Cheapest (realistic) ATPL
Discussion
Drifting off the subject here but ETOPS - all the jobs you're quoting that salary for would require a good few years of experience for you to get taken on and also be on those kind of salaries.
I agree that having got in with those companies, you could be on fairly decent coin, (although I'm sure the BA DEP salary you quote is still incorrect!), but you would not get in to those companies straight out of flight school, or if you did, certainly wouldn't be on anything like 90+K.
I agree that having got in with those companies, you could be on fairly decent coin, (although I'm sure the BA DEP salary you quote is still incorrect!), but you would not get in to those companies straight out of flight school, or if you did, certainly wouldn't be on anything like 90+K.
Modular was the route I took, doing all my hour building in the UK as well as holding down a 9-5 IT job. It's possible but will take longer. Took me 4 years all in but did work out considerably cheaper than integrated.
The question you should be asking is, do you really want to fly for the airlines? So many guys I know suffer this end-goal-itis that they never achive their dream of flying for a living because they're unwilling to compromise along the way and start small. I soon found out the proper fun flying was at the small end of the scale and am more than happy spending my life this way (money's pretty good too!).
Good luck!
The question you should be asking is, do you really want to fly for the airlines? So many guys I know suffer this end-goal-itis that they never achive their dream of flying for a living because they're unwilling to compromise along the way and start small. I soon found out the proper fun flying was at the small end of the scale and am more than happy spending my life this way (money's pretty good too!).
Good luck!
5150 said:
Drifting off the subject here but ETOPS - all the jobs you're quoting that salary for would require a good few years of experience for you to get taken on and also be on those kind of salaries.
I agree that having got in with those companies, you could be on fairly decent coin, (although I'm sure the BA DEP salary you quote is still incorrect!), but you would not get in to those companies straight out of flight school, or if you did, certainly wouldn't be on anything like 90+K.
I know people with 1000/1500 hrs total on the 320 making more than £90k. It's possible.I agree that having got in with those companies, you could be on fairly decent coin, (although I'm sure the BA DEP salary you quote is still incorrect!), but you would not get in to those companies straight out of flight school, or if you did, certainly wouldn't be on anything like 90+K.
khaosai said:
Hi ETOPS,
Would be interested to find out how you got the figure of over 105k for a year one first officer at Emirates ?
The job has changed dramatically over the years, if I could wind the clock back I would have chosen a different profession.
For 85hrs, you make £5100pcm, and your housing is £2500pcm. That alone is raw cash. Tax free. Factor in private schooling for your kids, private medical coverage, a driver and car to take you to and from work. Would be interested to find out how you got the figure of over 105k for a year one first officer at Emirates ?
The job has changed dramatically over the years, if I could wind the clock back I would have chosen a different profession.
It turns out that 105k was conservative, you tell me what you need to gross in the UK to take home just the EK cash elements alone..?
Moose. said:
Modular was the route I took, doing all my hour building in the UK as well as holding down a 9-5 IT job. It's possible but will take longer. Took me 4 years all in but did work out considerably cheaper than integrated.
The question you should be asking is, do you really want to fly for the airlines? So many guys I know suffer this end-goal-itis that they never achive their dream of flying for a living because they're unwilling to compromise along the way and start small. I soon found out the proper fun flying was at the small end of the scale and am more than happy spending my life this way (money's pretty good too!).
Good luck!
I presume when doing modular, one can comfortably stop at the CPL+IR stage and fly cargo for a few years before deciding to press on to an ATPL - I gather that an integrated course will take you all the way and you end up with a frozen ATPL until you get enough hours in the job?The question you should be asking is, do you really want to fly for the airlines? So many guys I know suffer this end-goal-itis that they never achive their dream of flying for a living because they're unwilling to compromise along the way and start small. I soon found out the proper fun flying was at the small end of the scale and am more than happy spending my life this way (money's pretty good too!).
Good luck!
What exactly can one expect with a CPL, it is a case of flying parcelforce planes?
Mat777, a frozen ATPL is basically a CPL/IR with the ATPL theory complete. There would be no point doing the theory for a CPL & doing some GA to return eventually to get an ATPL.
Lots of cargo planes are multi crew, so you will need a type rating that is added to a CPL/IR + MCC course....
