Overwhelmed by the amount of Schools

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Christian R

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I honestly do not even know where to start. But I'll do my best.

I've just started doing some research looking for an adequate school to become a commercial pilot.
I've noticed that ATP comes up a lot. Now I don't know if this is due to a massive advertising campaign or they really are a reputable school. But their website is one of the easiest to understand.

I've contacted a couple other schools to compare, but it is very hard for me to make out important differences as I don't have the slightest idea what to even look for.

So, I guess what I am asking is; What should I look for?
What schools do you recommend and why?
Are there any schools that are known for having an excellent placement record upon completion of the license?
What other questions should I ask?

Some background information:

I'm in my late 20's.
I was a Private Banker extremely bored with my life. (So I have no experience at all or know anything about Pilots, except I'm determined to become one.)
I'm relocating to Miami from Orange County (CA).

Thank you so much for your time in advanced. I can't wait to be a part of the community!
 
As you are finding out, there are many path options from zero to hero. What is you end game?...meaning what do you want to ultimately do with your aviation career? "Commercial Pilot" can be very vague.
 
Shawn said:
As you are finding out, there are many path options from zero to hero. What is you end game?...meaning what do you want to ultimately do with your aviation career? "Commercial Pilot" can be very vague.
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Well, I would like to become a Commercial Pilot for a major airline, but I would also be open to be a private pilot for say a wealthy person or travel around for odd jobs in riskier locations. I am pretty excited and open to any of these possibilities. Or maybe others that I don't even know of.

I would definitely like to take a route in which I could make some decent money and support myself as well.
 
Christian R said:
Well, I would like to become a Commercial Pilot for a major airline, but I would also be open to be a private pilot for say a wealthy person or travel around for odd jobs in riskier locations. I am pretty excited and open to any of these possibilities. Or maybe others that I don't even know of.

I would definitely like to take a route in which I could make some decent money and support myself as well.
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Flight Safety in Vero Beach. When I was at the airline we had a few pilots get hired that came from there, all good pilots and competent.
 
ATP Inc is a puppy mill, fast food education at steak house prices, I'd stay away.

Ideal, get your PPL and build time in a small tailwheel aircraft, or better yet gliders, you'll be a far better pilot for it, you'll save money, possible make actually useful connections with higher time folks, and your resume will stand out quite a bit better.

Here's a glider port locator.
http://www.ssa.org/WhereToFlyMap.asp


What to look for, well it's all the instructor, the name above the schools door isn't important and placement, boy, that's all on you, this industry is a rather tuff nut to crack.

For the CFI, interview a few, pick the one you best get along with, doesn't mean everything, but a good sign, gold seal instructor, airline transport pilot, time as a non instructor working pilot, and having some odd ratings (seaplanes, rotor and fixed wing, gyro copters, parachute rigger, UAS, etc) usually is a good sign of someone who continues to explore and learn in the industry, ask to speak with a couple past students of theirs too if you can.



As some one who is a working pilot, I wouldn't even worry about the airlines or flying in dangerous places for rich folks, that's a decent bit down the line.

For now it's getting your CPL with the least amount of debt, it's being able to move anywhere in the world for those first few jobs.

1 Getting 250hrs and your CPL

2 getting to 500hrs (tuff one), now more jobs open up

3 next, or previous job to get to 1000hrs

4 probably should get some turbine time, hit ATP mins
Now you're viable for a low end airline type job

5 hit 3,000ish hours and now get that nice longer term job.



That's not the only way to go, but it should give you a ruff idea.
 
ps it's "number of schools" not "amount of schools". (You count schools not put em in a measuring cup) I'm sure I'll get flamed but good English is one small part of presenting yourself professionally! :)


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gsengle said:
ps it's "number of schools" not "amount of schools". (You count schools not put em in a measuring cup) I'm sure I'll get flamed but good English is one small part of presenting yourself professionally! :)


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Any airline who would fault you for that, wouldn't be a airline you'd want to deal with everyday for work.

mscard88 said:
Flight Safety in Vero Beach. When I was at the airline we had a few pilots get hired that came from there, all good pilots and competent.
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Nowadays airlines ain't hiring out of schools, ATP mandates and all, if you're getting hired, it's out of job #2 or #3, or #4, no one at the 1500hr mark is likley to even get ask where they got their CPL, at that point in the game no one cares, it's where you've worked and what's in your logs, PRIA, and if you seem like the kind of guy who would fit into the company well.
 
gsengle said:
ps it's "number of schools" not "amount of schools". (You count schools not put em in a measuring cup) I'm sure I'll get flamed but good English is one small part of presenting yourself professionally! :)


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Right? Its the difference between being in a express lane for "12 Items or Less" as opposed to "12 Items or Fewer."
 
