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KodiakRS posted:I don't know what rates are like these days but I'm guessing they have increased since then. Not specifically related to flight schools owned by airlines, but the rental rates around here (Southern California) are around $145/hr wet for a typical older 172/Cherokee, sometimes with a fuel surcharge. Instructors are $70-$80/hr. My DPE charged $1000 for my PPL, but I've heard of even higher prices closer to LA/Orange County.
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Oct 9, 2023 18:05
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azflyboy posted:After you pay them $101k for your ratings, if you're too good to build time by working as a CFI or something, you can pay an additional $175,000 for 1,188 hours flying around in a 172 with some other dumb bastard who signed up for that program. This is criminal. I took out ~88k at 22 years old, which is insane, to get my ratings and I struggled my rear end off just to pay the absolute minimum. Granted, the aviation economy sucked badly while I was starting out and it took me like 4 years to start feeling comfortably paid. I still cannot imagine having that much debt during the “gee I sure hope this career is for me” phase. Christ. KodiakRS posted:Thanks. I was aiming for CLT 777 but I didn't think I would get it. So I put in a bid for LAX 777 to get on the equipment earlier and then transfer domiciles when I could hold CLT. I did some thinking and realized that if things changed in CLT, or it got more senior, I could be stuck in LAX for a long time. So I decided to remove my LAX bid. Oops! At least it wasn’t a lateral equipment move with a base change or something. I’ve heard of guys that build this long rear end preference list while in orientation and forget about it then guess what, you’re now a short call captain on the 73 across the country, stupid!
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Oct 9, 2023 18:23
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friends don’t let friends go to ATP
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Oct 9, 2023 19:20
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Rolo posted:This is criminal. I took out ~88k at 22 years old, which is insane, to get my ratings and I struggled my rear end off just to pay the absolute minimum. Granted, the aviation economy sucked badly while I was starting out and it took me like 4 years to start feeling comfortably paid. I still cannot imagine having that much debt during the “gee I sure hope this career is for me” phase. Christ. I got my degree and all my training for a bit under $100k (graduated in '09) from UND, which wasn't a terrible deal at the time. For shits and giggles, I'll occasionally add up what Embry-Riddle charges, and last time I'd checked, they're up to well over $300,000, and that's assuming they don't raise prices in the intervening four years.
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Oct 9, 2023 20:09
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e.pilot posted:friends don’t let friends go to ATP throw me in OP as ppl and world's longest instrument student?
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Oct 9, 2023 21:01
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For OP PPL
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Oct 10, 2023 08:26
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yellowD posted:throw me in OP as ppl and world's longest instrument student? It's OK! I got my IR, but then didn't use it for 15 years. I got an IPC done a few months ago and it took a while to get through. I was also learning the G1000/GPS stuff, though, since I didn't even have GPS in the plane I originally trained in. It felt like I was starting over in a way but eventually came together.
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Oct 10, 2023 11:14
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azflyboy posted:For shits and giggles, I'll occasionally add up what Embry-Riddle charges, and last time I'd checked, they're up to well over $300,000, and that's assuming they don't raise prices in the intervening four years. Recently there was a group of Riddle rats on a tour of ZMA. They parked four or five of them up behind our high sectors while it was pretty slow, so I was answering questions and such, shooting the poo poo. I was making a point of being on my best behavior, not saying “gently caress” quite as much as normal, etc. I was also consciously staying away from any topic that could be construed as economical or political, when one of them asked how the hiring process worked when I got hired, and where I went to school. I told them about the process itself (it’s changed significantly since my time,) and that I didn’t go to school for Air Traffic, that I’m a mechanic which got a couple eyebrows. Another kid asked me point blank if I’d recommend taking an Off-the-street bid if it meant leaving riddle early without a degree. I finished a clearance, turned fully around to look him in the eye, and said “you know what the difference between (pointing at my coworker) this guy and me is? $150,000 in student loans.” And I turned back around. The professor/chaperone shuffled them all directly out of the control room. 
