Would like to be a pilot, need some help...

J

Johnny20

New Member
I’d like to take the career path to become a pilot, but need some opinions.

How many of you have moved away for flight training rather it be an academy or a regular flight school? Reason I ask this is I have a local school near me, but it's not a busy school, the chief CFI said they get 1-3 students in there ground school. I'd like to go to a school where there is more people attending a school as you have the possibility for more connections down the road. I like to become a CFI, so choosing a school that is busy will also keep me busy teaching. As I heard most schools hire students that train with them.

I work 2 weeks then get one week off. I'm considering working at this job for another 1-2 yrs save up enough coin and do flight training where I can go each day if the weather corporates. Is the best way to do lesson to try and go each day as you don’t have to keep doing review on stuff you have forgot.

Have had the debate flight school / academy where you save a good chunk of change by attending a local flight school. Also in the ballpark is the possibility of doing a 4 yr online degree and do the degree well I’m a CFI.

Appreciate Comments
 
I moved down to Florida from New York for the CAPT (big mistake) program. If you have a local school, I'd say stay with your local school. You have to realize that it's not just flight school you're paying for. It's your cost of living as well and that includes, but is not limited to:

* rent
* food
* car (payments/insurance/gas/maintenance)
* social engagements

Going to a school that's "busy" doesn't mean a thing. If you think networking with a bunch of people doing the same training is going to help you get a job, you're mistaken. None of these people can give you an edge into the industry. What matters the most to airlines is your flight experience. That means the more hours you have, the better off you are. Regionals are looking for at the very least 1000 hours of total time and 100 hours of multi-engine time. Of course, if you can put more on the books, it can only help you. I've met a lot of people in aviation and while they're good people, helping you into the door is quite another story. Be careful about programs like CAPT out there. These programs may sell you the story about how their training will give you great aeronautical decision making and CRM and judgement, those are just buzz words to get your money. If you want all that, you do your research and read up on NTSB studies, talk to as many pilots as you can, and pick up some books. Other buzz words are "guaranteed interviews" and "guaranteed hire". Ask them to give you documentation and all the fine prints before you write them a check.

A small school translates to a small enviornment which translates to more personal attention, relaxed environment to learn and ask questions. And during your primary training, you're going to be in an airplane with one other guy (your CFI). It doesn't get any bigger than that. CAPT sells you this idea of Pilot Monitoring experience, which is time they charge you for but means absolutel NOTHING to airlines or the FAA. As PM, you sit in the back and watch the other guy fly. For the most part, everyone I know either looks out the window or sleeps until it's their turn to fly. A total waste of time. Going the CFI route is definitely a good direction. You can always look for a CFI job after you get that certification. With all the buzz about how people will get hired in the airlines means that current CFIs will be moving into those pilot jobs while opening up CFI jobs for you when you get there.

You could potentially save a lot of money going to a local school. And supporting a local business is certainly better than some corporate outfit. Training is based on standards set by the FAA so you can be assured that your training won't be too far off the mark compared to these programs out there. Remember, they got a lot of people's money to put together a lot of binders and glossy pictures for you when you get there. But if you're willing to skip on all that, aeronautical knowledge is everywhere on the FAA's web site and in print publications. Don't find yourself in debt doing the flight training either. I made that mistake with CAPT and my life's pretty much ruined as a result. I'd focus on getting that 4-year degree first and foremost. You're not going to get far anywhere without it. With a degree you're looking at making pretty descent money. With a job in the regionals, you'll be making absolutely crap the first year and in the $25-35K the following 4 years.

As with anyone that inquire about this career choice, I caution you to do some serious research and ask a ton of questions before you spend a dollar on it. You could find yourself ruined like me.
 
Ninja... good post and good info. But I see a common theme in your posts about "ruining your life." I just urge you to try and think to the positive, work to get yourself out of debt, and chalk it all up to a learning experience. Your life is not ruined unless you let it. Don't let CAPT have that victory over you. A successful person accepts failure, learns from it, and actively pursues success. I know it's hard, and it sucks, and you feel screwed, but drive on.
 
ChinookDriver said:
Ninja... good post and good info. But I see a common theme in your posts about "ruining your life." I just urge you to try and think to the positive, work to get yourself out of debt, and chalk it all up to a learning experience. Your life is not ruined unless you let it. Don't let CAPT have that victory over you. A successful person accepts failure, learns from it, and actively pursues success. I know it's hard, and it sucks, and you feel screwed, but drive on.
Click to expand...

