flying lessons
Discussion
thinking of taking up lessons and maybe if possible taking it to a stage where i could make a living out of it, not the commercial jet stuff just your smaller planes. excuse me if i sound niave but its always been a desire and now i can afford it would like to do it. anyone here tried it/done it. seems to be a good firm called cabair based near me which would be my first port of call.
as you're close i'd recommend you get youself to london on the 1st november:
http://www.flyer.co.uk/exhibitions/London/
i went a couple of years back when i was looking into it. cabair will be there along with pretty much every major flight training provider in the UK along with many from around the world [NZ, US etc.].
there are also seminars throughout the day aimed at complete newcomers - i.e training routes, finance etc.
obligatory mention of pprune.org but many more ego-free ways of obtaining advice. there are a few pro-pilots on here as well.
must admit i've been thinking about it again recently [rotary wing] but my plan to raise the money may suffer a fair setback with the housing crash
http://www.flyer.co.uk/exhibitions/London/
i went a couple of years back when i was looking into it. cabair will be there along with pretty much every major flight training provider in the UK along with many from around the world [NZ, US etc.].
there are also seminars throughout the day aimed at complete newcomers - i.e training routes, finance etc.
obligatory mention of pprune.org but many more ego-free ways of obtaining advice. there are a few pro-pilots on here as well.
must admit i've been thinking about it again recently [rotary wing] but my plan to raise the money may suffer a fair setback with the housing crash
Edited by shirt on Tuesday 7th October 12:23
funbobby said:
thinking of taking up lessons and maybe if possible taking it to a stage where i could make a living out of it, not the commercial jet stuff just your smaller planes. excuse me if i sound niave but its always been a desire and now i can afford it would like to do it. anyone here tried it/done it. seems to be a good firm called cabair based near me which would be my first port of call.
In what way would you intend to make living out of being a non-commercial pilot - flying school instructor? Professional aerobatic and display pilot?Eric Mc said:
funbobby said:
thinking of taking up lessons and maybe if possible taking it to a stage where i could make a living out of it, not the commercial jet stuff just your smaller planes. excuse me if i sound niave but its always been a desire and now i can afford it would like to do it. anyone here tried it/done it. seems to be a good firm called cabair based near me which would be my first port of call.
In what way would you intend to make living out of being a non-commercial pilot - flying school instructor? Professional aerobatic and display pilot?Eric Mc said:
funbobby said:
thinking of taking up lessons and maybe if possible taking it to a stage where i could make a living out of it, not the commercial jet stuff just your smaller planes. excuse me if i sound niave but its always been a desire and now i can afford it would like to do it. anyone here tried it/done it. seems to be a good firm called cabair based near me which would be my first port of call.
In what way would you intend to make living out of being a non-commercial pilot - flying school instructor? Professional aerobatic and display pilot?You'll get mixed opinion on Cabair. Expensive, and many people will tell you their instructors are CPLs building hours, so not necessarily the most interested in your progression.
I'd have a trial lesson with a number of places you are thinking about.
Any be careful about paying for the full course up front...It is cheaper, but make sure the company is safe before you give them all that cash.
I'd have a trial lesson with a number of places you are thinking about.
Any be careful about paying for the full course up front...It is cheaper, but make sure the company is safe before you give them all that cash.
funbobby said:
thinking of taking up lessons and maybe if possible taking it to a stage where i could make a living out of it, not the commercial jet stuff just your smaller planes. excuse me if i sound niave but its always been a desire and now i can afford it would like to do it. anyone here tried it/done it. seems to be a good firm called cabair based near me which would be my first port of call.
There are quite a few branches of aviation that are non-airline. It helps if you have some idea of what you want and if you're likely to succeed in getting it before pitching in. No point trying to make a decent living out of banner towing for example. Whether your aspirations lie with the airlines or bizjets realistically you'll still need an Airline Transport Pilots Licence (ATPL) so the cost will be the same. You could settle for a Commercial Pilots Licence (CPL) but the number of flying hours required are the same and they're the expensive part. ATPL ground school is 'only' a little harder and more expensive than the ATPL so you might as well do it. If you don't you'll be restricted to the likes of piston twins for the rest of your career.Cabair? Expensive and no better than many small flying schools. Pretty far up their own @rse too.
Heskey. Depends how badly you want it. There are a few pilots on here many of whom could tell you of their slog. Working three jobs at once, selling the family home etc. Some people really wanted it.
