Climb150

120 hours? 10 years ago when I did it the difference was about 40 hours from an integrated CPL/IR. 30 SEP 10 MEP. With an extra 100+ Sim hours on what is done in a traditional MCC.

Saving for the training school? Fail to see how when they’re running training on a high end sim and the MPL was a bit cheaper.

Saving for the airline? How? The only element of input they have is the type rating. Which costs the same for anyone. MPL students require more base and line training sectors, so if anything it costs more?

Think there is a poor understanding of the actual content of any integrated course, MPL or CPL. I had a PPL with about 80 hours total when I started the MPL and finished with more hours than students on a fresh CPL/IR course so those numbers don’t quite add up. For what it’s worth, I have an ATPL now, 5500 hours, 3 type ratings from different airlines, and have still gone in and out of GA over the years. I’ve seen some superb guys and girls from both training mechanisms. Some people struggle a bit regardless of their route, you can’t cater for individual weaknesses that don’t show until the student is well into whatever course they choose. Such a flawed argument to say you’ve flown with a low houred MPL who struggled in a crosswind. Great, I’ve flown with ATPL’s who’ve struggled with hand flying a descending turn. I’ve jumpseated CPL’s who can’t nail a rotation rate for love nor money. Regurgitating hot air from people who (like we all do) are proud of their training journey decades ago doesn’t really give much value. I have a friend who’s doing his ATPL theory at the moment and I sit there in my ivory tower talking about NDB’s and my disbelief they don’t have to use a CRP-5 now. Aren’t I a hero.

The problem isn’t the course, it’s the current climate. You can’t get an MPL without completing a type rating, which has to be attached to an ATO at an airline. Which obviously isn’t happening at the moment. Follow all the advice out there and unless you have money to burn, do it the modular route and save yourself some stress and anxiety down the line.

Have you attended a MPL program or attending one now? Otherwise I don't think you should comment "Which obviously isn't happening" as the type rating just requires TGL's from the airlines side, which most MPL schools pay the airlines to conduct, especially in these times. I've seen it happen.

I am told that the local HMRC office agreed to the bond scheme in the distant past, but the continuing agreement was contingent on there being a reasonable take-up from airlines 'buying' the bond and then discharging it through an element of pay. When that ceased to be the case, but the bond scheme continued anyway, it raised questions from different sections of HMRC about VAT avoidance, as the primary benefit to the ATO seems to have been that no VAT was paid on a large element of the training costs.

If you have that necessary burning ambition to fly, then crack on with obtaining your Class One Medical, then complete your PPL,
then “head in the books”.
Asking all these Qs might possibly indicate that you lack the focused determination necessary for the modular route.
Decision time matey........

Do reference Alex's post, it is pretty much what I have been told previously and it is the reason it is no longer offered.

Shafting the cadets but making them feel as though they have been given a bargain deal, there is a special place for the people responsible for the scheme and it's in jail.

parkfell

Sorry, I'm confused by how you come to that conclusion!

I've been desperate to do it my whole life although I've only recently found out that I have a chance of getting the medical.

I was initially looking at taking the integrated route, but was advised not to by people on here, so focussed on going down the modular route, but now it seems I'm hearing many discouraging noises about that as well!

As I say, I'm really not sure how you've decided that I lack the determination... Surely the fact that I'm asking constant questions shows that I'm absolutely determined (and determined to get it right!)

MachBrum

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

It is also worth noting that nearly every hour of flying, be it in an aircraft or a simulator, is structured on the MPL. There are far more hours observed by instructors in which to have poor technique corrected.

The simulator also allowed training at max crosswind limits. I consider crosswind landings to be a strength of mine so I just don’t accept that MPL students are somehow defective in this area. If anything, they are likely to have had more practice; and all of it under the scrutiny of an instructor.

UPRT was a headline focus of the course. We were given aerobatics training to build recovery skills in a real aircraft. In the simulator these techniques were repeatedly honed for the jet.

I have no experience of a traditional course, so you won’t find me criticising those who hold an ATPL.