Oh, I understand all about success and failures. And I understand the life is what you make of it. If you knew all the details of my situation you wouldn't have posted your post. Believe me when I say my life is ruined.
 
Flying Ninja said:
Oh, I understand all about success and failures. And I understand the life is what you make of it. If you knew all the details of my situation you wouldn't have posted your post. Believe me when I say my life is ruined.
Click to expand...

Fair enough... my bad. Good luck.
 
I attended a large academy for training. Knowing what I know now, I would have taken the local flight school route. I do highly recommend that you be cautious with the glam flight academies. I have blown a lot of money on one, and now I am in much more debt than I need to be. I got a private loan (Key Bank) to pay for the flight training, 4.23% when I signed, and now interest is 8.76% and climbing, with no limit that I know of (I am really nervous about that).
Attending a local flight school where you can share rent with someone, or live with your parents is a much cheaper way to go. If you need money, try to aim for a federal loan, where interest can remain locked at a low rate - I have heard of rates like 2.75% locked.
I have observed that it does not matter whether you attend a great big flight school or a local mom and pop school. In fact, the flight academy I attended promised an interview with an airline. When the time came, the school refused to provide their connection, so I went out and got a 121 job on my own.
Even though there may be some good academies and some lousy mom and pop schools out there, I do recommend finding the most economic route, and support your local flight school.
 
Ninja,
The only thing you can do now is to look at the bright side and try to have a good attitude. It is not the end of the world. Yes, it seems you got a raw deal (I have read ALL of your posts). It does seem as though you can continue on eventually though.
You DID come out of all this with SOME education, hours, certificates, etc…did you not?

I have made some horrific mistakes myself. Let me give this for an example:
I got out of the AF to get a degree, simply so I could go back in as a pilot. Instead of being smart about it and using my GI Bill bennies to get a relevant aviation degree and flight training, I go to a community college, do well, and get delusions of grandeur and transfer to Cornell University to get a degree in Psychology. Because of the outrageous costs of such a school, I drive a tractor-trailer to Brooklyn every night, studying in the sleeper berth at my unload point, and rush back to go to school. Now at ivy league schools you compete for your grades. I was competing with kids that had no worries and all the time in the world. My motivation was drained from this and the fact that my eyesight dropped outside of the minimum AF requirements.
That and having to work to pay for an expensive education earned me a degree 6 semesters later with a whopping 1.96GPA and $30K in loans in the hole (Not a $100K I agree, but bad enough). Combine that with my wifes $60K (Half from college loans, the other half from being dumb and racking up credit card debt), and life was looking pretty bleak. After a short stage of feeling sorry for myself, much like you seem to be, I realized only I could make it better and decided that it was time to work hard and pay a lot of things off. Making the Cornell degree virtually useless, I began dispatching for trucking companies. It took me two years of VERY hard work to earn my way to a $70K/yr corporate job as a logistics analyst. This is not what I had in mind for a career, but it is quickly getting rid of all that debt, and I am proud of myself for getting here despite it all.

My wife’s credit card debt will be gone by the end of this year. My college loans are going down faster than a standard payment schedule. I had enough to buy a nice expensive house, that I do a project a month on to ensure I will make money when I sell. I splurged and bought a BMW last year and still afford to double up on just about every payment I have (except the house).

Now I am finally in the position to try for that flying career I have wanted since childhood. The BMW is getting traded for a Nissan Altima this weekend, and my first flying lesson in ten years is scheduled for Saturday morning! Once all of our debts are paid off (A year or so from now), I will be taking that big plunge, at 31 years old, into a fast track school. Despite all the negative posts about it, I still want to be a pilot. I invite you to come spend a week at my current job and see why.

There are always bumps in the road man. How you respond to them is very important. Your plans have been changed, and I bet it won’t be the only time it happens if you continue in flying. Adjust accordingly and keep moving toward your goal. Sacrifice is a big part of it. It is going to be a BIG sacrifice going from the earnings I am making today back into the poor world, but I KNOW it will be worth it.
 
