slightly older pilot person

i think i’m too old to try and realise this dream and i would have to sacrifice other things i love such as motorbikes/where i live etc i am truly grateful to all who replied as i was able to make an informed decision before skinting myself. i have decided to not even take my PPL as this would i’m sure give me the bug and its better to be poor rather than have lost riches

thanks again to deano and galdri.

This is the biggest thing soft, if you want to justify the expenditure with the end salary then it probably is not worth it, at least in the first few years of employment anyway, because age is not on our side, the likelyhood of walking straight onto a jet is pretty slim but not impossible, personally I would be more than happy with a command on a Dash-8 Q400 for FlyBe, the bigger question comes when someone offers you a right hand seat on a 737 or 320 for alot more money. Personally I am in the position to be able to spend the money on flight training and not worry too much if I don’t make it or end up flying Cessna caravans around Africa for a few years, the problem for me will come if I do not get employment, because when the money I have aside dries up I will have to stop flying because I am losing my job at the end of the year, of course unless I start instructing which will have to be a must, the bottom line is, you have to ask yourself how much you really want to fly for a living, and if you really want to do it that badly then the expenditure should not be a limiting factor, but on the other hand you must be in a position to be able to afford for it all to go wrong. If you are careful you can get all the training done for about £40k modular, this will include a few stints to the States for hr building etc, or even your PPL first.
As far as your house goes, sometimes there are ways & means of staying where you are, at least for the first year or two whilst gaining experience & making yourself more marketable for a right hand seat on a jet, personally I would even go to the lengths of living in a caravan if I felt that was necessary, again, everything boils down to how much you want to do it, and how much support you get from the loved ones, at the moment I am in a position where I will do “whatever it takes” to realise my goal, but then my other ½ is behind me 200%, which is ½ the battle.

Anyway, again god luck soft, keep us updated

Rgds

Dean

well thanks for the advice. but realistically this is looking like a no go.
one of the reasons being the cost to put myself in the position to be able to fly proffessionally will not justify the end salary although it would be a fantastic career .i just wish that i had made the decision 4 yrs ago before i moved to inverness as if i were to move from here what i would gain in career satisfaction etc i would lose in my house and lifestyle.
from what i can gather after looking into this the line training and type rating is a bit of a cartel its not as if you are gauranteed a position once you have paid over £10,0000 for the type rating to take such a gamble would make me not be able to sleep at night. then moving to a much smaller house in a new area(again)
i spose i could try and get pictures of stellios in compromising positions???

many thanks for the words of wisdom guys i’ll be in touch.

However, I would like to take issue with the 14000 Euros for the type rating on the 737. I’m sure you can FIND a place prepared to give you a rating for that kind of money, but what is the training like? Would you really know the first thing about flying the beast? This is one of the areas where it does not pay to go for the cheap option. Go for a good, quality training. It will cost you money, but will save you a lot of troble later.

I concur totally galdri, quality is the way to go, but I think with this organisation there are hidden costs, I think the training is a very good standard, one of the hidden costs are that when you come to fly the thing they charge you 7,000 euros for the 6 touch & go’s you have to do, amongst other things, what you really want is a no nonsense approach, and go to an organsation that does exactly what it says on the tin

As for building hrs galdri is right, an instructor’s rating is generally the way to go, galdri has over estimated on the price a little bit here, you can get one in the UK for about £5,000,

…………….. also galdri is correct regading hrs on type after you have obtained a nice shiny type rating, you can pick up a 737 TR for about 14,000 euros if you shop around
Dean

Ok, I admit! I multiplied the wrong way around 😮 5000 pounds for an instructors rating is about correct.

However, I would like to take issue with the 14000 Euros for the type rating on the 737. I’m sure you can FIND a place prepared to give you a rating for that kind of money, but what is the training like? Would you really know the first thing about flying the beast? This is one of the areas where it does not pay to go for the cheap option. Go for a good, quality training. It will cost you money, but will save you a lot of troble later.

Soft

Apologies for my late response, got tied up then had to leave for work (where I am now at present 🙁 )

Galdri has pretty much summed it up but I will give you my experience & views anyway as I am going the modular route and have just completed the ATPL examinations and am starting the CPL in a few weeks as long as the hour building goes well.

