What is the value of an R-ATP

RECOVER

RECOVER

In the void
Greetings,

I am ready to get out of my job and business school (41 hours left) to complete flight training. This question is open to anyone. I am aware of the flight degree requirements and am completely uninterested in business.

What is the value of an 141 R-ATP versus a regular 61 ATP?

I ask this because I have tried to complete flight training over the last 8 years of leaving a 141 school, with not a lot of success, instructors moving on or moving up, and schedule mismatches frequently.

I visited a flight college in the Midwest today and spoke with about 5 people from their aviation dept. The answers on how to get me finished was completely varying. Options came out as such 141 COM-ASEL/COM-AMEL/CFI-ASE to 61 COM-ASEL/CFI-ASE/COM-ME to 2 out of 5 saying 141 COM-ME/Single engine add on/ CFI-ASE

I have private and instrument ASEL from another 141 institution. They stated once completed with application paperwork processing, I would need to meet with academic advisor and chief pilot

I am sitting at ~270 flight hours valid class 2 medical and BFR (not current on instruments and rather rusty, i've been VFR renting local only in the last 6 years)
Hours last 12 months: 7.0
Hours last 6 years: 17.3

Being so rusty, my local flight school part 61 suggested 60-70 hours to get to COM-ASE standards and to refresh all of the knowledge lost. On the 1st 141 track, COM-ASEL/COM-ME is a 120 hour package. I would be starting over on their syllabus with stage checks along the way and ground school.

The whole issue with R-ATP availability is the agreements with certain air carriers with the school upon reaching R-ATP mins. I know there are about 6 ways to do this, but is there a true benefit to starting over, completing the program as 141 and working towards restricted ATP. Do air carriers generally accept agreements if finished under part 61 regular ATP? The ones that were mentioned part 61, stated the excess savings in un-needed flight costs which would put my commercial tickets and CFI ~430-450 hours and that i could become a CFI much faster under part 61. I do like the structure sound of the 141, but either way both are a punch in the wallet. Would 141 give me less hassle?

-J.P.
 
The only reason to go p141 and get a R-ATP would be if you're interested in the airlines. A R-ATP only requires 1000-1250tt. while completing everything p61 would only allow for an ATP when you have 1500tt. Big picture that extra 500 hours shouldn't matter much especially if you have a decent CFI gig and can get hours fairly quickly (500 in 6-7 months). If you're not interested in going 121, I wouldn't worry about R-ATP vs. ATP.

If all you need to do is dust off the rust and get a commercial, I would probably just suggest p61.
 
RECOVER said:
Greetings,

I am ready to get out of my job and business school (41 hours left) to complete flight training. This question is open to anyone. I am aware of the flight degree requirements and am completely uninterested in business.
Click to expand...

There is a common misconception that a flight degree is needed to qualify for a Restricted ATP, but this is not so. Anyone can qualify for a R-ATP at 1,500 hours total time with 200 hours of cross country time (which makes a difference as the extra 300 hours of cross country can be hard to come by), and all the other standard ATP minimums. What certain Flight degrees would qualify you for is a R-ATP at only 1,250 or 1,000 hours TT. Whether it qualifies you for 1,250 or 1,000 TT depends on how many credit hours of approved coursework you completed. The FAA actually approves individual aviation related courses at participating colleges that qualify for the reduced R-ATP minimums. With a Bachelor's degree, you qualify for the 1,000TT minimums with 60 credits of approved courses, or 1,250 with 30 credits of the approved coursework but less than 60. With an Associate's degree, you qualify for 1,250 with at least 30 credits of the approved courses.

But even then you would only qualify for the reduced total time if you attended an educational institution that has been approved for these reduced minimums and completed the required ground and flight training for your Instrument Rating and Commercial Certificate in a part 141 course at that institution (or another flight school that has a letter of agreement with the institution). These requirements are found in 14 CFR 61.160: http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/retrieveECFR?gp&r=PART&n=14y2.0.1.1.2#se14.2.61_1169 . The FAA has a list of educational institutions approved for the lower R-ATP minimums.

In your case, it looks like you may not qualify unless the college you visited is the same 141 school you got your instrument rating at, since the instrument rating has to be from the same school as the degree. But it is possible they might be able to somehow give you credit for it and add it to your transcript, and the FAA might accept it.