Hey you need every advantage. It's not about faulting it's about coming off as smart and decently educated. Pro pilots sweat the small stuff!


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gsengle said:
Hey you need every advantage. It's not about faulting it's about coming off as smart and decently educated. Pro pilots sweat the small stuff!


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No we don't, it's aeronautical triage.

Some have died sweating small stuff though, I recall a story of a warning light coming on in a airliner in the 70s or 80s, the entire crew went full on into figuring out why the light was coming on, no one paid attention to the bigger picture, CFIT and death followed.

But hey, correct the chief pilot on his english during your interview, I'm sure that whole interview board will be super impressed by your linguistic prowess.

There's proof reading your resume, and there's being "that guy".
 
gsengle said:
ps it's "number of schools" not "amount of schools". (You count schools not put em in a measuring cup) I'm sure I'll get flamed but good English is one small part of presenting yourself professionally! :)


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Yup. Saying goodly English be good. Writing... Meh. Who be needing dat. :)

*PS (not ps)
*It's (first word in a sentence is capitalized)
*schools." (Period goes inside the quote)
*em (what's an em?)
*cup. (Periods end a sentence)
*, but (conjunctions require commas)

OP - Sorry. I'm just a PPL. I have nothing useful to add either. Just snark. :). Good luck to you.

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James331 said:
Some have died sweating small stuff though, I recall a story of a warning light coming on in a airliner in the 70s or 80s, the entire crew went full on into figuring out why the light was coming on, no one paid attention to the bigger picture, CFIT and death followed.
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Eastern Airlines Flight 401
 
I'd recommend finding a good part 61 school and proceeding through the ratings with a minimum of debt. Enjoy flying and best of luck on your career!
 
Christian R said:
So I have no experience at all or know anything about Pilots, except I'm determined to become one.
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Think ya might want to start with an intro flight or something to see if you even LIKE flying before you plan the rest of your life??

Also, you mentioned 'make some decent money'. Pilots at entry level airlines and the like eat a lotta Ramen...
 
Lot of it will depend on what you can endure/fund right off the bat. Will you keep working at a current job to fund this? Are you independently wealthy?

I have a buddy that has a very successful wife that is a Dr. She makes good money. The day after he got his 250 hours and commercial certificate, the local charter operator started putting him in the right seat of everything they fly, from Pilatus single engine turbines, Citation jets, King Airs, etc... His log book is now approaching 1000 hours after 8 months, and almost all of it is now turbine time. He will be employable at the airlines less than 12 months after he hit the 250 hour mark.

If you want to fast-track things, I would suggest finding an out of the way, small mom-pop FBO that does flight training and has good weather and airplane availability. Move to the small town location, rent a room for 30-60-90 days and fly every day in the rental plane with the instructor. Get your private done in a short time.

Then proceed to figure out how you go from 40 hours (and a new license) to the 250 hours that it takes to get the first Commercial cert. Lots of ways to get to that point.
 
jordane93 said:
Take an intro flight to see if this is something you even want to pursue.
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Been a long time since I had an intro flight, but does 45 minutes in a 152 seem like good insight into the glamorous life you live as an Airline Pilot?

I would think better advice would be to go hang out at the Radisson Hotel Bar with a bunch of regional airline pilots and their flight attendants, drinking well drinks and eating 1/2 price appetizers after 10pm.
 
JoseCuervo said:
Been a long time since I had an intro flight, but does 45 minutes in a 152 seem like good insight into the glamorous life you live as an Airline Pilot?

I would think better advice would be to go hang out at the Radisson Hotel Bar with a bunch of regional airline pilots and their flight attendants, drinking well drinks and eating 1/2 price appetizers after 10pm.
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We don't stay in nice hotels like the Radisson man!
 
Okay well I have a lot to look up and research. I'm definitely not wealthy, but I've saved enough to survive comfortably for a year and plan to finance the rest. (I have perfect credit) This way I can get as many hours as possible as soon as possible.

Is anyone here located in Miami that can recommend a good flight instructor?
 
Christian R said:
Okay well I have a lot to look up and research. I'm definitely not wealthy, but I've saved enough to survive comfortably for a year and plan to finance the rest. (I have perfect credit) This way I can get as many hours as possible as soon as possible.

Is anyone here located in Miami that can recommend a good flight instructor?
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Figure out what your priorities are in Duration vs. $$$$ vs. Disruption of Life. That will lead you to your chosen path.