Basically I started the ATPL examination study in Feb 2005, but I didn’t really hit it that hard, I was picking my books up now & again, we also had a 7 month old girl with the wife 4 months pregnant again, the horror. I was then picking the books up once every few weeks which was not good enough, so to motivate me I booked the 2 week brush-up course & exam week for the October & November, I was then studying every single day from about June/July onwards for the brush up which was 3 weeks into October (24th I think), now, I only work a 3 day week, but 14hrs a day & night alternating which includes the travelling to & from work so this gave me some time to complete the studying on my days off, but it was damn hard work, especially having such a young family and my 2nd born in the July of last year, anyway I took the exams which finished about mid November, but then took a break from studying (because believe me if you didn’t know what brain ache was you will by the time you finished the first module), I started Mod 2 mid December and I finished the exams Mid May. I now have 40hrs hour building to complete which I hope to do within a few weeks if the weather stays kind, then it’s the CPL/IR MER & MCC, I plan to have this done by Christmas, you can see the timescale coming from this which will be as galdri said, about 18 months, I would say yours may take you a while longer due to the fact that you have not got your PPL yet and also no hours on top, I think I had about 90hrs when I started the ATPLs.
You will be very very fortunate to obtain a place on a sponsorship scheme, like me you are a little too old, you can try the CTC wings scheme but I am sure you are too old for this, also what are your academic qualifications? because they stipulate a minimum 2 a’levels or a degree, your best bet is modular like myself to be honest.
As for building hrs galdri is right, an instructor’s rating is generally the way to go, galdri has over estimated on the price a little bit here, you can get one in the UK for about £5,000, I am going to do mine after Christmas when I get made redundant from work, at least I’ll have plenty of time on my hands to do it haha, also galdri is correct regading hrs on type after you have obtained a nice shiny type rating, you can pick up a 737 TR for about 14,000 euros if you shop around, there’s a good discussion on PPRuNe at the moment regarding 737 & 320 TRs. The A320 TR will set you back a bit more than the 737 TR.
The MCC in the UK will set you back basically what you are prepared to pay for one, generally between £2,000 & £6,000, you can go with the CTC scheme, to which there is a selection process to be accepted, then if you make the grade they place you with an airline with a TR paid for, you will have a 6 month contract unpaid but will get sector payments, then after the 6 months the airline may keep you employed if there is a need for you, this is the route I am going to take but I have to act fast because the max age for this is 34, and you have to be within 3 months of your 34th birthday.
As galdri said regarding jobs, you will have to be prepared to move anywhere, and if you wish to open your opportunities even more then you will have to be prepared to move to Europe as well, not just the UK, someone of our age Soft, I would target the turboprop operators first, ones like FlyBe & BA Connect, they do take modular older guys with low hrs because these guys are less likely to wander off to a shiny jet at the first opportunity.

Anyway good luck in your ventures, keep us informed as to how it all goes, if you need to know anything just post here, there are always guys willing to help out, or PM me and I’ll give you my phone number even if it’s purely for moral support

Rgds

Dean

Hi Soft,

Be careful talking to Instructors about things like this. They want your buissnes to keep bread on the table, so they will not give you all the home truths about ‘being a pilot’. Go and find someone that is actually flying for the airlines to get an honest, down to earth answer. Initially they will tell you ‘Yeah it’s great!’, but if you start talking about how they got there in the first place, you’ll find that it is a rocky road indeed for all but the fortunate few.

very many thanks for the advice.
i would much rather have real advice even if it is negative than false advice. as to travel this road is going to cost an awful lot of money . i will look into the line training with various airlines and maybe even go and speak to the flying school to clear things up in my head a little. i live only 4 miles from inverness airport so i may try to get a 5 minute chat with a pilot if possible to see what the current line training situation is. i really appreciate you spending the time to type all the information in i know it can be a little laborious so thank you very much.i’ll let you know how i get on

cheers PT

I may not be the best quilified person to answer your questions, but I’ll give it a go.
1. The length of time to finish the Modular Frozen ATPL depends on two things. First of all MONEY, and the second is TIME. If you have the money and the time you could reasonably expect to finish in about 18 months time. In that case, it would be more or less a full time job, so you can expect little or no income while getting it done. Judging by your comments about ab initio training, I guess that would not be possible. So it really is all up to you! One thing to bear in mind, though, is that after all the theoretical exams for the frozen ATPL have been passed, you have only 24 months timebracket to finish the flying part.

2 and 3 together. I do not know of any sponsorship programs at the moment, all that I’ve heard about is what you are descriping, ie. ‘You learn to fly with us, and you MIGHT have a change with so and so’. But I must admit that I’ve not been listening to the grapevine with this in mind. It is not too bad for the tops of class, they will probably get to work for So and So through this arrangement, but the majority, probably, will be left standing. If you are the unlucky one, then you will find the going hard indeed. Very few airlines take on pilots with only 200 hrs fresh out of school (ok, they are out there, but very very few). That will mean hourbuilding, up to at least, say, 500 hrs. That can be done several ways. You could get your self an instructor rating (lots of money, think in the region of 10000 pounds all told) and start hourbuilding that way, but the pay is not high at all. Route two is to find a gliding – or para club that needs a pilot. It will get you the hours, but it will involve a lot of hanging around the airfield on very little (next to nothing) pay, so your income to pay off the loans, presumably taken to finish the licence, will be very limited. The third route is to take out another loan and do the hour building by renting a plane to fly around. (that will be very, very expensive). Once you have hit the 500+ hour mark, and there is still no F/O position in sight, what do you do?

