Career Path

[RickA]

I would like to introduce my overall plan for flight training. Please give me some advice on how realistsic and what obstacles I would face with this plan. I currently only have 21 college hours. I am deployed in Iraq and will return home in a few months. My ultimate goal is to make a career change to an airline pilot. After lots of research I've decided to go to ATP for my private and ACPP very soon after coming home. Assuming all goes well, after the fast track private and ACPP, which should take around 6 months, I hope to instruct for ATP for a while. Then I'd hope to be hired by a regional such as American Eagle / Express Jet. While instructing and maybe during training I plan on taking online college courses through UVSC which is listed on ATP's website. From there I'd hope to finish with a 4-year degree and continue to fly for the regional and move up from there. Aside from the challenging training and financing the training, is there anything about my plan that is unrealistic? Will it be a major challenge for me to get hired by a regional without a college degree? Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

-RickA

 

[jetguy35]

I am currently attending ATP. I am in the private pilot program currently and will start the ACPP in April. I have 70+ college credits as of right now. I plan to instruct after I finish the program and take online classes through a school like Embry Riddle so that I can get free credit hours for the flying I have done. So it seems like my plan is like yours. Regionals do hire without degrees. Although a degree I'm sure will put you ahead of non-degree applicants. But there is such a shortage on pilots that I'm sure you can get to most any regional without a degree. It's kind of hard for them to be picky when they pay 22K to starting FO's.

Ben

 

[HighFlyingIL]

The military should help you pay for some of your training depending on the branch your in. I have a flight instructor im with right now that was in the Army for 5 years total and they paid for 80% of his flight training, and he just recently got hired by Mesa Regional Airlines... March 10th is his last day flight instructing.

Will you be hired by a regional without college? Yes. Will you be a PRIME CANIDATE for getting Ferloughed for a while... HELL YES. It's not worth the turbine time if you ask me. I DONT HAVE ANY COLLEGE AT ALL, but heres my plan of attack.

So far I've been instructing full time for about 3 months now. I'm currently enrolled with Univ. of Phoenix to get my Psychology Major. NOW, with that being said you have 2 options... get your Associates (2 yrs. of college), have around 2,300 hours total time, and somehow build up your multi-engine time WHILE going through the regional training still working on your bachelors and flying regional... OR! the way that i'm going is like this. 4 years of college for my Bachelors, and i'll have around 5000 hrs. of total time. 500 of which will be multi-engine and out of that 500 multi engine 100hrs. will be in a Cheyenne and/or King Air 200 both of which are TURBO PROP.

If you apply to the airline you WANT to work for and your resume' shows College Bachelors Degree, 5,000hrs total time, 500 multi-engine, and 200 of those 500 hours are turbo-prop time... THATS the kind of resume' the airlines want to see and you'll have NO PROBLEM getting hired. You wouldn't even need your ATP written at that point.

What exactly is the ACPP program you guys are going through?

BTW, the guy who made the first response I see your in Algonquin, IL. Im guessing you got to the ATP at KARR? I'm going to be doing my multi-engine out of that school in a few months.

 

[SIUav8er]

The military should help you pay for some of your training depending on the branch your in.

Not at ATP though. The GI bill will pay for examiners fees, but thats it. ATP is part 61. if you want the military to pay for flight training, you have to go to a part 141 approved school.

As for the original poster, your plan sounds great. Hold off on the college until your done with training though...its gonna be a pretty intense 5 months! Its blast though and IMO ATP is a great school. Of course they have problems like anywhere else, but its still a great place to train and instruct.

 

[meyers9163]

So let me put a little rain on this party... Plan sounds great... however man you just served our country and there are quite a few places that will help you save COST and give you exactly what ATP will.... At the very least you deserve this for what you have just done. There are quite a few of our sponors on here that have GA bennies and are well deserved for people like you. Heck I know not too long ago Ariben had something for vets in which you would only pay a fraction of the cost you would at ATP and do as much ME time as you would at ATP. In addition there are many places out there you can do training and count it towards college credit. It sounds like a great plan from many young people in training right now wanting to get in while the regionals are hiring. Got news for ya we are short on pilots and all studies are indicating until 2014 as of right now. Honestly its NOT too late to go and take advantage of your GA bennies and get your college education and also knock some ratings out as well. In fact who knows what could be up at American Eagle if you waited.. If that's really your goal right now AE isnt a great place for people to go who want to make a career as an airline pilot. ANyways with that said hopefully some more of the senior 121 guys will come on and respond. However I think you owe it to yourself NOT to get into the 60-70k debt that ATP will get you into and do some research and take advantage of the bennies you have deserved and earned as part of serving our country...... Honestly this isnt a DIG at ATP..... This is something ATP needs to get and get approved so people like this man could attend and get a better price...... All I can say in closing is do some more research.... I tell ya what one of our fellow JCers just interviewed at Delta and didnt get a position. But his interview started off asking about his college experience..... I dont know how it would look if he said, "my college experience started off while I was at skywest online with course." No he did a 4 year degree the old fashion way... They seem a hell of a lot more impressed with that then they would have if he said "oh i did my degree though Pheonix"..... Just things to think about... Do some more research and let us know what you come up with!

 

[Clocks]

Will you be hired by a regional without college? Yes. Will you be a PRIME CANIDATE for getting Ferloughed for a while... HELL YES.

The only thing that decides whether or not you get furloughed is your seniority number. Once you are hired whether you have a college degree or not doesn't matter (but it will later, so get it!).