If $$$$ are a an issue, and, it is crazy to borrow money for hours/training, in my opinion, then I would NOT train in Miami, I would NOT live in a big city if my goal was saving $$$$.

There are going to be several Phases to your journey.

  1. Zero-to-Private (Requires 40 hours and 30 days if you are smart/dedicated and competent
  2. Private to Commercial (Hours 41-250 and 90 days if you are smart / dedicated and competent
  3. Commercial to Employable (Hours 251-500-ish)
  4. Employable to Really Employable (Hours 500- 1500)
You will have to figure out your path and preferred route in each phase. If actively still working, I would not leave a day job until you get thru Phase 2, if not Phase 3. But, that just complicates and drags things out. It is a personal decision how comfortable you without income while having lots of $$$$$$ expenses.


Figure all the hours from 0-250 are going to cost you at least $100, which means you are at a minimum, spending $25k just on airplanes. Add in 20 hours of instructor for PPL, plus Instrument Instructor time, plus Multi instructor time, plus other costs, and you likely another $3000-5000 in "training expenses" just to get thru Phase 1 and Phase 2. Then you have to figure out how many months of no income / low income you want while pursuing.
 
Get a first class medical. If you hit any issues, it's better to know now, before investing any further resources.
 
Christian R: I completely agree with you about being overwhelmed. Deciding where to conduct your flight training and the overall process is a bear.

I’m not a pilot yet…however I’m in a similar situation as yourself and I share your exact concerns and people have helped me determine if I have the appetite for all the aviation field requirements. Often I would think about just the joy of flying, however I needed to take a holistic approach to becoming a pilot and attending the right flight school.

Before committing your cash to a flight school these recommendations were suggested to me:

1. Read the AIM. Especially the parts on airport procedures (all of which are included in the written test).
2. Read the Flying Handbook.
3. Whatever you do not understand in the flying handbook... search it in YouTube and/or google it. Free online vids can be your second instructor... maybe even first lol... not all CFIs are good.
4. If you’re completely new to aviation, engines, and basic physics then I recommend the aeronautical knowledge handbook. This book tells you EVERYTHING you need to know.
5. Watch vids on takeoffs/landings and basic flight maneuvers.
6. Watch vids on flight instruments.
7. Watch vids about weather.
8. Start studying for the written test now. Buy the private pilot ASA test prep. You can have your written test knocked out before you even take your first lesson.
9. The ASA Test prep is also a good study/info aid. With explanations for each question. If you understand why the answers are the answers your already 80% there knowledge wise. The remaining knowledge you get learn during training by flying the plane and doing cross country's/flight planning and from your CFI.
10. Get your medical done. Third class is all you need for now.
11. After you pass the written, start studying the oral exam guide, and refer and match up the questions with similar ones in the test prep. The oral exam guide is test prep questions in a slightly different format.

I would subscribe to Boldmethod and read their daily aviation topics. This site will also email you quizzes (6-7 questions) on aviation weather, clearance altitudes, aircraft systems, preflight planning, VFR chart symbols, IAP, Approach symbols etc. This site really helps if you are completely new.

Listen to LiveATC.net while viewing Flightradar24.com is also pretty informative as you can listen and view the flight maneuvers (SID, STAR, IAP) of aircraft moving in and around all different classes of airspace.

Good Luck with your aviation training.
 
GB403 said:
Christian R: I completely agree with you about being overwhelmed. Deciding where to conduct your flight training and the overall process is a bear.

I’m not a pilot yet…however I’m in a similar situation as yourself and I share your exact concerns and people have helped me determine if I have the appetite for all the aviation field requirements. Often I would think about just the joy of flying, however I needed to take a holistic approach to becoming a pilot and attending the right flight school.

Before committing your cash to a flight school these recommendations were suggested to me:

1. Read the AIM. Especially the parts on airport procedures (all of which are included in the written test).
2. Read the Flying Handbook.
3. Whatever you do not understand in the flying handbook... search it in YouTube and/or google it. Free online vids can be your second instructor... maybe even first lol... not all CFIs are good.
4. If you’re completely new to aviation, engines, and basic physics then I recommend the aeronautical knowledge handbook. This book tells you EVERYTHING you need to know.
5. Watch vids on takeoffs/landings and basic flight maneuvers.
6. Watch vids on flight instruments.
7. Watch vids about weather.
8. Start studying for the written test now. Buy the private pilot ASA test prep. You can have your written test knocked out before you even take your first lesson.
9. The ASA Test prep is also a good study/info aid. With explanations for each question. If you understand why the answers are the answers your already 80% there knowledge wise. The remaining knowledge you get learn during training by flying the plane and doing cross country's/flight planning and from your CFI.
10. Get your medical done. Third class is all you need for now.
11. After you pass the written, start studying the oral exam guide, and refer and match up the questions with similar ones in the test prep. The oral exam guide is test prep questions in a slightly different format.

