flight school

[caldera]

I'm thinking of signing up for the Airline Career Pilot Program at ATP here in Panama City, Florida. It's a 5 month course which includes these certificates:

Private - multi, single and instrument
Commercial - multi, single and instrument
Flight Instructor - multi, single and instrument

Does anyone have any experience with or knowledge about this school? 

http://www.atpflightschool.com/programs/index.html?via=a

[antivortex]

For what? So you too can earn $16k a year flying for a regional carrier for thousands of hours hoping to get an airline job? http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,520097,00.html

Get a real job and be a private pilot for the fun of flying.

[Denholm]

I know some people manage to get to the majors through ATP, but you REALLY need to be careful with the, "get it done quick!" programs. The best way to describe it is the same as a, "get rich quick!" seminar. Sure, they tell you how. But they do it at a pace which doesn't get you in rhythm to actually learn everything necessary. So once you head out to nail your million you get scorned.

[Tac]

if anything i'd prefer to learn to fly a helicopter or an airship (blimp). wonder where to find those programs and the cost

[caldera]

For what? So you too can earn $16k a year flying for a regional carrier for thousands of hours hoping to get an airline job? http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,520097,00.html

Get a real job and be a private pilot for the fun of flying.

The starting wages are horrendous, but eventually you can make a decent living at it. What is your idea of a real job? I'm having trouble getting one. I was laid off from my "real job" in november. I have no marketable skills or formal education and at 43, hardly the ideal candidate for most entry level jobs. I was a high rise window cleaner (a real job?) and made a high of $52k in 2002 and every successive year less and less. Only made $23k last year. Nobody wants to pay for clean windows in this economy. I recently took a welding course at a tech school that was partnered with the local shipyard. My instructor claimed I was the best student he's ever had but I couldn't pass the shipyard tests.   Marvellous. So I'm rapidly running out of money and nobody has yet hired me. $10 an hour is considered good money around here. 20k a year flying sounds better that 20k a year at Home Depot (waiting to hear from them too ).

If anybody has a better idea, I'm all ears.

[AKHog]

Quote from ATP: "receive instruction from the most qualified instructors."

Quote from flying magazine this month: "Almost all of ATP's ground and flight instructors are recent graduates of the program."

ATP and other accelerated flight schools are all about one thing, training for the test. They give you the minimum flying experience needed, and train you for the tests using memorization.

They pump out hundreds of under qualified CFI's every year then go right back and hire those CFI's to teach the new batch of students. Every year the instruction gets even more dumbed down, with no real experienced instructors (despite what they say), only other kids who have only just recently passed the test teaching you.

These types of schools are ruining the industry. Now qualified pilots who simply can't afford to work for $12 an hour (probably because they are paying real school loans) can't compete.

There is a reason schools like Embry Riddle have the reputation they do. For the carrier course at ATP you are looking at 150 days and $55k. To get the same ratings from ERAU it would be the Aviation Science program, and you're looking at about $180k and would be lucky if you finish in 4 years. One program is simply preparing you to pass a test, the other is actually teaching you the material.

The accelerated courses are nice if you already have the experience and simply need a signoff. There is no way I or anyone I know in the industry would recommend these types of schools for a new pilot.

Do what others said, get a real degree and a real job, then fly for fun on the side. Of you can be like me and spend 8 years of your life trying to work your way up in aviation, paying for it yourself. While 90% of the people I'm 'competing' with aren't even in it for the love of flying, nor have to pay for it. They can go to the quick school, have daddy pay the bill, and work for beans while they build the time. What's really frustrating is to talk to these 'successful' professional pilots and often times find out they know 1/10th of aviation as I or other struggling pilots do, and probably couldn't save their own bellybutton landing a stick-and-rudder tail dragger.

[AKHog]

20k a year flying sounds better that 20k a year at Home Depot (waiting to hear from them too ).

20k a year flying is not going to happen for you anytime soon, sorry to say. $16.5k is the average for right seat in a RJ. Thats after your education and years of building time.

Trust me, its simply not as easy as ATP and other websites make it sound. You don't just get your education and then go get a job. Aviation has always been very competitive, and even more so now.

I'm 26, and only a few hours away from a CFI. I'm not in a big hurry to get it because I can't compete for a job right now. There are too many people out there that have my same ratings that can work for 1/2 of what I can, because they have financial aid from their family, trust fund, or whatever else. I simply can't become an instructor right now because I make more money as a bicycle mechanic!

I have most of my flight training paid off, and don't have a lot of debt. Do you think after you get your ratings from ATP and have $60k plus in loans to pay off (BTW you can't get student loans for flight training), do you think you'll be able to compete with me for a job? I'm young, will have more experience than you, have been flying a lot longer, etc. I'm not being mean, I'm just being realistic.