In my time as an A320 trainer with both CPL and MPL cadets, my opinion is that the MPL cadets were most definately lacking in not only their manual flying ability, but their confidence to fly manually. Some other curious observations was the lack of basic ability to taxi the aircraft. A rather candid confession from one student on the way to the aircraft led to him telling of how limited the sim time was, necessitating the aircraft being positioned at the holding point ready to fly. The little things we take for granted like braking and overshooting the nosewheel on tight turns was left out. This was easily trained but it, and other areas led me to believe that the MPL was not a complete package. (the process, NOT the students).
As good as modern sims are, I don't believe that they were ever designed for "learn to fly" type of use. There is more to learn in light aircraft than just flying around. Many of the MPL cadets didn't quite have a firm grasp on the realities of some situations. The rain repellent button doesn't freeze real life, it just squirts stuff on the screen.
The old fashioned CPL has served generations of pilots well and while there obviously are outliers at either end of the curve, a solid consolidation of the basics is essential. Is the MPL the way of the future? In my opinion NO, but there must be a better way to find a middle ground. The good parts of the MPL could be used as a faster step to full ATPL rather than bypassing so much of the old fashioned CPL flying.
Of course, every course is only as good as the individual on it. And indeed the company employing it. If it is used as a tool to get the shiny jet job and wear cool sunnies and take selfies in the cockpit at an airline that is using to fast-track cadets as it's too cheap to employ experience, then it's doomed to fail. If it is seen as a different pathway with it's own limitations and failings and a supplimentary method to crew the airline, then there could be a future. But I do think it needs work. You cant build a house from the roof down.

An addition/correction to the 1500/250 FAA comment(s) above.

Until a few years ago, the minimum certificate required for the FO was "just" a commercial certificate with SIC type rating. ATP typically came with upgrade to Captain. Congress raised the minimum to ATP and 1500 hours, to "solve" a problem that had nothing to do with lack of an ATP.

The minimum flight time to get hired, however, was much higher. About 20 years ago it was possible to get a regional job with 500 hours. Not super likely, but it was happening. The reality: in the mid 80s I worked with a Navy pilot who was leaving active duty and looking for a job. He had 1800 hours - all of it turbine time (T-34C, King Air, P-3). Delta told him, "go get 200 more hours in anything. Without 2000 hours we can't touch you."

There was a comment above "how do you get to 1500 hours" when "there's only so much instructing one can do." (Paraphrasing.) In the US there is a very robust General Aviation world. There enough people learning to fly that most new 250-hour instructors can find a place to instruct and build 4-500 hours a year. Along the way they often get right seat opportunities in someone's charter twin.

"1500 hours and ATP" is new, but the reality is that with few exceptions no one was getting airline jobs with less than 1,000 hours. With 1,500 hours a competent pilot will quite likely get hired and the actual ATP training and type rating will be paid for by the hiring airline.

As hinted at above, waiting for an instructor to accumulate 1,500 hours in the European/UK market would not work. So, the entire airline, hiring, training, etc, industry has developed around the European/UK model of flying - essentially parallel paths of hobby and professional.

The USAF puts a 250-hour new pilot in training for a C-17. the Navy does the same with P-8s. So why not the same for an A320 or B737? I don't see that the European model has safety stats any better/worse than the US model. (There is a difference, the military training has a couple hundred hours of flying around in King Airs before moving into the jets...)

I can see that an MPL graduate is certainly better at reading checklists and following SOPs as that's what they did for many hours. Likewise I can see that an fATPL graduate is better at weather decisions and steep turns in a Pa-28 as that's what they did for many hours. After a couple hundred hours in the right seat their "history" has begun to average out.

As an American riding around in LoCos around Europe/UK for many years I never wondered "is there a 250-hour-wonder in the right seat? Should I be scared?" or thought "I'm crossing 'the pond' on Delta so I'm safe with a skilled crew up front."