LoadMasterC141,

Thanks for the encouragement. I'm glad that you were able to dig yourself back out of your situation and making strides toward your goals. There are differences between you and I however. I'm already 34. If I was your age and able to pull out the way you did, I'd try to get into aviation. As you have already experienced, it's going to take me years (many more than yours because my debt is larger and growing) to get out of mine. You also have a second income (wife) which I don't have the benefits of. No chick is going to provide charity (or anything else for that matter) because I'm dirt poor. Plus, it's not my style anyway. By the time I get out of my hole, I'll have to start saving money just so that I can survive the low pay scales at the regionals. No. It makes no sense. Since hopefully I'll be making a steady income that's going to be better than the regionals.

I'm calling for curtains on aviation as a career. Me telling my sad story isn't an attempt to solicit pity. It's to give people who are thinking about going into aviation or toying with the idea a very real and very harsh reality that they need to consider. If any positive is coming out of my demise, it'll be educating people so that they don't fall into my situation. You're right that what I do now is important. I get up everyday to the rumbling of jets landing/departing from KJFK as a daily reminder as to why I need to wake up and work: to pay off the debt. And I go to sleep to the jets landing/departing from KJFK as a final reminder as to why I need to sleep: to get up in the morning to go to work and pay off the debt. Believe me, that kind of mental torture is comparable to the harsh times you've experienced. Except I live mine everyday. I suspect after my debt has been paid off, I'd have lost all taste for aviation.

Yes, I did get my certifications and hours from my flight training. Do you want them? They won't do me any good. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about FAR 61.27. I do have a plan for the future. Just not one that involves me and a career flying.
 
Dude,
I am barely 3 years younger than you, have 27.6 hours in a small plane from 10 years ago (Lower than I originally thought) and have just now decided to give aviation a go. Your stories do help, I promise, but I feel that you are WAY to down on yourself in the telling of them.

I would gladly give up my wifes salary ($39K/Yr) if all the debt she has went with it, and the debt of hers I have already paid off.

You should be able to pay that debt off in less time than you think. Work your tail off! 2 years from now, you could easily be in that regional job.
Get a job as a CFI on the weekends so you can enjoy SOMETHING as well and make just a little extra dough as well. About the only thing you have going for you in your current location is that you can live at home. NYC and surrounding area is an outrageous cost of living. Hell, I am from Syracuse, moved to Temple Texas a year ago, and feel like I got a 10-15% raise just in the MUCH lower cost of living. I could never imagine trying to live near that damn city.

If you think you can go do a different job, never entering professional aviation again, go for it. I am on the other side of the coin knowing I cannot handle doing something I do not love.
 
I'm quite certain I mentioned that CAPT does not give you your CFI certification. So that means I'll have to somehow find an additional $4000 and an unknown number of weekends to get that certification. I simply have no money to do that. And it's not going to take me less than 2 years to pay this debt off. After taxes, my take home pay isn't all that. I pay $250 per month just to commute to work. Add that to my $1000 per month loan payments. Believe me. There isn't a lot left. Whatever is left is going into saving for an emergency fund in case I lose my job and can't find another for months.

I can't even figure out how to keep my IFR currency I'm so poor. I can't carry passengers (expired recency) so my buddy can't legally act as safety pilot. My IFR currency runs out at the end of June. At $160/hour for a Cessna, it's going to cost me a lot of money just to do three laps around the pattern, pick up the buddy, and shoot six approaches, hold, and track/intercept. The only way we can do it is to do a flight together against regulations and be illegal and unsafe. The illegal part I don't care about, but the unsafe part is what's keeping me grounded.

Also, there isn't a lot of general aviation going on around here. It's not like FL where every man, woman, and child is flying in the skies. People have better things to do like making money to pay their cost of living and lifestyle, not struggling with certifications to get into low pay flying jobs.

Yeah, I thought I was going into aviation to do something I love doing. There's a difference between wanting something and getting that something. And somewhere in between is a bunch of liars and weasles (CAPT) and a crap load of money. Like I said, if you want my logbook to pad your books, they're yours.
 
OK I give up. Musta missed that you did not have a CFI. What a bum deal. Embry-Riddle execs/admins should rot in hell for what they have done...that is for sure!
 
LoadMasterC141 said:
OK I give up. Musta missed that you did not have a CFI. What a bum deal. Embry-Riddle execs/admins should rot in hell for what they have done...that is for sure!
Click to expand...

