pick a number and double it for the hours you spend awake at night imagining a giant wizz-wheel.

- Distance learning courses justify the hours you do by setting a number of tests along the way, which in theory to pass you must have studied for an average of X hours. They will undoubtedly have you in a classroom too, I believe there's a min number of classroom tuition hours but stand to be corrected. BGS's website outlines the course so I won't replicate that.

- CPL first or IR first; do a quick search and you'll see this one has been battled out countless times. Read through and see what you think.

- CPL include the ME rating? Depends on the FTO I suppose. Requirements for the CPL include a complex type - this could be retractable gear/wobbly prop. Download a copy of LASORS 2007 from the CAA website, requirements are in there. You can do a CPL and Multi, with the CPL test done on the multi - this extends the 25hr CPL to 28hrs. It's all in LASORS though.

Regards,
A38

Having worked at a large FTO, I have seen many people do the IR first and the CPL after and they have all struggled with the IR, having not had the benefit of the CPL first. Any cost savings are rapidly wiped out,

TB

I'd recommend doing the CPL first.

Its a logical progression to finish off all the VFR training before switching to IFR training, fellow students who complete the IR first have told me they struggle with the switch back to VFR flight and have to be re-disciplined into getting their head out of the cockpit for the CPL training.

Another issue is partial panel training, depending on which JAR state you decide to train for your IR you may only cover partial panel flying during a full UK 25 hour CPL.

As has been mentioned - the lowest cost route is only that if you don't take any extra time!

How confident do you feel that you are a minimum hours guy?

Modular: Module Question
 

Hi, is it best to hour build and get your 150 hours before taking the ATPL ground school exams? Also is it more beneficial to do your CPL before your IR?

Regards,

FS.

It's a personal thing, but I wouldn't hr build before the ATPLs simply because you wont fly for another 9 months, so when you come to do the CPL you will be awfully rusty.
I would do the ATPLs, fly a "little" bit during them, then when you are done do the hr building then go straight into the CPL.

As for the IR before CPL, again this is a personal choice, and personally I would do the CPL first.

Thanks, i thought as much.