I was in the jump seat of a C-17 leaving Baghdad at the end of my tour. Flying into Kuwait. We're cleared to land on 12R. The wind is perpendicular to us, 12-24kts. There's an Air Force Captain in the left seat (so more than four years service) and a 1st Lieutenant in the right seat actually flying (less that four years). Boom. We're suddenly left of 12L! Yes. It happened that quickly. The Lieutenant said, "What do I do?" That's not the question you want to hear. "Lower the upwind wing and use top rudder" was the answer - the same thing I did in hundreds or hours of Pa-28/C172 time...

dream747

Saying that an airline uses a particular school because they can monitor quality is only slightly true. Most schools with ties to airlines use that link to charge top dollar for their product and in my experience the airline and school have a financial arrangement.

If integrated was so good why is L3 now advertising modular as the best thing now days? Because no airline is hiring but they need people to buy their product.

I worked at an airline that had a feeder school but also hired modular students from other schools. The training failure rate between the feeder school and modular students was identical.

Start the Modular route once issued with a Class One. Aim to complete 2023/24. Keep the day job up to the point you are offered employment in aviation. Avoid going into debt. Simple.

An experienced FI will know by 20 hours or so flying whether the student is likely to succeed without undue difficulty: struggle (training risk):
or wasting their time.
This would be the time to cut your losses, and bail out.
Terribly difficult decisions are sometimes necessary in marginal cases and save the trainee tens of thousand of dollars/euros etc.

The ‘no hopers’ ( although some would say: ‘never say never’ ) are clear cut and probably easier to deal with.

A decisive decision at this point would reduce the failure rate by a significant amount.

It might not however please the beancounters at the feeder school. Depends how the contract is written.

Climb150

If airlines in Europe are open and unbiased towards students that went the modular way, that would be a good reason to go the modular way. In my part of the world, students getting their licences from accredited schools are vital to their job prospects, mainly because the integrated programmes are audited by the aviation authorities and are tailored to prepare students for the airline environment. If a candidate who did his training in a “non-approved” school is hired by an airline, he would to go through training again in a accredited school with a reduced syllabus just to get his standards in line with the rest.

With the increasing number of cadet pilot schemes run by airlines here and in EU, it could be difficult if one’s training background is not similar to those cadet pilots especially if supply exceeds demand.

As for the MPL programme, it is similar here whereby one needs to a type rating attached to it in order for this licence to be of any use. We can only hope that the airlines do the right thing by resuming the training of those guys who have their course interrupted by this crappy pandemic.

I've always been a proponent of modular over integrated as I am of the opinion that it gives the student more control and the option to bail out at any point.

The MPL was pushed into place by airlines that have jets and the focus, advantage and get out clauses are all airline, not student focused.
You'd do well to remember that.

With a modular route you can take all the time you need in a more manageable financial outlay over whatever period is required.
It will provide you with some more protection against market up, market down, illness, funding etc

Have heard of far too many MPL students not finish over the past few years for me to believe it is a prudent investment for any young student pilot to get involved with.

My advice is to keep it old school. It gives you more options.

Modular at best.
Integrated if you have the money available to pony up if you run out of time / hours etc
MPL - to be avoided.

The days of airlines preferring Integrated over modular died with L3. You can also do modular faster than you can Integrated for half the price.

I have line trained new copilots from MPL as well as non-MPL ab-initio courses as well as "self-sponsored" pilots. Due to different selection/aptitude criteria applied over time it is not possible to attribute differences to the method of training alone. I couldn't say that I found any obvious differences between MPL and non-MPL trainees but some correlation between a higher number of simulator sessions and subsequent performance on the line. Most of my trainees had close to minimum hours (around 200, MPL even less) and I don't consider that a problem. The US 1500 hour requirement is great from an industrial point of view as it raises the bar for joining but there's nothing in it that grades the quality of those hours between training and employment. They can give you great experience but do not necessarily. I had more than minimum hours when joining myself and would not miss those hours, although I consider the VFR cross-country hours more instructive than most of the towing. While not the best way to learn, narrowly avoiding killing yourself when flying alone does have a training effect.

When MPL was "invented" I always thought that the general idea of a mission-tailored training is good, but that I'd only recommend it if offered by a large, respectable airline. Having seen hundreds of Lufthansa MPL students "stranded" somewhere along their MPL path I would not recommend it at all unless accompanied by a "convert to ATPL" guarantee by a training Organization "too large to fail" or structured in a manner that would allow you to convert to conventional with minimal cost (some ATOs seem to offer that).

