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Getting Started
Before starting your aviation career you must consider one of aviations key elements, planning. You may have heard the 6P rule; Proper Planning Prevents Piss Pore Performance. This is just as true standing on the start point of your career as piloting a jumbo with 20,000 flight hours on your belt.
With this in mind we start looking at some of the key aspects; costs, certificates and ratings offered, school efficiency and school name. Costs For most people money is one of the most limiting factors when it comes to aviation training. Therefore it is important to find a flight school that not only offers the ratings you need, but also offer them at a price you can live with later. As you may have to get a student loan to cover your training costs you need to consider this closely. Many promising careers have gone up in smoke either because the student couldn’t afford to finish the training or went back to his/her old job after completion because the initial flying didn’t cover the student loans and the living. It is no secret that it may take some weeks, even months, before you land your first flying job after completed training. In addition most “starter” jobs are not very well paid so handling a large loan in addition to covering your living expenses may be too much. A newly trained flight instructor (CFI/FI) can expect to make from $500-$2500 a month depending on the flight school, season and the ratings he/she hold. Also other “starter” jobs like banner towing, small freight flying and crop dusting are poorly paid and overworked, thus leaving little or no time for a second job. When budgeting the cost of your training it is smart to over estimate a little and maybe add in living expenses for an extra month or two after completion to give you time to find a job. Remember the price flight schools advertise are basic minimums and not very good for exact budgeting as the total cost is almost always slightly higher. Certificates and ratings offered Proportional to the cost is the certificates and ratings you want. As a minimum you should get commercial multi engine instrument (CPL, ME and IR) if you are not looking to work as a flight instructor first. Many flight schools offer training packages that include all these to an estimated price. You may also find several schools offering ab-inition programs. These are programs designed to take you from scratch to finish in one program and is commonly found in Europe. If you want to becoming a flight instructor to build flight time you can get away with doing your CPL, IR and an instructor rating (CFI/FI) as a minimum. Most instructors start of flying with single engine (SE) and often private (PPL) students until they have gained some instructor experience. However it is recommended you also do an instrument instructor rating (CFII/FI-IR) as this will make you more interesting (and competitive) when applying for that first and crucial job. After building some flight time you can do an ME rating and an ME instructor rating (MEI) to further expand your experience and become more attractive to other flight employers. It is no secret that multi engine time is valuable. Flight school efficiency When looking for a flight school to train with, make sure to find out how busy the school is. If the school has too many students compared to instructors and/or aircrafts you end up spending a lot of time on the ground waiting to fly. In the long run this increases your living expenses as you have to stay a student longer, and you may end up paying for flight time just to get back up to speed from previous lessons. A good way is estimating the instructor to student, and student to aircraft ratio: An instructor should have from three to five fulltime students. If he exceeds five then spending time with each student every day may be hard and he also looses a lot of flexibility (something that is handy when weather is minimal or the scheduled aircraft is down for maintenance). An instructor with too many students also find it hard to bond personally with all of them, and the quality of the last instruction block of the day may be poor due to instructor fatigue. Also there should not be more then three to five fulltime students per aircraft in the flight school fleet as some are always down for scheduled or non-scheduled maintenance. This said, also be on the lookout for flight schools with a large fleet, many instructors and very few students. This may be an indication they are not doing to well and may go out of business soon. A large fleet is expensive to maintain and requires students to keep the economy flowing. Investing your money here may mean loosing all if the school falls through. Also be aware of flight schools offering intensive, short time to completion, courses. The general view has been that students completing courses like this often come out with just a minimum of experience and sometimes with lacking knowledge in certain areas. They are not to recommend if you plan a flying career as more advanced certificates and ratings, like commercial pilot license (CPL) and flight instructor (CFI) build on the private pilot license (PPL) and instrument rating (IR), and require a throughout knowledge on the basic levels to complete. Weather is also a factor. Schools located in areas with good flying conditions most of the year will save you money as you spend less time on the ground waiting for weather to clear. A good rule for a fulltime student is to fly at least one block (about 1-2hours) every day, five days a week or as often as the weather permits. This way you stay fresh on the last lesson taught, you will gain the required experience fast and save yourself money both on flying and living. Flight school name Some flight schools have made a name for themselves either by being in business for a long time, being airline owned or offering airline approved training. These are schools you should pay some attention to as their name is usually earned. Being in business long means they must be doing something right. Also a flight school that has been around long is less likely to run out of business while you are there. Airline owned schools usually have advantages with the owning airline. This can be guaranteed interviews after completion, preferred hiring and the ability to network within the company. It is usual that airlines recruit from their own flight school if they have one. Flight Schools offering airline approved programs usually have the advantage that you may get hired with the approving airline even with less flight hours then they require. These are programs the airlines have found good enough to hire the graduate student sometimes with as little as 250 hours flight time. So what is the catch? Well, these flight schools tend to be more expensive then other schools. And as nothing is ever guaranteed (schools “guaranteeing” a future job should be avoided) the risk is higher and so is the fall if you don’t make it. The conclusion has to be; if you can afford it then it won’t hurt, but if you are tight on the money [like most flight students] then other solutions are just as good or better. Either way your flight experience, personality and ability to work hard and get a job will determine the rate of success in the end. There is no such thing as a free lunch, this also applies to flying. 4/29/2004 |
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