ATP Flight School, yay or nay

S

steve_r84

New Member
Im hoping for feedback from current or previous atp students on this one. How is it? Do you feel sufficiently trained and prepared to enter the aviation workforce? Where did you after completing cfi and cfii? Or why did you not complete the course? How much money did you actually end up spending and for what program? Should I go zero to hero or fetch my ppl from a local fbo first?

I'm 32 looking to make a carerer change and this seems appeasing aside from the up front costs. But the idea that I can have 1500 in 2 years, Jumpstart ingredients a career in aviation, sounds really good.

Please share your thoughts and experiences!
 
Go to your local field and get as many ratings there that you possibly can. When you run out of ratings at your local field, then you can look elsewhere.

I won't get into the details on why because it would take a whole book.
 
I started ATP in February, coming into the program with a PPL and about 140 hours TT. I will be headed off to Vegas to complete my CFI ratings (CFI, CFII, MEI) in a week and should be totally done by the end of July. It's not as fast as the brochure, no matter how fast you are.

Like you, I'm in my mid-thirties doing a career-change. The following are my impressions about the program.

FIRSTLY:
You will not succeed at the program unless you make it your full time job, especially during the private and instrument phases. It is immersion training, and requires your availability seven days a week for flying, studying, sim, studying, thinking about and dreaming about aviation.

Pros:
The program is solid, most of the instructors I've worked with have been very competent and genuinely invested in their students' progress, often working a lot of unpaid extra hours to help out.

The fleet is well-maintained, and airworthiness issues are taken care of right away. Any delay in completing the program will not be due to airplane availability.

The curriculum is well-organized and ATP provides a mountain of study material and guides to help you succeed.

It is very fast compared to a mom-and-pop Part 61 op.

Cons:
It is expensive. I was able to self-finance. A lot of the guys who took out loans are looking at some pretty huge monthly payments when they finish their training (if they successfully complete the program). ATP made sense to me as it was comparable / cheaper than attaining all these ratings at a local flying club, but I live in the Bay Area where flying is considerably more expensive than most other places in the country. Do the math for your own situation. (add ~50% to whatever estimates you get from your local flight schools.)

They are a large (the largest?) flying school and as such have a plethora of restrictions on how/when you get to fly. These restrictions are all borne of an abundance of caution and institutional experience, but they can limit the different experiences you have that can help you grow as a pilot. For instance, ATP aircraft are not allowed to land on runways shorter than 4000'. That basically eliminates most of the runways you would visit for funsies as a pilot.

If you go the zero to hero route, the ONLY time you will be alone in the airplane from Private to CFII is for the 10 hours of solo time required for the Private Pilot checkride. The rest of the time you will be flying with an instructor or your crew cross country partner. Also, you don't get to pick your solo x-country routes. You do the same route three times, that you flew with your instructor three times before. They don't leave a lot to chance.

Pilots come out of the program with their MEI CFI CFII without ever truly been PIC. (I mean "truly" as in -- COMPLETELY RESPONSIBLE for the flight -- there's always someone there to back you up / offer an opinion / make sure you don't do something stupid). The first time they're actually seriously in command is when they take up their first ab initio student.

Things move fast. Checkrides are scheduled way before you're ready to take them, in the expectation that when the check ride rolls around you WILL be ready. Sometimes you are, sometimes you aren't.

Depending where you live, you might need to either commute to school or get housing locally.

_______

My recommendation is, at the very least, go log a few flights with an instructor at your local airport find out if aviation is something you want to dump your money and life into. Do not take the loan out and sign up for ATP with 0 hours in your logbook.

If I had to do it again, I would still do the program, based on my financial position and cost comparisons. If the training center wasn't an easy 25 minutes away; if I had to take a loan; if I lived somewhere where flying and flight instruction was cheaper, it probably wouldn't have made sense for me to do ATP.

Hope this helps.

Fix
 
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Getting at least your PPL somewhere else (i.e. local FBO) is a very good idea. An even better idea is to make sure you an obtain a First Class Medical certificate. You only need a Third Class to begin training, but if you have a condition that's disqualifying for a First Class, it's far better to find out before investing the time, effort, and obviously money into a career you can't have.
 
JOEFRIDAY2 said:
Go to your local field and get as many ratings there that you possibly can. When you run out of ratings at your local field, then you can look elsewhere.

I won't get into the details on why because it would take a whole book.
Click to expand...
You should go over to the newer-ish threads in the ATP forum and say that. I was beginning to think everyone had lost their sense of reason... Having kids and changing careers and taking out 10% interest rates on $70,000 loans. That coolaid is freaking scary again.
 
I agree with the above. Figure out how to get at a minimum your PPL at a Pt. 61 shop and experience general aviation. I went to ATP with my PPL / Instrument and around 130 hours TT. I already had learned how to study for writtens and prepare for checkrides. I saw a lot of 0 to hero guys struggle in this area. If you're planning on flying big jets, get a 1st class as well, might as well find out if you have something disqualifying before you dump money into it. Usually it's the same price if not within 20 or 30 bucks.
 
I hope this reply helps. I am around your age and I obtained my Private Pilot License at the local airfield and fell in love with flying and all the fun that brought to my life.
Few years after I decided to obtain all my licenses and ATP Flight School looked like a pretty good decision, given they have full finance option through SallieMae.
I finished their program and got all of my ratings. (IFR, COM SEL, COM MEL, CFI, CFII and MEI) All this took me around 8months, including bad weather, btw. Never failed check ride, but in that case you would experience longer delays).
Airplanes were beautiful, brand new and almost always available. The whole ATP online system and the program is well organized.
I ended up not working for them because of a personal situation at that particular time I finished my training.
Reading this, you would think I recommend the school. Well, maybe for certain type of the people.
Young, push overs, Uniform seekers and thick skin, YES!
Unfortunately, I have to say that my experience was thouroghly disappointing. Customer service is beyond appalling, especially given amount of money we pay to this company. The whole time I felt treated like "piece of crap". The whole training was full of ultimatums, deadlines that made no sense and threats of being kicked out of the training with NO REFUND. Be mindefull when you are signing a contract that you are signing of your money to them and from that moment on u have no rights. This was situation with several different colleagues of mine at this time and not an isolated case.
I have to mention that they took every bit of beauty of flying out of it and make me hate it. On top of it, their restrictions, due to insurance contract, puts limitation on operation, which I believe hindered my flying skills.
After I left ATP with all my licenses, I joined very busy flight school as instructor which allowed me to develop in well rounded pilot. Their words were "we will allow you to fly here", and short after I learned what they meant.
I love every second spend in the air and would choose this career over and over again.
With regret I say thats not the case with ATP.
 
You've already seen some sage advice here. I came to this forum 10 years ago with roughly the same questions. I opted not to go to ATP.

I believe the advice to get your PPL independently is sound. I'll add one thing to it - get your PPL in a low-tech taildragger and get spin endorsed in the process. That gives you a couple things right off the top:

1) Private Pilot Certificate
2) Tailwheel Endorsement
3) Spin Endorsement (which you will need for CFI later if you choose that route.)

I do hold the opinion that learning to fly a tailwheel makes you a better pilot - it certainly improved my skills to the point when I returned to a tricycle-geared airplane my coordination was noticeably smoother. And they're just a hell of a lot more fun. :-)

I made the decision - after joining here - to treat aviation as more of a journey than a destination. It's STILL a destination, but I also decided to focus on life, finances and my career while keeping the passion of flying alive. It was the right decision for me to make. I've had some terrific, wonderful flying experiences that you simply cannot get if all your flying dollars are locked into a program like ATPs. That was the choice I made.
 
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