Edited by Flintstone on Tuesday 7th October 12:54
If you want to learn to fly do it for the flying. If you get to make a living out of see that as a bonus. From an earming point of view I think now could be a bad time to start. If people start to feel poor then the demand for flights will drop and pilots will get laid off. This means the market could well be flooded with high hours experinced flyers just as you finish training.
I know nothing of comercial aviation but that is my guess for the next few years.
I know nothing of comercial aviation but that is my guess for the next few years.
funbobby said:
thinking of taking up lessons and maybe if possible taking it to a stage where i could make a living out of it, not the commercial jet stuff just your smaller planes. excuse me if i sound niave but its always been a desire and now i can afford it would like to do it. anyone here tried it/done it. seems to be a good firm called cabair based near me which would be my first port of call.
Last I checked over here... Commercial pilots don't start off making very much at all.You get out of school with your Air Transport, Multi-Engine, Instrument, Commercial, etc ratings.. and you find yourself as FO on a turboprop going from Duluth to Minneapolis making $25k a year.
funbobby said:
thanks for the input, flying powdered stuff wasnt my first port of call! just curious as too the kind of jobs out there. hey flintstone hows the new car? you popped round once to check ride height on my drive, ring any bells?
I often wonder if you took the TVR plunge. If you want to discuss your flying options in detail drop me a line and we can swop phone numbers again. If you're seriously interested I'll give you a guided tour of the hangars at Farnborough. After that you'll know, one way or the other.
Have a look at the 'newbies' section on http://www.pprune.org/
Loads of good info on there and a lot of folk who will give their opinions.
Good luck by the way!
Loads of good info on there and a lot of folk who will give their opinions.
Good luck by the way!
Flying work. Well there's mainline and regional airlines. Instructing, banner towing (hardly exists), aerobatic display (no idea if you can even get paid for that but you'd need years of experience) and charter flying. The latter would cover a whole host of things from single engine piston (very limiting, not many situations where you can carry passengers single engine), twin piston, turbo-prop and of course bizjets.
Mainline (BA etc) is probably out. They usually like to see flying hours commensurate with age and that's why BA told me to feck off, late starter see? No problem as I don't want an airline job. Regional airlines or low cost is an alternative though both easyJet and Ryanair will expect to pay for your own type rating (hawk, spit!). So you'll be paying £40-60,000 to get your frozen ATPL then another £25,000+ for a 737 type rating. Ideally you want a job where the company pay for the type rating and bond you for two or three years. Typically that's pro rata so if you leave half way through you pay 50% back.
At the moment recruitment is pretty dead in the airlines however the bizjet market is still quietly ticking along. That's now. By the time you qualify, who knows?
Salaries? There's a site, ppjn, that lists almost every company. Basically as an instructor you'd earn £10-20 per flying hour at most places but the bigger schools pay a salary. Instructing used to be an hour builder for people moving on but that's changing. No idea how much it pays these days I'm afraid. First officer in a regional? Depends. Small company, turbo-prop aircraft probably £28-30,000 upward increasing to a maximum (I'm guessing) of £60,000 for a captain. easyJet and Ryanair claim their captains earn £90,000 but there's lots of flying to be done to a) reach the experience level needed to get the job and b) earn the salary. By that I mean that basic salary would be low and the rest made up by flying pay.
I'm biased of course but for those of us on second careers the bizjet world offers the most. You can start out with fairly low hours (if you strike lucky) in the right hand seat of a small jet where you'll work your arse off on probably no real roster. "You didn't fly Thursday, right? That was your day off then". Illegal but it happens. Salary? In a small company on a small aircraft (Hawker 400, Citation Mustang, CJ1) around £28-30,000 as FO, £40,000 plus as a captain. On a large cabin aircraft (Global Express, Gulfstream 550) double those salaries at least and factor in all sorts of funky things like offshore salaries. Oh, you also get per diems, uniform, medical etc etc. Join a decent company like TAG and as an FO on a Challenger 605 you can expect £45,000+, as a line captain £80,000, training captain £90,000. Positions such as training or standards captain also exist in the airlines of course.
UK basings or overseas will affect these figures and your work pattern too. I work week on, week off. Overseas contracts are typically two weeks on/off or even month on/off. On a UK contract you'll also get 4-6 weeks holidays and the usual bits and bobs.