You need to understand that converting your MPL to another operator's MPL is a major effort for the new recipient's training department which only makes sense if they need a lot of pilots. There's no sense in establishing a conversion syllabus/programme with the authority for just one or two cadets.

1500 hours in the USA is really to stop low time people working for poor wages on the way to that Legacy airline. US regional airlines had to dramaticallyimprove pay and conditions once the 1500 rule came in.
What bad habits are people learning between 200 and 1500 hours? Getting better at cross wind landing? Getting to fly more complex aircraft? This bad habits tripe was peddled by the integrated schools trying to tell that if you go any other way the airlines won't hire you.

I wholeheartedly agree. I lean't more flying single pilot IFR after my CPL/IR training than I ever did elsewhere. It made me engage my brain like I hadn't needed to do before. Completing flight training is only the start of the journey.

It's great that UPRT was a 'headline focus' of your course. However, I would humbly suggest that anybody giving you aerobatics training didn't really understand what real world challenges are presented by Flight Upsets resulting from LOC-I, nor how to train for them effectively.

Good point. I am continually amazed that aerobatics is conflated with structured uprt. They are quite different or should be.

Absolutely correct. Sadly there are still a lot of organisations in the industry - ATOs, airlines, regulators, TRI/TREs, flying instructors and some UPRT ATOs - who are a long way away from understanding what ICAATEE, LOCART, IATA, ICAO and EASA through two RMGs resulting in Decision 2019/025/R for UPRT in FSTDs and 2019/005/R for on-aircraft UPRT are trying to achieve.

Sadly this industry is full of documents, acronyms and legal buzzwords that only the crazed lawyers can understand.

Regular acro is a building block necessary before any meaningful UPRT. It's maintaining an oriented picture of the world with respect to yourself now, a picture (or several) for the future, and acting on that picture with appropriate control inputs.

Doing that (which in itself can be disorienting and overwhelming for many) in a planned manner with some time to sort out the pieces in your mind, is a prerequisite to doing the same except with no planning, and suddenly being thrown into the situation. That's a hundred times more disorienting and overwhelming.

It's like, you do a rectangular course over a farm field with a student before starting into circuits, right? (Well, maybe not, I don't know what you do in Europe, but go with me here.) A circuit has all the elements of a rectangular course, plus so much more. You give them a chance to learn those elements, before throwing the rest at them at the same time. You wouldn't say that the 2 maneuvers shouldn't be conflated because one doesn't have "the real world challenges" of the other. Or, say, learning how to just track a course at a level altitude before introducing ILS'es...

Our MPL students typically struggled during the initial period due to the aforementioned lack of manual handling skills, airmanship, and decision making ability. Many reasons for this of course but it was a definite observed trend.

99% had ironed this out by the 1500hr point and achieved parity with their Atpl colleagues.

Don’t forget, the MPL course IS NOT there to benefit the student. It is cheaper to produce, less time consuming, and ties the student to a prospective airline during the ‘danger period’ where they are most likely to seek pastures new!

There is no need for me to repeat the endless horror stories here, but this years events have proved decisively that this course offers nil protection to MPL student, and should not be your first choice when planning a career in aviation.

Goaround737 has summer it up. By 1500 hours just about everyone is the same. Some things I was told from instructors at former intergrated schools are as follow,

The argument that the airlines like intergrated students cause they you are a known product is nosense. This is just to convince you that you won't get a job if you go modular.

You will get bad habits if you go modular and airlines don't like it. Another ridiculous statement made by schools to scare you into integrated.

All those people who went bush flying in Africa or instructing must be so full of bad habits they will never get airline jobs!

