Private?

DC10FlyBy

Well-Known Member
Hey guys, i'm Evan, 15 years old, sophmore in highschool.
My goal is to become a commercial airline pilot to Europe.
I was just wondering when you think i should start getting my Private License.
Thanks :)
 
It up to you, here in the states, you must be 17 to be elligible for the PPL, and 16 solo. It doesn't take long for most people to solo, maybe 15-20 flight hours, so how quickly that happens depends on how frequently you fly.

If nothing else, GO TO COLLEGE, and...DON'T major in an aviation related field. Find something independent that you enjoy and major in that, do your flying on the side. If you start now you may be able to instruct during college, otherwise you can do your training in college and build time after.
 
Not to sound like a prick but we aren't your parents to tell you what to do. You should know when you're ready, both financially and mentally, to begin your training. You're 15 right now, maybe two years from now you may not want to be a pilot no more. My advice is enjoy your childhood and explore what else sparks your interest before biting the bullet. You never know.....
 
I soloed at 16, private at 17, and instrument at 18, and managed to do it without breaking the bank thanks to scholarships from the local pilots' association and free ground school.
If you want to learn to fly with a teen's cash flow, look into scholarships that your local EAA chapter or pilots' association might offer to high-schoolers. Also, see if your HS or community college offers ground school. I was able to get WA State to pay for my ground school thanks to the Running Start program!
With all of this said, I've lived and breathed aviation as long as I can remember and can't imagine doing anything else for a living. If you haven't flown before, take a Young Eagles flight and an intro lesson to ensure that you're pretty well hooked before you jump into flight training. There are many, many, MANY more lucrative careers than being a beginning professional pilot (being a Wal-Mart greeter, for instance...) so choose your career wisely. If you've looked around these forums long enough, you'll see that the days of making lots of money for little work are long gone for pilots.
Learning to fly takes a large investment of time, money, and effort and requires sacrifices. For instance, I have yet to spend more than $10 on a date not involving flying my GF somewhere :) Also, if you want to be competetive for scholarships, you'll have to have good grades, be able to write a good essay, and interview well. These are skills that translate well when it comes time to apply to colleges and jobs...
 
Not to sound like a prick but we aren't your parents to tell you what to do.

Dude,
He wasn't asking for parental advice, he was asking for professional advice. One of the main reasons for this website existing. As a professional pilot, I think he has the right idea to start gathering information to make decisions. At 15 I knew I wanted to fly, but I was more interested in getting past 3rd base.
 
Whenever you are ready and will not go into debt doing it. Avoiding debt as much as possible is a big plus in the long run of life. It is a long road to your goal, but if you stick with it you can achieve it. If you find along the way it is not for you (hours, pay, away from home, etc.), that is OK. You need to be happy with what you have chosen to do in life. Good luck!
 
Dude,
He wasn't asking for parental advice, he was asking for professional advice. One of the main reasons for this website existing. As a professional pilot, I think he has the right idea to start gathering information to make decisions. At 15 I knew I wanted to fly, but I was more interested in getting past 3rd base.

:yeahthat:

<edited>
 
Not to sound like a prick but we aren't your parents to tell you what to do. You should know when you're ready, both financially and mentally, to begin your training. You're 15 right now, maybe two years from now you may not want to be a pilot no more. My advice is enjoy your childhood and explore what else sparks your interest before biting the bullet. You never know.....

If you have to start a sentence with, "not to sound like a prick.....", then it's probably going to sound like a prick :)

I hear what you're saying though, but maybe he doesn't know and he's just asking for some advice. :) I actually agree with your advice about enjoying childhood & high school. It goes fast, enjoy the ride!
 
If you have to start a sentence with, "not to sound like a prick.....", then it's probably going to sound like a prick :)

I hear what you're saying though, but maybe he doesn't know and he's just asking for some advice. :) I actually agree with your advice about enjoying childhood & high school. It goes fast, enjoy the ride!


LAWL. It's just that these threads tends to be repetitive. I mean is this like the 100th. one for the week on the same topic? Anyways hope you've been well. Last time we "talked" was in the family life forum, i need to catch up on things over there!:D
 
You can actually start training anytime you want to - there is no minimum age.

One thing you might want to check out is glider flying, you are already old enough to solo and you'll be able to get a private pilot certificate when you turn 16. A lot of what you learn flying gliders is transferrable to flying a powered aircraft.

It all depends on how much money you have.

There's a few places you can check out in Joplin, Tulsa or Kansas City for some glider flying in your area.

I knew a kid who soloed at 14, got her private at 16 - she made a soft news story in the local paper - all her friends thought it was neat she had a pilot certificate but didn't have a driver's license.
 
LAWL. It's just that these threads tends to be repetitive. I mean is this like the 100th. one for the week on the same topic? Anyways hope you've been well. Last time we "talked" was in the family life forum, i need to catch up on things over there!:D

This isn't an archive, it is an active message board. Instead of whining and complaining, why not do something productive? If everyone treated new people like you did, this message board would be dead.

To the OP: I recommend waiting about 6 months before you turn 17, so you don't have to worry about your age. The longer you wait between flights, the more money its going to cost.
 
LAWL. It's just that these threads tends to be repetitive. I mean is this like the 100th. one for the week on the same topic? Anyways hope you've been well. Last time we "talked" was in the family life forum, i need to catch up on things over there!:D


How old are you anyways?.......
 