Well, I give you props for being more persistant than I was... I gave up after my first reply!
 
Flying Ninja:

Know you from another forum. Don't give up. Perserverance is the key. "Joy cometh in the morning".

atp
 
LoadMasterC141 said:
Ninja,
The only thing you can do now is to look at the bright side and try to have a good attitude. It is not the end of the world. Yes, it seems you got a raw deal (I have read ALL of your posts). It does seem as though you can continue on eventually though.
You DID come out of all this with SOME education, hours, certificates, etc…did you not?

I have made some horrific mistakes myself. Let me give this for an example:
I got out of the AF to get a degree, simply so I could go back in as a pilot. Instead of being smart about it and using my GI Bill bennies to get a relevant aviation degree and flight training, I go to a community college, do well, and get delusions of grandeur and transfer to Cornell University to get a degree in Psychology. Because of the outrageous costs of such a school, I drive a tractor-trailer to Brooklyn every night, studying in the sleeper berth at my unload point, and rush back to go to school. Now at ivy league schools you compete for your grades. I was competing with kids that had no worries and all the time in the world. My motivation was drained from this and the fact that my eyesight dropped outside of the minimum AF requirements.
That and having to work to pay for an expensive education earned me a degree 6 semesters later with a whopping 1.96GPA and $30K in loans in the hole (Not a $100K I agree, but bad enough). Combine that with my wifes $60K (Half from college loans, the other half from being dumb and racking up credit card debt), and life was looking pretty bleak. After a short stage of feeling sorry for myself, much like you seem to be, I realized only I could make it better and decided that it was time to work hard and pay a lot of things off. Making the Cornell degree virtually useless, I began dispatching for trucking companies. It took me two years of VERY hard work to earn my way to a $70K/yr corporate job as a logistics analyst. This is not what I had in mind for a career, but it is quickly getting rid of all that debt, and I am proud of myself for getting here despite it all.

My wife’s credit card debt will be gone by the end of this year. My college loans are going down faster than a standard payment schedule. I had enough to buy a nice expensive house, that I do a project a month on to ensure I will make money when I sell. I splurged and bought a BMW last year and still afford to double up on just about every payment I have (except the house).

Now I am finally in the position to try for that flying career I have wanted since childhood. The BMW is getting traded for a Nissan Altima this weekend, and my first flying lesson in ten years is scheduled for Saturday morning! Once all of our debts are paid off (A year or so from now), I will be taking that big plunge, at 31 years old, into a fast track school. Despite all the negative posts about it, I still want to be a pilot. I invite you to come spend a week at my current job and see why.

There are always bumps in the road man. How you respond to them is very important. Your plans have been changed, and I bet it won’t be the only time it happens if you continue in flying. Adjust accordingly and keep moving toward your goal. Sacrifice is a big part of it. It is going to be a BIG sacrifice going from the earnings I am making today back into the poor world, but I KNOW it will be worth it.
Click to expand...

Bravo, good post. I believe you WILL make it with your determination.
 
LoadMasterC141, I'll see you in the sky as we are on the same plan... I have about 18-24 months left to get where I need to be on my plan so I can jump into a program like Falcon, ATP, Ari-Ben, or FSI. All is on track so far and has been the last few years of intense focus, pretty much like you. Glad to see I'm not the only one that's gonna do something most see as crazy, yet I see as pursuing a dream...
 
TexasFlyer said:
LoadMasterC141, I'll see you in the sky as we are on the same plan... I have about 18-24 months left to get where I need to be on my plan so I can jump into a program like Falcon, ATP, Ari-Ben, or FSI. All is on track so far and has been the last few years of intense focus, pretty much like you. Glad to see I'm not the only one that's gonna do something most see as crazy, yet I see as pursuing a dream...
Click to expand...


Actually, I'm about 12-18 months away...but as far as most seeing this as being crazy...here;here!!!!:insane:


atp
 
TXFLYER/LOADMASTER141....guys....kudos to both of ya'll for laying out a plan and not just jumping into this career choice without thinking it through and ya'll have done some research. Its easy to just drop what we are doing and shift gears to something new, but ya'll have made the conscious decision and layed out a foreseeable plan. Hope others can learn from what ya'll are doing...it's okay to wait a year or two. Get things in line now and it will make life a lil' easier when you start training or get on the line flying.
 
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