RECOVER said:
What is the value of an 141 R-ATP versus a regular 61 ATP?

I ask this because I have tried to complete flight training over the last 8 years of leaving a 141 school, with not a lot of success, instructors moving on or moving up, and schedule mismatches frequently.

I visited a flight college in the Midwest today and spoke with about 5 people from their aviation dept. The answers on how to get me finished was completely varying. Options came out as such 141 COM-ASEL/COM-AMEL/CFI-ASE to 61 COM-ASEL/CFI-ASE/COM-ME to 2 out of 5 saying 141 COM-ME/Single engine add on/ CFI-ASE

I have private and instrument ASEL from another 141 institution. They stated once completed with application paperwork processing, I would need to meet with academic advisor and chief pilot

I am sitting at ~270 flight hours valid class 2 medical and BFR (not current on instruments and rather rusty, i've been VFR renting local only in the last 6 years)
Hours last 12 months: 7.0
Hours last 6 years: 17.3

Being so rusty, my local flight school part 61 suggested 60-70 hours to get to COM-ASE standards and to refresh all of the knowledge lost. On the 1st 141 track, COM-ASEL/COM-ME is a 120 hour package. I would be starting over on their syllabus with stage checks along the way and ground school.

The whole issue with R-ATP availability is the agreements with certain air carriers with the school upon reaching R-ATP mins. I know there are about 6 ways to do this, but is there a true benefit to starting over, completing the program as 141 and working towards restricted ATP. Do air carriers generally accept agreements if finished under part 61 regular ATP? The ones that were mentioned part 61, stated the excess savings in un-needed flight costs which would put my commercial tickets and CFI ~430-450 hours and that i could become a CFI much faster under part 61. I do like the structure sound of the 141, but either way both are a punch in the wallet. Would 141 give me less hassle?

-J.P.
Click to expand...

Since you already have about 270 hours, it looks like you probably meet most of the aeronautical experience requirements for the Commercial certificate already, so it would probably be easiest and cheapest to do it part 61 so you don't have to worry about the minimum times in each lesson for a part 141 course. Yes, it may take a while to learn the commercial maneuvers and knock the rust off to get yourself checkride-ready. But I doubt it would come close to the 120 hours they quoted you for part 141.

Best of luck with getting your commercial certificate, and with starting your career in flying!
 
A degree program only affords you an R-ATP at 1,000 hours if you did 60 credit hours worth of course work that the FAA deems suitable to count towards your training as an ATP, and 1,250 hours if you did 30-59 hours of course work. With less than 30 (which you don't even need to go to college to get less than 30), you can get an R-ATP at 1,500 hours with only 200 XC time as has been stated above.

Unfortunately, my 4 year aviation degree, they were only able to approve 58 of our aviation credit hours towards the R-ATP. Despite the fact I did well over 58 credit hours of aviation coursework. So my degree is only good for 1,250. To further complicate it, my school didn't get my degree approved until right when I hit 1,500 hours. So I just got my R-ATP based off 1,500 hours and having at least 200XC. It was a bum deal, but when I was almost done with school is when the new ATP rules came into effect so I couldn't go back and do anything differently. It only affected my hiring timeline by about 6 months ultimately.

In your position, it would probably be best to not worry about going to an approved aviation program and just get your 1,500 hours and 200XC as its highly likely you can get that time faster than you would if you went to a school and got the reduced time. Ultimately it's a game of time. Which will get you to the airlines the quickest?
 
Also look at the costs per hour of each program. Is going 141 and the associated costs with it worth shaving that 250 hours for goal of obtaining an ATP ?

A busy instructor, picto job or numerous other positions will fly 250 hours in no time.
 
I got my PPL in 98 and flew for fun. In 2012 I had the means to knock out my instrument rating. By the summer of 2014 I realized I had almost 300 hours and was between jobs so I knocked out the Commercial. I flew banners the summer of 15 and did picto work this winter. I now have 1488tt and over 500 cross country. My short coming is my 28 hours of night time but I'll buy most of that at my flying club. It can be done! Don't worry about the "rust". It gets knocked off pretty easy!
 
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