Plan B for younger contractors?

[MrMarkyMark]

A pilot I know is earning well - after the first few years where training is VERY expensive - but only by being willing to relocate to UAE.

UAE excepted, I know the moneys not that great, my uncle has bee a commercial airline captain for many years.

[Flibble]

I know several guys who tried to become commercial pilots. As someone noted, it's not a normal employment market because there are so many people who want to be pilots.

Hence instead of getting a job and then being trained, or at worst doing the basic qualification and then gaining experience in a job (e.g. legal profession) you instead have to be fully qualified and experienced before you apply.

In the past there was a progression which you could do while still working a day job:

1. Private Pilots Licence (fly for fun)
2. Instrument Rating (fly in bad weather)
3. Gain some experience flying small (cheap!) aircraft on your own. (250 hours, from memory)
4. Commercial Licence (fly for pay)
5. Gain more experience, while earning (a little) money - and you can do it while holding down a day job, e.g. fly on weekends taking people sightseeing. (Do this to accumulate 1500 hours)
6. Airline Transport Pilots Licence
7. Get a job with an airline
8. Type Rating on the aircraft you will fly for that airline, paid by the airline.
9. Gain experience while earning a decent amount, and progress to being a Captain.

If you go far enough back there were even cadet schemes where lucky people would have everything paid for by the airline, from never having sat in an aircraft to being a Captain. Even if you didn't get a cadetship you could probably scrimp your way to the Commercial Licence. The 1500 hours requirement could also be met in various ways and you could do the ATPL exams and have a "frozen" ATPL which would automatically "unfreeze" when you got to 1500 hours.

Nowadays you are expected to do an "integrated" course. Which is basically where you get charged £100K up front for all the steps including the Type Rating. You have to commit to it full time for 12-18 months so the chances of holding down another job are slim to non-existent and you can't join in "halfway", e.g. with a PPL already.

They push you through PPL - CPL - IR - ATPL - 250 hours flying - Type Rating at a school, paying for everything (approved uniforms that you buy, approved training materials - you know the sort of near-scam set up).

If you happen to have done a Type rating on 737s and you can only find an airline flying Airbus 319s - tough luck. You have to pay another £25K or whatever for the Airbus Type Rating.

There is also a wizard wheeze now where you "pay to fly" with the actual airline. That's right, you pay for your licence and type rating and then you pay the airline to employ you - in the hope that after you have built up enough hours flying jets "for real" you will be able to get a job that actually pays you a salary. It's easy to end up £250K or more in the hole before you actually start to earn a salary as a pilot!

The guys I know were all ex-military, so had something of an advantage in skills/mindset/whatever to start with. They each used their gratuity to pay for their training too. One ended up as a teacher, one as a mechanic and just one has actually managed to secure airline employment - after five years of scratching around doing things like flying safaris in Africa or living in a caravan towing gliders into the air.

The average 18-year-old will need incredibly rich parents to make it to the end of the sausage mill.

[MrMarkyMark]

Great post flibble .

My uncle went RAF route, red arrows, then flew the royal family so was fairly well qualified

[Unix]

Like many careers, it sounds nice but once you get there it's probably boring as feck and when you tell people your a pilot, no one gives a tulip.

[MrMarkyMark]

Like many careers, it sounds nice but once you get there it's probably boring as feck and when you tell people your a pilot, no one gives a tulip.

Unlike IT, where when you tell people they are endlessly fascinated

[pr1]

The average 18-year-old will need incredibly rich parents to make it to the end of the sausage mill.

[MrMarkyMark]

Good movie

[GJABS]

Thanks for the response - looks reasonably affordable.
How do you feel flying in bad weather? Are you even allowed to? Do you kak your pants?:

It is VFR flying only (visual flight rules), so you're not allowed to fly in cloud or heavy rain, for which you would need an IFR rating (instrument flight rules) and a proper plane, not a microlight.
I think I would kak my pants if I found myself in cloud - my plane doesn't even have an artificial horizon.

Don't you need something on top of the bog standard ppl to cross the sea?

Nothing more than a PLB - personal locator beacon:
https://www.flightstore.co.uk/pilot-...with-gps-p3878

and a lifejacket and wetsuit/immersion suit.
And you have to file a flight plan and GAR customs report.

Here's the video of my flight to Deauville last year, speeded up 16 times, to give you an idea. It all went well, apart from at the end where the French air traffic controller gave me a telling off for not having a transponder (a radio device that tells them where you are):

[sasguru]

It is VFR flying only (visual flight rules), so you're not allowed to fly in cloud or heavy rain, for which you would need an IFR rating (instrument flight rules) and a proper plane, not a microlight.
I think I would kak my pants if I found myself in cloud - my plane doesn't even have an artificial horizon.



Nothing more than a PLB - personal locator beacon:
https://www.flightstore.co.uk/pilot-...with-gps-p3878

and a lifejacket and wetsuit/immersion suit.
And you have to file a flight plan and GAR customs report.

Here's the video of my flight to Deauville last year, speeded up 16 times, to give you an idea. It all went well, apart from at the end where the French air traffic controller gave me a telling off for not having a transponder (a radio device that tells them where you are):

Thanks GJABS, I enjoyed that, particularly the chat with the French ATC. He he.

[unemployed]

Unlike IT, where when you tell people they are endlessly fascinated

Women used to run away when I said my job was sat in fro nt of a PC monitoring tulip computers.

Might as well tell them you are a nonce

Coders end up in the Gary glitter bin