If you're seriously considering it the first thing you MUST do is see if you can pass a Class I medical with the CAA. Don't spend any money until you've done this.
Hope this helps. Feel free to highlight anything I've left out (there'll be a lot).
Mainline (BA etc) is probably out. They usually like to see flying hours commensurate with age and that's why BA told me to feck off, late starter see? No problem as I don't want an airline job. Regional airlines or low cost is an alternative though both easyJet and Ryanair will expect to pay for your own type rating (hawk, spit!). So you'll be paying £40-60,000 to get your frozen ATPL then another £25,000+ for a 737 type rating. Ideally you want a job where the company pay for the type rating and bond you for two or three years. Typically that's pro rata so if you leave half way through you pay 50% back.
At the moment recruitment is pretty dead in the airlines however the bizjet market is still quietly ticking along. That's now. By the time you qualify, who knows?
Salaries? There's a site, ppjn, that lists almost every company. Basically as an instructor you'd earn £10-20 per flying hour at most places but the bigger schools pay a salary. Instructing used to be an hour builder for people moving on but that's changing. No idea how much it pays these days I'm afraid. First officer in a regional? Depends. Small company, turbo-prop aircraft probably £28-30,000 upward increasing to a maximum (I'm guessing) of £60,000 for a captain. easyJet and Ryanair claim their captains earn £90,000 but there's lots of flying to be done to a) reach the experience level needed to get the job and b) earn the salary. By that I mean that basic salary would be low and the rest made up by flying pay.
I'm biased of course but for those of us on second careers the bizjet world offers the most. You can start out with fairly low hours (if you strike lucky) in the right hand seat of a small jet where you'll work your arse off on probably no real roster. "You didn't fly Thursday, right? That was your day off then". Illegal but it happens. Salary? In a small company on a small aircraft (Hawker 400, Citation Mustang, CJ1) around £28-30,000 as FO, £40,000 plus as a captain. On a large cabin aircraft (Global Express, Gulfstream 550) double those salaries at least and factor in all sorts of funky things like offshore salaries. Oh, you also get per diems, uniform, medical etc etc. Join a decent company like TAG and as an FO on a Challenger 605 you can expect £45,000+, as a line captain £80,000, training captain £90,000. Positions such as training or standards captain also exist in the airlines of course.
UK basings or overseas will affect these figures and your work pattern too. I work week on, week off. Overseas contracts are typically two weeks on/off or even month on/off. On a UK contract you'll also get 4-6 weeks holidays and the usual bits and bobs.
If you're seriously considering it the first thing you MUST do is see if you can pass a Class I medical with the CAA. Don't spend any money until you've done this.
Hope this helps. Feel free to highlight anything I've left out (there'll be a lot).
For the OP - if you're financially secure to the extent of being debt-free, with a large lump-sum to devote to the ab-initio to CPL/ATPL training (figure £50-£80K), can do without any significant income for a couple of years, and can pass a Class 1 medical, then I'd say go for it.
Failing that, get a PPL, and do it in an environment where ongoing development post-PPL is a core part of the setup, and where you'll mix with a lot of professionals who also fly for recreation - ultimately, that will give you the the perspective to decide what to do next, as well as make a lot of connections that will help you if you decide to turn professional. I doubt that any Cabair outlet can provide that - whilst they do provide training to a high standard, once you take your skills test, the involvement largely ends.
I was lucky enough by chance to decide to train at WLAC at White Waltham rather than the local Cabair school. It seems (and was) a long time ago, but the 'C' in WLAC stands for 'Club', and that is exactly what it is - the flying instruction is first class, but instruction is ultimately a minor part of what WLAC is about; it is a Club...a place where you would go even if the weather so so bad as to make a duck weep for a spot of lunch and see who else has turned up, sit about in front of log fires and talk b
ks about flying; but when the weather is fine it is the equivalent of having the Nurburgring and your favourite pub & restaurant on the doorstep: 15 minutes complete aerobatic hooliganism in the Pitts in the overhead for the 3pm slot (I avoid the 1pm slot as it makes lunch a rushed affair - although the 11pm slot after a slap-up Waltham full-english breakfast), land, wash the bugs off the aeroplane, push it back into the hangar, maybe a walk around the perimeter with the club collie, back to the clubhouse and then it might just be time for a beer. Absolute heaven.