Climb 150,

I have worked with cadets for over 20 years and speak from experience rather than “what somebody has told me.” Those airlines that have cadet programmes have traditionally taken pilots with little or no experience into those programmes as a full time course of approved training. That training has traditionally taken 12-18 months. There is nothing new in this, it was happening back in the 1960’s. It was an apprenticeship programme where the school dovetailed into advanced training with the sponsoring airline. The training was by definition always integrated. At the conclusion of the course the student obtained their licence with around 200-250 hours of flying time, but the course was all geared to the receiving airlines requirements.

For pilots obtaining their licence by any other civilian method in their own time, at their own pace, and institutes of their choice the requirements involved a minimum of 700 hours. If you wanted to go “bush flying in Africa” for remuneration you would likely have had a minimum of 700 hours before you ever could! Trust me, I spent thousands of hours doing just that. Airlines wouldn’t give you the time of day unless you had thousands of hours of similar experience, and even when they did it was likely to be on a turboprop or if you were very lucky a small jet.

When JAA (the forerunner) of EASA came into being, they harmonised the commercial licensing requirements (quite distinct to any preference most Airlines had). All forms of remunerated “aerial work” then required a CPL whereas that hadn’t previously been the case ( you could previously instruct for money with a PPL and an Instructors rating). This brought the system more into line with ICAO requirements and indeed those that long existed in the USA under their FAR’s. It didn’t mean that a 250 hour CPL holder suddenly became the airlines golden ticket.

The 200 hour airline pilot is a relatively rare commodity and certainly always has been. The idea that every 250 hour CPL holder is just what the airlines want despite this conspiracy that it depends on a modular/integrated argument isn’t generally true.

You left out the introduction of the BCPL, Bealzebub, and the opportunity for Modular BCPL holders to upgrade to CPL with a BCPL to CPL upgrade course, which put them on a par with the integrated cadets in the recruitment stakes. From that point the genii was out of the bottle and modular and integrated candidates stood an equal chance of employment. To their credit, the modular candidates held up well and the steady and consistent feedback from Andy O'Shea of Ryanair shows that where an airline was open minded enough to consider modular candidates they were as good or bad as the integrated candidates. That put an end to the 'integrated is better' argument, the only thing left for CTC et al was the suggestion that some airlines somehow preferred integrated students and, to be fair, for a while some did but in the end the dominoes fell and nearly everyone (possibly everyone?) accepted both modular cadets and integrated cadets equally. What was left to justify the high prices? Only the MPL. "Train with us and you will be 'tagged' for Easyjet". Yes, that worked for the marketing team, until it didn't. It will be interesting to see how the next surge of demand is satisfied.

I did Alex, because the BCPL was a very short term phenomenon that wasn’t really relevant. It was a Basic commercial pilots licence that was upgradable as you have said. The CPL (in the U.K.) had been slashed from a (non-approved) 700 hour requirement to a 250 hour licence as it became the benchmark “aerial work licence.” This brought it into line with most other ICAO member states licences. The BCPL was an irrelevance with regards to airline employment. Even in the pre-JAR days a 700 hour CPL/IR holder was going to struggle to find airline employment. The exception was full time integrated students who had come through the “approved school” programmes that were either wholly owned or affiliated to specific airlines with properly structured cadet programmes. Examples being BEA/BOAC/British airways from Hamble. AST Perth, and Oxford, to companies such as Britannia and others.

The BCPL was a short lived stepping stone to the (non-approved) CPL. It wasn’t a bridge to an (approved) course. I never met a holder of one and clearly it’s longevity was doomed at onset.

Pre-JAA, many of the airlines would recruit from three sources. The military was a popular recruiting ground and satisfied a significant proportion of most recruiting rounds. The approved schools supplied an element of recruits into those airlines with affiliated and structured cadet programmes. The remainder was what then referred to as “ Self improvers.” These were (as now) those pilots who had worked their way through the system obtaining their CPL/IR with a minimum of 700 hours and then gone on to work their way through third and second tier jobs to get the experience levels that airlines usually set as benchmark levels for employment. Generally those levels were 2500-3000 hours of which at least 500 hours were “turbine” or multi engine experience. This latter group comprised a significant source of airline employment and produced a great many excellent pilots. Of the three groups, without doubt, the attrition rates were always highest in the “self improvers.”