A carrier in aviation is for the pure love of flying. There is a good reason most 'successful' pilots come from families with money. There are very few rags to riches stories in aviation. I can't even think of any professional pilots that I know at any level that didn't start off with a head start in some way.

If you really want to spend $60k, get your private pilots license (or just learn to take off and land), buy the largest payload carrying plane you can afford with the rest of the money, and fly it down to South America. You'll could make more money in one year than what most carrier airline pilots make in a lifetime.

[Golfer]

I'm thinking of signing up for the Airline Career Pilot Program at ATP here in Panama City, Florida. It's a 5 month course which includes these certificates:

Private - multi, single and instrument
Commercial - multi, single and instrument
Flight Instructor - multi, single and instrument

Does anyone have any experience with or knowledge about this school? 

http://www.atpflightschool.com/programs/index.html?via=a

I would advise very strongly against it especially in this and the likely future climate of aviation.  If you're looking to aviation as a profession I haven't suggested to anyone they follow that route.

As to the program itself you will learn the bare minimum to pass a checkride, have no foundation for the things you will learn to turn it into a working knowledge of what you're experiencing and will really short change yourself at a critical phase of your flying career which is the early formative stages.  You simply cannot cram the experience you'll need into that short time span and come out the other end a proficient pilot.  I've seen it time and again both flying with copilots/first officers who come through these rating mills with overall weak skills putting them behind the curve.  Also with interviewing them their knowledge base will tend to be hit or miss though fairly consistantly their knowledge often surpasses their skills.  Another aspect of that in that short amount of calendar time to accrue the bare minimum qualifications there hasn't really been any experience gained.

I saw this first had because I was having issues myself with completing my CFI ratings because at that time those who could endorse you for your initial instructor rating were moving to the airlines and other jobs at the most inconvenient times.  I went to the Las Vegas location for their 14 day CFI program and was the highest time pilot in the group with a whopping 800 hours.  I also had more actual instrument time than the other 9 members of the course combined and I didn't really have much, only 50 hours or so.  Prior to the course you were sent all the books you'd need and a question booklet to fill out before showing up.  The ground school went through that booklet making sure your answers were correct and you flew to the checkrides in your training doing nothing except learning and perfecting the required maneuvers.  Basic airmanship skills in the instructors and even radio work were quite weak with the CFIs who had minimal experience and minimal instructing experience.  They were themselves trained to a checkride, were training others to a checkride and each time the transfer of knowledge would be less and less to each pilot.  While there were no major mechanical issues there was one instance of a fuel primer coming loose in flight and one of the engines running rough.  Immediately the instructor went through the mantra of Mixtures-Props-Throttles-Flaps-Gear-Identify-Verify... he was going to shut down this engine, at a safe altitude, that was generating power without any thought to the cause of the rough running engine.  Thereby creating a genuine emergency situation rather than checking there was fuel, sparks and air getting to the engine.  First step on this was right between our seats, a popped up primer which when pressed in and reset the engien smoothed out and we continued with the training hop.  Hardly the time to have a role reversal with the instructor training you for your initial CFI checkride.

I could go on and on but I would say for the sake of you and those you'll fly in the future do not go to these programs thinking you'll go there and move right up the ranks.  I run out of fingers and toes when it comes to counting the pilots I know who are more experienced than I looking for jobs because they're either furloughed or their flight departments have shut down.  If I lost my job tomorrow I don't know what or where I'd go to find a flying job simply because there aren't any.  The few there are are long filled before they're ever officially opened.

The fact is when you're done with that pilot mill training you are:
- $50,000-$60,000 in debt.
- Have the bare minimim hours
- Have no real experience
- Have no job leads
- Won't be busy even if you are hired on as an instructor
- Have not really anything to offer a prospective employer especially when 8,000 - 12,000 hour pilots with long range international experience are taking jobs in light jets for less than $40,000/yr.

What are you going to do when you're done?  Where do you want to end up?  These are very important questions that you need to have given thought to before you sign the dotted line.

[Golfer]

made a high of $52k in 2002 and every successive year less and less. Only made $23k last year. Nobody wants to pay for clean windows in this economy. I recently took a welding course at a tech school that was partnered with the local shipyard. My instructor claimed I was the best student he's ever had but I couldn't pass the shipyard tests.   Marvellous. So I'm rapidly running out of money and nobody has yet hired me. $10 an hour is considered good money around here. 20k a year flying sounds better that 20k a year at Home Depot (waiting to hear from them too ).

If anybody has a better idea, I'm all ears.

I know Citation Captains who don't make $52,000/yr after 5 years with their company.  It may have taken them 5 to get there.  It took 7 years for me to break $50,000/yr in aviation and I had a lucky horseshoe hit me on the head to do so.