So good, in fact, that the place has almost as many ATPLs and CPLs doing exactly as I've described above - and the BA mob just dropping in on the way to or from Heathrow (and either looking pissed-off they have to go off and deal with the LHR bullsh!t, or looking knackered and pleased they're on the way home). As such, it provides an excellent insight into what it takes to fly for a living, and what it would take to move your life that way. I have a couple of mates who have done exactly that over the past year, but you do need a lot of financial cushioning behind you, and a clear idea of the way forwards. As for the BA crew, there have been many, many times when sat around a table talking the above mentioned bks with half a dozen or so people when I've realised I'm the only one who doesn't fly a Boeing or Airbus in red, white and blue - and more than few of them are even decent aerobatic pilots as well (there's one here on PH, but I suspect he's gone off for a bit of a cry since I've got round to sending out the flying bills for the Yak for the past 3 months..)
Failing that, get a PPL, and do it in an environment where ongoing development post-PPL is a core part of the setup, and where you'll mix with a lot of professionals who also fly for recreation - ultimately, that will give you the the perspective to decide what to do next, as well as make a lot of connections that will help you if you decide to turn professional. I doubt that any Cabair outlet can provide that - whilst they do provide training to a high standard, once you take your skills test, the involvement largely ends.
I was lucky enough by chance to decide to train at WLAC at White Waltham rather than the local Cabair school. It seems (and was) a long time ago, but the 'C' in WLAC stands for 'Club', and that is exactly what it is - the flying instruction is first class, but instruction is ultimately a minor part of what WLAC is about; it is a Club...a place where you would go even if the weather so so bad as to make a duck weep for a spot of lunch and see who else has turned up, sit about in front of log fires and talk b
ks about flying; but when the weather is fine it is the equivalent of having the Nurburgring and your favourite pub & restaurant on the doorstep: 15 minutes complete aerobatic hooliganism in the Pitts in the overhead for the 3pm slot (I avoid the 1pm slot as it makes lunch a rushed affair - although the 11pm slot after a slap-up Waltham full-english breakfast), land, wash the bugs off the aeroplane, push it back into the hangar, maybe a walk around the perimeter with the club collie, back to the clubhouse and then it might just be time for a beer. Absolute heaven.So good, in fact, that the place has almost as many ATPLs and CPLs doing exactly as I've described above - and the BA mob just dropping in on the way to or from Heathrow (and either looking pissed-off they have to go off and deal with the LHR bullsh!t, or looking knackered and pleased they're on the way home). As such, it provides an excellent insight into what it takes to fly for a living, and what it would take to move your life that way. I have a couple of mates who have done exactly that over the past year, but you do need a lot of financial cushioning behind you, and a clear idea of the way forwards. As for the BA crew, there have been many, many times when sat around a table talking the above mentioned b
ks with half a dozen or so people when I've realised I'm the only one who doesn't fly a Boeing or Airbus in red, white and blue - and more than few of them are even decent aerobatic pilots as well (there's one here on PH, but I suspect he's gone off for a bit of a cry since I've got round to sending out the flying bills for the Yak for the past 3 months..)Don't pig about doing PPL in the UK's yes-no-yes weather; bank loan for £7500 and take a few weeks off work to pop over to see Uncle Sam. Guaranteed weather and an intensive course will be far better value than wasting money on a TVR plus lining Gordo's pockets with fuel duty.
IMHO of course
IMHO of course
eharding said:
I was lucky enough by chance to decide to train at WLAC at White Waltham rather than the local Cabair school. It seems (and was) a long time ago, but the 'C' in WLAC stands for 'Club', and that is exactly what it is - the flying instruction is first class, but instruction is ultimately a minor part of what WLAC is about; it is a Club...
Sounds perfect. Where do I sign up (after I convert my glider licence into a PPL) 
Roger McLittriss said:
Don't pig about doing PPL in the UK's yes-no-yes weather; bank loan for £7500 and take a few weeks off work to pop over to see Uncle Sam. Guaranteed weather and an intensive course will be far better value than wasting money on a TVR plus lining Gordo's pockets with fuel duty.
IMHO of course
Unless you're planning on staying in the US, then sooner or later you'll have to deal with the UK's yes-no-yes weather, dodgy airspace, and eye-watering fuel costs - and looking back, the cost of getting a PPL was a drop in the bucket compared to what I've spent subsequently.IMHO of course
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