Pan Am / Student Experience

JimmyDean

JimmyDean

Well-Known Member
Hi all,

Since no one is currently playing the role of Pan Am guinea pig, I thought I'd throw my two cents in on the student experience. I'll try to keep a running log of what's going on in my training, and - of course - any prospective students with questions about Pan Am are welcome to fire away.

I can understand the many members who say that you don't need a "professional academy" to receive training to prepare you for a professional career. This is true, but the reasons I chose Pan Am over an FBO are the structure, resources, and stability that a large academy offers. I chose Pan Am over the other major academies for a number of reasons, many of them personal, but mainly because of their location, the professionalism I sensed at the academy, and the upfront attitude of the people I met there. So, long story short, I am happy to share my experiences, but please don't start any flaming of any of the academies. I want this to be a useful tool for people looking to start their professional pilot careers.

I'm currently enrolled in the Pan Am Career Pilot program at Deer Valley Airport in Phoenix. I finished the Private Pilot module of the program this past weekend. My instrument training starts this week.

SO FAR, my experiences have been mostly positive. The training has been very professional and moderately paced. My instructor has had three students at most, and was able to schedule me nearly every day, many times twice a day. I had one lesson cancelled due to weather (thunderstorms along route). Ground school was three weeks, three hours a day, in a class of seven.

One of the things that drew me to Pan Am was the new fleet of Pipers, and I have not been disappointed... yet. I have had no flights cancelled due to maintenance - the one time an issue arose, I was able to get a different aircraft within the hour. The maintenance department is very clean and the planes are in generally excellent condition. ONE CAVEAT: the "air conditioning" the school hypes is mostly bogus. All the planes are equipped with AC, but at any given time only 1/3 of the fleet has operating AC. Pan Am says this is because "Piper can't make the parts fast enough." I have no idea whether this claim is legit.

I am excited to start instrument training, and will keep you updated as I go. And, like I said, any and all questions are welcome!

JimmyDean
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Check The Flying Turkey's thread. He started from scratch there with a log of how his training went. Might be a good reference to let you know what's ahead with yours.
 
I have been trying to catch up with all of the previous content in this forum (there's quite a lot of it), especially The Flying Turkey's log. JC and posters like Turk were a valuable resource in my own choice of where to train. Hopefully I can provide the same for others looking into schools like Pan Am.

Since The Flying Turkey is now flying the line for Piedmont, I can provide some updated information on what's going on here. Also... I know some of the ups and downs of all the schools have probably been discussed in depth in many other threads, so I apologize if I dig up some dead ones.
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Update: IR training starts tomorrow with Sim orientation. IR Groundschool starts Monday the 26th.
 
There have been a number of fairly recent changes in the Pan Am career pilot program that are going to affect current and new students. The school is in the process of converting all new students to the Part 141 curriculum. This is necessary (I believe) because Key Bank will only issue loans to schools that are Title IV accredited. The Part 141 program is the only one that can receive Title IV certification.

Furthermore, the Part 141 syllabus has recently been revised. The Instrument and Commercial programs are now combined into a 79 mission syllabus, broken up into seven phases in three parts. The first part of the syllabus covers the Instrument rating. The second part covers the Commercial Multi-Engine license. The Commercial Single is no longer a part of the intitial program, but can be added on during CFI training. The third part is the Crew Resource Management program. The "route training" is no longer offered as part of the career pilot program (replaced by CRM).

The new syllabus provides additional Dual IFR time (to over 70 hours) and reduces the total time (to about 220 hours) compared with the old program. The increase in Instrument time is a nice addition, since airlines place a heavy emphasis on Instrument competency.

My guess is that this move is designed to mimic the success ATP has had with their Multi-heavy program. Can't be long until we start to see glass cockpit training, too.
 
[ QUOTE ]

ONE CAVEAT: the "air conditioning" the school hypes is mostly bogus. All the planes are equipped with AC, but at any given time only 1/3 of the fleet has operating AC. Pan Am says this is because "Piper can't make the parts fast enough." I have no idea whether this claim is legit.



[/ QUOTE ]

Their claim is correct. I work at a school that has the same issue and that's what the mechanics tell me as well (the mechanics and myself are good friends so I trust 'em). Guess Piper's still recovering from last years hurricane season.
 
The air conditioning issue exsisted at the FPR campus way before last years hurricanes. It was icing on the cake if I got to instruct in an airplane with A/C. Dont know who's fault it was Pan Am or Piper.
 
Instrument training has been going well. Flight Simulator and a joystick are the best $50 investment I've made in the program so far!

Most of the initial IR training is split between the Frasca FTD and flights in the Archer. The sim is useful because you can look at a record of your flight - see if you're flying the patterns correctly, etc. Plus it provides realistic-looking system failures so you can see what to expect if you ever have to fly "actual" partial panel.

My instructor tuned me in to a couple of maintenance seminars put on by the head of the maintenance department this past weekend. Pretty cool to see some of the requirements they have to jump through hoops for. And since we're on the topic of A/C... found out that Pan Am is in the process of applying to the FAA to replace the Piper A/C condensers with another type. I guess this will allow them to put most of the A/C units back in service.
 