JAA, as well as slashing the CPL experience requirements also occurred at about the same time as the appearance of the so called “lo-co operators.” Andy O’Shea’s boss famously suggested that two pilots in the flightdeck was (in his view) one two many. The next best thing was to find the cheapest way of putting a pilot there and taking advantage of a large supply of source material was a good way of achieving that aim. This clearly opened up a pathway that hadn’t really existed before. Of course the laws of supply and demand only work to that goal when the source remains plentiful and this clearly opened up the floodgates that remain to this day. Many other airlines sourced their cadets from the modern incarnations of the previously “approved schools” with the added advantage of gradually shifting almost the entire financial risk burden to those aspirants. The growth in these schools with tied programmes expanded to fill the drop in military sourced candidates as that source shrank,

The MPL was an evolution designed to update the “apprenticeship” training of fully integrated cadet programmes. A good idea in principle. The problem was in practice it’s success relied on the economic success of the participating airlines on an individual basis. As I recall, Stirling Airways in Denmark was a primary adopter and its corporate demise highlighted the problem. A problem that has been reinforced many times since then with changes evolving as a result. As an airline apprenticeship on an ab-initio basis, I believe it was a good concept and the results I have experienced certainly bear that out.

as you say, it will be interesting to see how this evolves going forward. I would like to see a two path route into airline flying. The basic requirement being either an ATPL (and 1500 hours) for unstructured candidates and an MPL obtained by a full time course of relevant structured training to airline requirements for apprenticeship “cadet” programmes. In many ways this would bring the requirements back to where they existed pre-JAA and to a certain extent where they already are in North America. Whilst awaiting the howls of protest, I would say that if supply becomes problematic I would expect the consumers (airlines) to either have to reach into their own pocket more than they have had to in recent years, or perhaps Mr O’Shea’s boss will be granted his wish from his own personal Genie.

https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-n...ercial-flights

I just finished one. Government funded like most education here so no debt at least, which seem to be the only good thing right now. Completed in cooperation with a certain Scandinavian Airline (haha).
B737 rating with 0 hours, ~100 or so on SEP and 170 in FNPTII/FFS.

Not sure what to do now, we're not tied to one airline as some seem to think. We are free to apply wherever, although will probably take a few years until the airlines will start hiring on a decent level. If I knew what the airline industry is like and how vonourable it can be I would have chosen the CPL path instead of the MPL path, I had the choice back in 2019 as there are two sponsored pilot schools with 20 spots per year here, but I chose the MPL road because things were looking good then. Would never ever pay for MPL training, too much risk now in hindsight. I feel my chances of landing a job in the future market is low with the hours I have and a rating with no hours. I have a PPL/SEP rating so I'm guessing my best bet is to do a CPL conversion to be less restricted on where I can apply and how airlines see my application.

Any advice from more experienced people?

I wouldn't spend any money on a CPL conversion. There are only a few jobs for which a CPL will be beneficial, i.e. you will be the PIC of a CS-23 airplane, and those vacancies will most likely be filled by guys who have a couple of hundred hours more than you. Contrary to common believe, most business jets are CS-25 airplanes, so no advantage there either.

Try to keep your 737 rating current for two reasons: a) there's a good chance that one day you'll be assessed on 737 simulator and for that you should be on top of your game, after all you're type-rated on the airplane, and b) most training departments would like you to have a current ME/IR upon joining, even if it's not strictly necessary.

I just feel like many airlines doesn't recognize the MPL for their applicants, most just say CPL ME/IR in their ads. But maybe that is because MPL is probably extremely uncommon in their applicants. Ryanair for example does not hold the MPL as a valid certificate in their cadet program..

Regarding the CPL conversion, i'd keep my rating valid and when you're "unlocking" the MPL for single pilot ops with the CPL the IR/ME comes with it. And everything would be kept valid with the yearly 737 PC, this is why i am considering it. Not sure anyway, one of the good parts is that I would be able to fly single pilot IFR to keep current with those parts and IFR time feels like it would be more attractive to a possible employer. Not sure though as I said, never been to a real interview except the one for school where the airline essentially recruited us.