If you only have a CPL you will be extremely limited to what flying you can get paid for, instruction, air taxi, skydive, photography etc however try to find someone that will give you one of these jobs without experience...plus the pay is non existent.
The market has changed in the last few years, modular guys are finding it much tougher to get a job, unfortunately. Best chance into the airlines is via integrated course to frozen ATPL & type rating. It all depends on what type of flying you wish to do & whether you want to earn as much as you can from this career.
I am a skipper for a large uk airline & to be honest looking at the new entrant contracts I am not sure I would recommend anyone spend £100K on training to join this industry...Who knows what the future holds for aviation plus you will find a queue of wannabies willing to work for less than the next guy to fly a 'jet'
Good luck
Lots of cargo planes are multi crew, so you will need a type rating that is added to a CPL/IR + MCC course....
If you only have a CPL you will be extremely limited to what flying you can get paid for, instruction, air taxi, skydive, photography etc however try to find someone that will give you one of these jobs without experience...plus the pay is non existent.
The market has changed in the last few years, modular guys are finding it much tougher to get a job, unfortunately. Best chance into the airlines is via integrated course to frozen ATPL & type rating. It all depends on what type of flying you wish to do & whether you want to earn as much as you can from this career.
I am a skipper for a large uk airline & to be honest looking at the new entrant contracts I am not sure I would recommend anyone spend £100K on training to join this industry...Who knows what the future holds for aviation plus you will find a queue of wannabies willing to work for less than the next guy to fly a 'jet'
Good luck
ETOPS said:
For 85hrs, you make £5100pcm, and your housing is £2500pcm. That alone is raw cash. Tax free. Factor in private schooling for your kids, private medical coverage, a driver and car to take you to and from work.
It turns out that 105k was conservative, you tell me what you need to gross in the UK to take home just the EK cash elements alone..?
Hi ETOPS,It turns out that 105k was conservative, you tell me what you need to gross in the UK to take home just the EK cash elements alone..?
Best work on 75 hours per month totalling 900 per year. FO housing is not 2500 per month. Don't forget the schooling and medical is not completely free. No transport allowance unless in training. Free transport is provided.
Sure we have guys on pay scale 30 doing well but pay scale 1 is a bit less than you portray.
Regards.
Beeznitch said:
My advice would be to spend the next 12 months or so making yourself as attractive as possible for the next round of sponsorship recruitment (finish your degree, most successful applicants in my intake are graduates and it also shows determination/staying power. Also put yourself in as many leadership and team situations as you can, do a bit of gliding/pleasure flying).
As an 11 year SFO this sounds like excellent advice. I originally applied to fly before Uni, at Uni and then did a couple of years in the Police before I came in as a cadet. You have to be both lucky and good to be in the right place at the right time, so anything you can do to increase your appeal to employers is worthwhile, just always have a plan B for if the opportunity doesn't materialise. The current BA scheme is less generous than the one I came through but the industry as a whole is less generous too.
Just off to ring the pay office now though as posters on this thread suggest they've been grossly underpaying me for many years!
I'm slightly alarmed now... I was chatting to someone who professes to know a bit about the accompanying exams, and he said there are certain exams that you can only try to pass a finite number of times before you are struck off for good and never allowed to be a pilot? I had thought it was a case of just keeping tyring until you are good enough, talk about putting pressure on! 
If I remember correctly, you had three attempts to clear all 14 (I think there were 14) ATPL exams. If you passed more than 50% first time, you had two attempts to pass the remainder.
If you didn't hit 50% at first go, second had you sitting all 14 again. You could then find yourself clearing 13/14 exams after two goes. Fail that last ONE exam at the third attempt and you had to sit all 14 again.
I think, you had three attempts at all that, failing which you would have to present yourself to the CAA to plead not to be chopped completely.
Edit. just thinking that's not correct. Might have been split between the Navigation and Technical group. God I can't remember, been a while!
If you didn't hit 50% at first go, second had you sitting all 14 again. You could then find yourself clearing 13/14 exams after two goes. Fail that last ONE exam at the third attempt and you had to sit all 14 again.
I think, you had three attempts at all that, failing which you would have to present yourself to the CAA to plead not to be chopped completely.
Edit. just thinking that's not correct. Might have been split between the Navigation and Technical group. God I can't remember, been a while!