A lot of pilots (even with 200 hrs. total) go for a typerating, ie, they pay a lot of money to learn to fly a specific type of aircraft. A Boeing 737 type rating will set you back about 20.000 pounds. And that is not the complete story, because if you want to go for a typerating you will have to have a valid twin IR (included in most frozen ATPL courses) and an MCC rating (not always included in the frozen ATPL courses). An MCC rating will set you back about 5000 pounds if it is not included in your basic course. There is even one more snag, once you have finished your ground school and simulator for a certain aircraft type, and passed the checkride, you are still not a fully fledged pilot on type and few airlines want a pilot that is not fully qulified (but they are out there, Ill come back to that in a minute) To be let loose, as we call it, you need 40 sectors or 100 hours under the supervision of a line training captain. This is called line training. Some airlines in the UK, flying the B737, charge you for the privilage of flying for them during line training. The latest prize I heard was 10000 pounds for 100 hrs (heard on the grapevine, truthfullness not known). Other airlines (mainly eastern European) will pay you about 700 Euros a month during linetraining, and if you pass the line check, they will offer you a job with 1400 Euros a month. Given the chance, I would rather go for the UK line training, even though it costs money, as the training is genarally top notch. The eastern European way of doing things, in this respect, leaves a lot to be desired. I know, as I’ve had the ‘pleasure’ of re-training some of the guys that went there.

And this is the Catch 22 that you so correctly descripe in your post. The airlines are accepting pilots with less and less total time, but with lots of hours on type. That’s how they do it. They expect You to pay the training cost, that once was theirs. The MCC, the type rating, and the line training has to be paid by YOU, when you end up in this situation. On top of that, you’ll have to live on, say, 1400 Euros a month for some time while waiting for some opening somewhere with a decent pay check.

All that I’ve written above is a worst case thing. Maybe You’ll get lucky and be working with a decent paycheck right out of school. But I don’t think I would be doing you any favours by blowing sunshine up ……..(you know what 😉 😀 😀 ). I’ve seen exactly this scenario happen to a lot of people that I’m currently working with.

4. I’m trying not to generalize here, but I think you’ll find it pretty much impossible to live in Inverness once you get a job. First of all, the rosters with many of the smaller operators can only be descriped as ‘forcasts’ of work. They WILL change and what was supposed to be a day of might not be, and to find that out while just walking in the door at home after a four hour travel to spend a few days with the family can be very irritating (been there, done that, got the t-shirt). Besides, most operators WILL use you to the maximum allowed, and with the smaller ones, you will probably not get more than maybe 7 whole days off in a month (the legal minimum, at least here in Iceland), and it is a regulatory requirement for them to give you at least 36 hrs. off every 7 days (Icelandic rules again), so there you’ll have 2 days off every seven days. If it is possible for you to travel home to Inverness, spend time with your family, and travel back again in that time, fine. But then you would be keeping two households, one where you work and one back home in Inverness, and that will cost a lot of money! Even if you are with the big ones, Ryanair or EasyJet or Thomas Cook or what ever, You would need to keep two homes if you intend to live in Inverness.
The only guys that do not have to think about this are the long haul guys, (BA, Virgin, etc, etc,) they can live anywhere they like, because they go away and are gone for a week or two on some round the globe trip. When they come to the UK, they will probably be left to their own devices for one or two weeks before being called up on to work again!

This has grown a lot longer than I thought when I first set out! But this is how it looks from my view point. It may look a bit pessimistic, but this is how it works for most of us. Like I said earlier, I’m not trying to blow sunshine up …………, I’m just being honest.

Hope you still want to consider the ATPL. It would be my honour to fly with you one of those days 😀 😀

HIya Soft

I am currently doing my Modular ATPL CPL/IR etc, I have to pop out now for an hr but when I get back I’ll answer your questions

Dean

cheers for the reply cloud 9
but one of the issues is that i cannot just leave my (very well paid but little satisfaction)current job to go and study at university for three years!!.at some point the mortgage company would walk into my house and repossess it??
maybe when i was 18 this would have been an ace option but i would have been more likely at that time to have gone into the royal navy as a pilot.
unfortunately with defence cuts that happenned in 1992 (options for change) as a result of the end of the cold war and russia’s struggle to remain a superpower pretty much stopping there were no places for naval pilots and even my artificer apprenticeship was put back for 4 months.

for this reason the modular route is (for me )the way ahead or so i think ?!

also your link does not work.

many thanks PT

Welcome to the forums!

As a shameless plug, the university I have just finished studying at offer a degree in commerical pilots training. It takes three years, and you get your frozen ATPL. PM me if you want more details.