It's difficult to say without knowing you, your maturity level, your parents' attitudes, and your financial resources. I was lucky and started training the day after my 15th birthday, but had to wait a year to solo on my 16th birthday. Private at 17, Instrument at 18, Commercial/CFI at 19. My dad (a Delta pilot) was very supportive and matched whatever money I earned working at the FBO. My mom wasn't very supportive of my flying, because she was always very protective, but she went along with it. Ultimately, they and my CFI determined I was mature enough at that age to start flying. At your age still living under somebody else's roof, frankly their level of support could be a dealbreaker. I always knew from an early age that's what I wanted to do, and back then it was only $45/hr to rent a plane and $18/hr for the instructor, so a PPL costing around $3000 wasn't too unrealistic.

One "selling point" to start earlier: General aviation flying is only going to get more expensive as time goes on; hell, I don't even know how much it costs to rent a plane anymore because it's been so long since I've done it. AOPA has managed to keep user fees for ATC services off the table through constant lobbying in Washington, but looking at the way the rest of the world does things, we're only prolonging the inevidible. Ultimately GA will probably lose the battle 5-10 years from now and it's gonna cost ya to get a weather briefing, file a flight plan, or talk to the tower.
 
Free the apple sauce all over the floor at your local grocery store. You only live once. Being a pilot these days is a long hard road I must say. Some may not agree. However, I will tell you some forks in your road that lay ahead to the airline pilot career.

1. CFI- will cost more time and money in the training process if it's not already enough. If you can see yourself teaching people how to fly correctly at a low time then go for it and be very professional about it. Most CFI's I ever ran across learn at the others expense as they build time for bigger and better things. I encourage you to not take this CFI route if it only means a way to build flight time. There are plenty of these guys already because it is the easiest route to their dream. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to do just put all your heart into it and be dedicated to teaching others.

2. Aggravate;) -people to fly there plane for free to build time until you can work at the very few places that will hirer at 500 hours. Hopefully, no great speed bumps will get in your way at this one place that ...lets you under there wing at 500 hours under a 1 year contract, is getting you to 1200 hours, and paying you just enough to buy toilet paper for one year.

As of now we are playing musical chairs and knocking people out of their chairs even after the music stops. Can't wait till the liners start their own training programs and the paths between crew and no crew are separated to some degree. Will it ever happen?

Good luck in every thing you chose to do.
 
Hey guys, i'm Evan, 15 years old, sophmore in highschool.
My goal is to become a commercial airline pilot to Europe.
I was just wondering when you think i should start getting my Private License.
Thanks :)

Congrats! I took my first flying lesson a month after my 14th b-day, soloed at 16 got my private at 17, my instrument rating at 18, and my commercial at 19. What I mean is, it is doable, start as early as you can, and unless you have incredibly rich folks, you're going to have to work. I remember calculating that at $8/hr I could be one hour of flight training every 15hrs of work or so. GO FOR IT, but be ready to bust ass. Further, be advised that this isn't the easiest and most lucrative career field there is. It was harder after I got my commercial to figure out what to do next. I still don't know what I want to do in aviation, but I think it was exceedingly fun and rewarding to essentially "grow up" in aviation. Its going to be tough, but its worth it in the end. Look in to Civil Air Patrol, it got me a few hours when I was in (I joined at 12 and left at 18) and it will give you an opportunity to learn some of the basics. If this is your dream, don't ever let anyone talk you out of it, I don't care how much so called "experience" they have in the "ways of life." Strive for what you want to do, and so far in my experience, things will typically work out to a version of how you wanted.

As for getting to third base....well, don't get me wrong I was motivated too, but taking you're girlfriend to prom dinner in a plane is just cool.
 
Not to sound like a prick but we aren't your parents to tell you what to do. You should know when you're ready, both financially and mentally, to begin your training. You're 15 right now, maybe two years from now you may not want to be a pilot no more. My advice is enjoy your childhood and explore what else sparks your interest before biting the bullet. You never know.....

You just joined this year and are only 54 posts in and already talking about something being repetitive...you might be missing the point of why Dough (yes that's an h on the end of Doug - but I won't repeat why) started this gig waaay back in the day. Instead of saying what we are not and what we don't do on this site try and help a fellow aviator out. It may pay off some day.
 
Hey guys, i'm Evan, 15 years old, sophmore in highschool.
My goal is to become a commercial airline pilot to Europe.
I was just wondering when you think i should start getting my Private License.
Thanks :)

If you truly want to fly in Europe you may want consider a few things first like, are you even eligible for employment in Europe? You can't just come over and starting working without a work visa or residence. Also, if you training in the US you'll need to convert all your tickets or train under the JAR and not the FAA. You may consider both…

Good luck! It's a long haul but if you really want it it's yours and you can never start to early!
 
Hey guys, i'm Evan, 15 years old, sophmore in highschool.
My goal is to become a commercial airline pilot to Europe.
I was just wondering when you think i should start getting my Private License.
Thanks :)

Evan,

You are wise to begin thinking about what you want out of life at an early age. Its something I wish I did when I was younger.

I would begin with lessons as soon as you have the time (maybe weekends) and the money and start working towards your private which you can get as early as age 17.

Good luck to you on your journey and keep us posted on your progress.
 
Hello Evan, Good for you that you are smart enough to begin thinking about your future now! Starting your career path to become a commercial pilot should start now! That does not mean go jump in an airplane and start your lesson. What you can do is begin the very difficult task of "learning" what it is like to be a commercial pilot. Find several mentors. People already in the business. Maybe an airline pilot, a corp pilot a freight pilot, what ever might interest you. Start ground training. If you want to be a pilot there are things you will HAVE to know and can learn before you ever step foot in an airplane. There are so many different thing you can start RIGHT NOW (including your flight training). You are in a great place that you can take your time and learn at your own pace.
Good luck and most importantly have fun along the way!:nana2:

P.S. don’t worry about asking questions, they are all welcome here!
 
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