[Tough Love] If you can't pass a welding test what makes you think you'll pass an accelerated flight program?  The Colgan 3407 investigation is unfolding and one eerie thing each of the last major fatal accidents (CJC 3407, COM 5191 and FLG 3701) was the captains were all graduates of an accelerated flight school that's very infamous in Florida (not Riddle.) These pilots showed basic airmanship deficiencies in each accident that while it's plausible to happen to anyone it's a shocking reality as to the quality of aviator that is pumped out by these schools giving people ratings with no experience to go with it.  That said I do know graduates of these courses who do well but that has more to do with the individual than the school.  The school isn't going to make you a better pilot and they don't go into enough depth to wash you out if you're going to kill someone later in life.[/Tough Love]

You'll be out of even more money if you ship yourself off to one of these rating mills with nothing to show for it.  There aren't any jobs to be had right now especially in aviation.

[kotrenin]

Caldera,  have you looked into the Emergency Medical Services?  EMT-B's don't make much but if you go on and get your nationally registered paramedic license you can do alright ($13-$15/Hr starting.) Takes about 2 years total (6 months emt-B, 18 months paramedic) and you can work as an EMT-B while in paramedic school.  If you can relocate, some areas of the country pay their medics quite well and only a few have long wait list to get hired (i.e. in Chicago here it takes about 4 years to get hired with CFD but we get paid 50k to start 70k after 5 years.)  And as far as age is concerned, most places will take their medics at any age, it is the fire departments that have age limits usually of 35y/o.  And I know several medics that got their PL after they were working and a couple of them work as flight medics on the side.

P.S. there is a lot of side work for medics besides being able to continue working other trades on the side. 

[AKHog]

I was waiting for Golfer to reply. Once again he has communicated well exactly whats going on in these schools and in aviation in general.


One other thing that is really bothering me about ATP's website, they say the fast track course includes:
-Private Multi, Single & Instrument
-Commercial Multi, Single & Instrument
-CFI Multi, Single & Instrument

What I'm wondering, is what the hell is a commercial instrument rating?  

[Golfer]

What I'm wondering, is what the hell is a commercial instrument rating?  

There is VFR limitation applied to a commercial certificate if you do not have an instrument rating.  There may be a night time requirement that if not met you get a day/VFR limitation as well but without the PTS handy I haven't looked at it in so long I don't remember.

I had a Multiengine VFR only rating after I got my instrument rating because I didn't do my Instrument checkride until after I had completed my multiengine rating.  The certificate said something like this:

Private Pilot - Airplane Single and Multiengine Land
Airplane Multiengine Land VFR Only

The same can be done with a commercial checkride.

[AKHog]

were all graduates of an accelerated flight school that's very infamous in Florida (not Riddle.)

I wouldn't consider ERAU an accelerated flight school, quite the opposite in fact.

I recently took a welding course at a tech school that was partnered with the local shipyard. My instructor claimed I was the best student he's ever had but I couldn't pass the shipyard tests.

I'm a welder too, not certified but I have my own small business doing 'decorative' welding like point of sale display racks, gates, railing, stuff like that. If you think a welding test is hard to pass, you're going to have a stroke preparing for your commercial or CFI check rides. No offense, that just how it is.

[caldera]

Thank you all for the replies. I figured it was too good to be true but held out hope. I didn't factor in the declining job market and tougher competition for those jobs. I'm just grasping for straws at this point. I even tried to enlist in the army a few months back  but they informed me it had to be before your 42nd birthday. 4 years seemed an eternity when I was 18. Now it would fly by and I am still in excellent physical shape compared to most 18 year olds. If I got laid off a year ago, I could have made it in. I was just fine living more or less paycheck to paycheck with a nice car and a nice apartment. Now it's back to the drawing board.

As far as the welding tests, You are welding blind (as in you can't see the beads) and they cut them apart and X-Ray them. They have to be absolutely perfect as this work is for ship building. Not as easy as decorative welding I would think.

[AKHog]

There is VFR limitation applied to a commercial certificate if you do not have an instrument rating.  There may be a night time requirement that if not met you get a day/VFR limitation as well but without the PTS handy I haven't looked at it in so long I don't remember.

Yes I understand that, but the way they say it sounds like 'commercial instrument' is something different than 'private instrument'.

In the accelerated course you are likely to have an instrument add on before a commercial because of required hours. Even if you get it after your commercial, its still the exact same IFR add on.

What I'm saying is there are only 2 instrument ratings in this course, the initial instrument add on, and then the CFII. There course advertisement makes it sound like there are 3 instrument ratings, private, commercial, and instructor. There is simply no such thing as a 'commercial instrument' rating, they are making stuff up to make it sound like you are getting more than you actually are.