Edited by Chuck328 on Friday 18th May 23:40
Chuck328 said:
Edit. just thinking that's not correct. Might have been split between the Navigation and Technical group. God I can't remember, been a while!
Soooo - if you can't remember even how many exams there were, how much precisely do you remember about the content you were being examined on?
You're going to wake up sweating at about 4AM tomorrow morning, having had a horrible nightmare that they've misplaced your pass marks from all those years ago as part of a retrospective audit, you have to go back and retake the exams to keep your ATPL, and you have to use a huge inflatable whizz-wheel marked in Roman numerals to answer questions about ICAO treaties signed in 1947....but the whizz-wheel keeps deflating, complaining in a squeaky voice that your mortgage has been linked to the saturated adiabatic lapse rate....
eharding said:
Soooo - if you can't remember even how many exams there were, how much precisely do you remember about the content you were being examined on?
You're going to wake up sweating at about 4AM tomorrow morning, having had a horrible nightmare that they've misplaced your pass marks from all those years ago as part of a retrospective audit, you have to go back and retake the exams to keep your ATPL, and you have to use a huge inflatable whizz-wheel marked in Roman numerals to answer questions about ICAO treaties signed in 1947....but the whizz-wheel keeps deflating, complaining in a squeaky voice that your mortgage has been linked to the saturated adiabatic lapse rate....
Stop scaring me with talk of adiabatic lapse rates (what is that again-is it index linked?) Do you want to buy my whizz wheel, might be an antique? All those clever thingeys it does, you might find some solace in life. Go on, you know you want to.
Chuck328 said:
eharding said:
Soooo - if you can't remember even how many exams there were, how much precisely do you remember about the content you were being examined on?
You're going to wake up sweating at about 4AM tomorrow morning, having had a horrible nightmare that they've misplaced your pass marks from all those years ago as part of a retrospective audit, you have to go back and retake the exams to keep your ATPL, and you have to use a huge inflatable whizz-wheel marked in Roman numerals to answer questions about ICAO treaties signed in 1947....but the whizz-wheel keeps deflating, complaining in a squeaky voice that your mortgage has been linked to the saturated adiabatic lapse rate....
Stop scaring me with talk of adiabatic lapse rates (what is that again-is it index linked?) Do you want to buy my whizz wheel, might be an antique? All those clever thingeys it does, you might find some solace in life. Go on, you know you want to.
I wouldn't worry too much about the exams.
Most (if not all) flight schools have a considerable amount of 'feedback' questions in the bank from previous candidates - so nowadays there's a high chance that you'll have seen the questions before outside of the exam room, but that doesn't mean you can learn them parrot fashion. You do have to think about the question as they do add a twist to old questions.
Back in the day we used to have a negative marking system, so anything you got wrong (multiple choice) meant you'd lose marks. They got rid of this system in the 90's and increased the multiple choice from 3 to 4 questions and raised the pass mark to 75%.
You'll have to get used to taking exams in this trade as you'll be sitting them quite often!
Most (if not all) flight schools have a considerable amount of 'feedback' questions in the bank from previous candidates - so nowadays there's a high chance that you'll have seen the questions before outside of the exam room, but that doesn't mean you can learn them parrot fashion. You do have to think about the question as they do add a twist to old questions.
Back in the day we used to have a negative marking system, so anything you got wrong (multiple choice) meant you'd lose marks. They got rid of this system in the 90's and increased the multiple choice from 3 to 4 questions and raised the pass mark to 75%.
You'll have to get used to taking exams in this trade as you'll be sitting them quite often!
mat777 said:
I presume when doing modular, one can comfortably stop at the CPL+IR stage and fly cargo for a few years before deciding to press on to an ATPL - I gather that an integrated course will take you all the way and you end up with a frozen ATPL until you get enough hours in the job?
What exactly can one expect with a CPL, it is a case of flying parcelforce planes?
CPL/IR = fATPL provided you took the ATPL theory exams which you'd be doing anyway. You gain a full ATPL by flying over the minimum number of hours in the right sort of aircraft and then doing a flight test. I have a fATPL and don't see that ever changing as I have no desire to fly anything that would give me the required hours on type to unfreeze it What exactly can one expect with a CPL, it is a case of flying parcelforce planes?
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