Parabellum
New Member
In response to Al's popular thread, I thought it might be a good idea for us to each share a little bit about how each of us plan to eventually make it to an airline cockpit. That way, future people like him with no prior knowledge of where to start can get some useful initial guidance. I guess I'll start.
I went on my first flight when I was 15, and was definately hooked on flying from then on. At that time, I wasn't yet sure that I wanted to fly for the airlines, but I certainly wanted to fly light planes for the rest of my life at least. However, since I wasn't yet old enough to solo or get a PPL, I decided to wait a couple more years before officially beginning training.
When I finally started training, I had a blast. I started training out of Centennial Airport because it was the closest GA airport to my house. Luckily, it was also (and still is) the busiest GA airport in the country. This gave me an incredible advantage of learning to fly with busy airport traffic and to make my radio skills top notch.
I ran into a pitfall during my private training for a couple of reasons. One was due to life circumstances during high school that are too off topic to discuss. The second was the fact that I couldn't find a decent instructor. Without me knowing it, most of the instructors at the school seemed to only care about building hours for themselves rather than seeing me succeed as a new pilot. Unfortunately, I didn't realize this until it was too late, and I had already paid for more flight time and dual instruction hours than necessary.
So I left the flight school at Centennial and took my private training to the Fort Collins/Loveland airport. I took it there for two reasons. One, the flight school seemed to have a better operation going. Two, I figured I may as well get started there because I would be going to school there at Colorado State University in the fall (which is where I'm still attending school now). With excellent help from my new instructor, I was able to get out of my pitfall and passed my private checkride in July 2001.
I still fly out of that airport, and am taking my checkride for my instrument rating on Monday. But now that I'm short on cash, I've taken up a job here at the Fort Collins K-Mart for only a little more than minimum wage. But I don't care, its money for me to fly on, and the job really isn't that bad. Its giving me good customer service experience, improving my abilities to pay attention to small details (a very important skill in flying), and it feels great to actually work and EARN something for a change. The money I get from there will be used to build time towards my commercial certificate, and hopefully my CFI as well.
That's all I have planned for aviation in the short-run. I figure from then on, I'll be able to build adequate time as a CFI to eventually fly for a regional and then a major. But I obviously have not planned that out in detail yet. I'm working on a degree in business with a concentration in computer information systems, and may also do a minor in computer science. I'm doing it because computers are another big passion of mine, and I feel that if I had gone for an aviation degree, I would always wonder what I could have learned about computers that I didn't.
Well that's my story. Fire away boys.
I went on my first flight when I was 15, and was definately hooked on flying from then on. At that time, I wasn't yet sure that I wanted to fly for the airlines, but I certainly wanted to fly light planes for the rest of my life at least. However, since I wasn't yet old enough to solo or get a PPL, I decided to wait a couple more years before officially beginning training.
When I finally started training, I had a blast. I started training out of Centennial Airport because it was the closest GA airport to my house. Luckily, it was also (and still is) the busiest GA airport in the country. This gave me an incredible advantage of learning to fly with busy airport traffic and to make my radio skills top notch.
I ran into a pitfall during my private training for a couple of reasons. One was due to life circumstances during high school that are too off topic to discuss. The second was the fact that I couldn't find a decent instructor. Without me knowing it, most of the instructors at the school seemed to only care about building hours for themselves rather than seeing me succeed as a new pilot. Unfortunately, I didn't realize this until it was too late, and I had already paid for more flight time and dual instruction hours than necessary.
So I left the flight school at Centennial and took my private training to the Fort Collins/Loveland airport. I took it there for two reasons. One, the flight school seemed to have a better operation going. Two, I figured I may as well get started there because I would be going to school there at Colorado State University in the fall (which is where I'm still attending school now). With excellent help from my new instructor, I was able to get out of my pitfall and passed my private checkride in July 2001.
I still fly out of that airport, and am taking my checkride for my instrument rating on Monday. But now that I'm short on cash, I've taken up a job here at the Fort Collins K-Mart for only a little more than minimum wage. But I don't care, its money for me to fly on, and the job really isn't that bad. Its giving me good customer service experience, improving my abilities to pay attention to small details (a very important skill in flying), and it feels great to actually work and EARN something for a change. The money I get from there will be used to build time towards my commercial certificate, and hopefully my CFI as well.
That's all I have planned for aviation in the short-run. I figure from then on, I'll be able to build adequate time as a CFI to eventually fly for a regional and then a major. But I obviously have not planned that out in detail yet. I'm working on a degree in business with a concentration in computer information systems, and may also do a minor in computer science. I'm doing it because computers are another big passion of mine, and I feel that if I had gone for an aviation degree, I would always wonder what I could have learned about computers that I didn't.
Well that's my story. Fire away boys.