I would subscribe to Boldmethod and read their daily aviation topics. This site will also email you quizzes (6-7 questions) on aviation weather, clearance altitudes, aircraft systems, preflight planning, VFR chart symbols, IAP, Approach symbols etc. This site really helps if you are completely new.

Listen to LiveATC.net while viewing Flightradar24.com is also pretty informative as you can listen and view the flight maneuvers (SID, STAR, IAP) of aircraft moving in and around all different classes of airspace.

Good Luck with your aviation training.
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This was extremely helpful. I'm going to start doing this while I move and settle in on the east coast!
 
James331 said:
OH! One thing not mentioned, NEVER, EVER, prepay for flight time, lots of folks have been burned by doing that.
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Good to know, how are they burned? Do you mean by realizing this isn't the career choice they thought it was?
 
Christian R said:
Good to know, how are they burned? Do you mean by realizing this isn't the career choice they thought it was?
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Or the school closing, changing locations, rates, aircrafts, instructors, etc
 
James331 said:
OH! One thing not mentioned, NEVER, EVER, prepay for flight time, lots of folks have been burned by doing that.
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I don't think this is entirely true. Some have been burned, (think Silver State Helocopters), but many save some serious cash by putting about $1000 up front, flying it off, then another $1000 or so. The local school gives about a 10% cut in rental rates for $1000 up front. I do agree that any more than about $1000 in advance should be avoided.
 
Htaylor said:
I don't think this is entirely true. Some have been burned, (think Silver State Helocopters), but many save some serious cash by putting about $1000 up front, flying it off, then another $1000 or so. The local school gives about a 10% cut in rental rates for $1000 up front. I do agree that any more than about $1000 in advance should be avoided.
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Fair enough, but I wouldn't out more than 1k down at a time.
 
James331 said:
Prepaid phone service seems to work well ;)
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That's because the industry stopped giving refunds for poor service on post-paid, decades ago. Having been an insider in that commodity business, literally not a single soul cares in the groups that actually fix things if a single customer has a bad experience.

It takes outages of at least hundreds of accounts to even rise to the level of a ticket that someone will even work on at any quick pace. A hundred thousand subscriber outage might get a standard conference call started with senior staff to troubleshoot it with zero sense of urgency at all, mostly as a normal sort of "oddity" that something is down. And it takes large swaths of a state or multiple states to get an "emergency" conference call going.

And still nobody will really think it's an emergency. It just means you aren't leaving the call without permission to drive home or into the office or wherever you happened to get "stuck" taking the thing. Ten to fifteen people in the "escalation chain" listening in pretending to be interested and listening for mistakes, while one guy or gal drives over to the site and fiddles with the gear that's misbehaving -- usually to figure out why the redundant one didn't come online and force the issue somehow so it will, so you can go to lunch and figure out how to fix the primary later.

Once in a while you'd get a new gung-ho middle manager or new Director level trying to impress and make their chops during a big outage. I've both heard and been the person who had to ask them, "Is anyone bleeding at the CO? (Central Office) If not, settle down. This isn't an emergency."

The ONE type of system you'll get an emotional response from techs and engineers out of in telecom is anything dedicated to 911 service. THAT will get real fires lit under butts. Otherwise, it's just a small blip in traffic today and a slightly lower number of erlangs...
 
What you want to do is get your commercial certificate as soon as you can. Find a school or instructor who will combine commercial with CFI training, because you want to be CFI as quickly as you can.

The reason you to be a CFI is because there are now a number of major airlines that will put you on their payroll as you work as a CFI. You get full benefits and at least in the case of Envoy you can flow to American without a second interview.

There is such a huge shortage of CFIs right now that lots of flight schools will subsidize their new CFIs to earn further ratings.

There has never, ever, in the history of aviation, been a better time to become a professional pilot than today!
 
JimNtexas said:
Find a school or instructor who will combine commercial with CFI training, because you want to be CFI as quickly as you can.
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Where are these schools/instructors? I would love to team up with a CFI for individual training with PPL, Instruments, CPL, and CFI. If not then I guess I will have to attend ATP.
 
JimNtexas said:
There is such a huge shortage of CFIs right now that lots of flight schools will subsidize their new CFIs to earn further ratings.
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I assume there is no public information on this additional rating incentive by flight schools? Is there an example?
 
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