Instrument training continues. Passed my first IR stage check on Friday, so my instructor is introducing me to DME arcs and holds. All going well and cheaper than most of the PPL training because a good amount can be done in the sim.

Unfortunately, it looks like one of my classmates is on the verge of failing out. Got his 2nd pink slip for the PPL yesterday. I can't imagine spending so much time and money and failing the checkride - twice! Hope the third time's a charm for him.
 
Got some actual IMC time today... very rare in AZ. Bumped the regular mission up to a cross-country to Prescott. Good to be able to jump on the opportunity to see the "real thing." Back to basics tomorrow!
 
Things have been busy recently, but not much new going on. Just sharpening instrument techniques before starting approaches.

The good news is that I am ahead of schedule and (so far) under budget.

I read recently that another "Pan Am" aviation academy is operating in Beijing, China. According to the best source I could find here, the other school is borrowing the name, but is not affiliated. Hopefully this will not affect the Chinese contract students who are training here. I'm counting on the large number of int'l contract students when I start to instruct - helps make the instructor-student ratio more favorable.
 
Still busy training for the instrument rating as we are starting cross-country flights and shooting approaches all over the valley. Looks like things should be wrapping up around the third week in November. Ground school ended last week.

I noticed a new post on an old thread in this forum about multi time-building. From what I understand, the multi "route training" portion is no longer included in the program. It can still be added on as an option, but if the airlines are going to ignore the time, I see no reason to drop the money on it.
 
Obviously you didn't read the post thoroughly. Be smart use the route program to build time towards your commercial requirements, but hey don't take advice from guys that have been there done that I wouldn't of when I was going through training. By the way does DVT still have that really cute head of scheduling girl, I can't remember her name to save my life but she drove a jeep. She was awesome, used to always hook us up w/planes when we were ferrying them in/out and for the KLM stuff.
 
JimmyDean said:
Still busy training for the instrument rating as we are starting cross-country flights and shooting approaches all over the valley. Looks like things should be wrapping up around the third week in November. Ground school ended last week.

I noticed a new post on an old thread in this forum about multi time-building. From what I understand, the multi "route training" portion is no longer included in the program. It can still be added on as an option, but if the airlines are going to ignore the time, I see no reason to drop the money on it.
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JD is correct. No more route for anyone coming into the program. About 50 hrs will built in through the CPLME program. In addition the initial CFI rating is done in the Seminole as well. The remaining time needed to get someone over the 100hr hump is to be built whilst instructing.

LC
 
RedCFI said:
Obviously you didn't read the post thoroughly. Be smart use the route program to build time towards your commercial requirements, but hey don't take advice from guys that have been there done that I wouldn't of when I was going through training.
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After thoroughly re-reading the post I am still quite certain that route is no longer part of the program.
 
Just completed my 250nm cross-country this week, out to California (my first time there!) and back for a whopping 8 hour day. Got some quality actual time and had to go missed a couple times in San Diego. It's mostly time-building now, my checkride should be sometime this coming week, definitely before Thanksgiving. That's just about two months total for the rating.

I just wanted to clarify: Pan Am is currently still doing the route program, but only for students who are still on the old syllabus. The new all-part 141 syllabus, which is necessary for the school to receive Title IV status (req'd by Key Bank to continue distributing loans), does not include the route program. This syllabus includes the necessary time for the commercial rating in the instrument module. I believe you can still add route on as an option to the new 141 syllabus, but I'm not sure.

Wondering if anyone at other schools is seeing the same shift away from "safety-pilot" multi time?
 
in response to that classmate who got two pink slips; when i was there we had a guy who failed every checkride, some twice (thats a lot of pink slips). he went on to instruct at Panam, and now flys for a Regional.
 
dakovich said:
in response to that classmate who got two pink slips; when i was there we had a guy who failed every checkride, some twice (thats a lot of pink slips). he went on to instruct at Panam, and now flys for a Regional.
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Fortunately, he did end up passing his third attempt, and is now about halfway through the instrument rating.
 
Sorry for the long gap between posts... hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving.

I passed my Instrument checkride yesterday! It took a little longer than I had hoped - about 11 weeks. It turns out the new syllabus was approved with minimum hour requirements that I came up a little short on. These hours are then combined with the CPL module to meet the commercial mins. So, long story short, I had to spend the weekend before Thanksgiving in a simulator for 5 hours. Not the most fun, but I was able to practice a lot of approaches - many that I'll probably never do in the airplane.

The upside is, I now start flying the Seminole! The next rating is Commercial Multi (no Commercial Single until CFI training), so the remainder of my time requirements for CPL will be fulfilled in the twin.

For those of you who are wondering, here are my hour totals since starting at Pan Am in August:

143 hours total
121 hours dual
99 hours PIC
66 hours cross-country
67 hours instrument (3.3 actual)

...all in the Archer. Can't wait to get my feet wet in the twin!
 
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