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Oct 10, 2023 16:36
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MrYenko posted:Recently there was a group of Riddle rats on a tour of ZMA. They parked four or five of them up behind our high sectors while it was pretty slow, so I was answering questions and such, shooting the poo poo. I was making a point of being on my best behavior, not saying “gently caress” quite as much as normal, etc. I was also consciously staying away from any topic that could be construed as economical or political, when one of them asked how the hiring process worked when I got hired, and where I went to school. 
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Oct 10, 2023 17:03
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Good on you. Boomers that aren’t in aviation are STILL telling me to finish my degree because I absolutely have to have one to be successful in life. I’m already at the last airplane job I ever want to work, if I lose my medical I’ll begrudgingly teach airplane stuff. I’m also on track to make a ton of money and have a kickass life. Stop trying to get me further in debt, you’re all retired and stupid and don’t need to be giving advice to the working class.
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Oct 10, 2023 19:35
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KodiakRS posted:Does anyone here have first or second hand experience with the flight training programs the airlines have started in the U.S.? They seem like they might be the way to go for training if you're interested in going down the 121 route but knowing airlines they could also be overpriced pilot mills that exploit students. They haven't been around long enough to develop a reputation that I've heard about even though I fly for an airline that has one. Are we talking about ones with potential flows? Because: https://www.flyingmag.com/stuck-at-the-regionals-the-downside-to-flow-agreements/ azflyboy posted:For shits and giggles, I'll occasionally add up what Embry-Riddle charges, and last time I'd checked, they're up to well over $300,000, and that's assuming they don't raise prices in the intervening four years. Well, yeah, they have to blow up and rebuild the campus every 5 years and have to fund that somehow. At one point, they were offering Alumni to put their name on an airplane for the low low price of $10,000. CBJSprague24 fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Oct 10, 2023 |
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Oct 10, 2023 20:29
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Rolo posted:Good on you. I never finished my degree but work in an unrelated field currently, but still make decent money. I’ve expressed here before that I’d like to keep chipping away at my hours and knock my commercial single-engine out soon and ideally, slowly transition into a professional aviation career debt-free and without teaching. I’ll never finish my bachelors and don’t ever plan on it. Don’t care what anyone says at this point.
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Oct 10, 2023 21:56
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“No Degree lol” on my nice rear end tombstone
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Oct 10, 2023 22:21
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Rolo posted:“No Degree lol” on my nice rear end tombstone Degree programs are a wonderful, necessary thing. Just not for ATC. Or for pilots, honestly.
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Oct 10, 2023 22:23
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Also — if you get a degree, for God’s sake get it in something other than aviation. Study something you’re passionate about, something that will help you be a better pilot (meteorology maybe?), something that will help you manage a business if you don’t want to go the airline route, something that will make you money if your medical craps out. Anything! Other than aviation…
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Oct 10, 2023 23:21
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If my medical craps out before I get magic numbers for retirement, I'm toast. I work a good job now, but it's one of those boomer office jobs where how well you talk, how sociable you are and how much people like you directly decides if you can work the job or not. I might be able to return to my company, hat in hand and beg for my job back but then it turns into this: . I need to work as a pilot because anything else is beyond my capabilities and the rest just makes working for a living deeply unpleasant.
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Oct 10, 2023 23:30
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PT6A posted:Also — if you get a degree, for God’s sake get it in something other than aviation. Study something you’re passionate about, something that will help you be a better pilot (meteorology maybe?), something that will help you manage a business if you don’t want to go the airline route, something that will make you money if your medical craps out. Anything! Other than aviation… 
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Oct 10, 2023 23:30
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PT6A posted:Also — if you get a degree, for God’s sake get it in something other than aviation. Study something you’re passionate about, something that will help you be a better pilot (meteorology maybe?), something that will help you manage a business if you don’t want to go the airline route, something that will make you money if your medical craps out. Anything! Other than aviation… no you shut the gently caress up dad
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Oct 10, 2023 23:59
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PT6A posted:Also — if you get a degree, for God’s sake get it in something other than aviation. Study something you’re passionate about, something that will help you be a better pilot (meteorology maybe?), something that will help you manage a business if you don’t want to go the airline route, something that will make you money if your medical craps out. Anything! Other than aviation… this is the advice I give to anyone who asks me about getting into aviation. Heard from a friend of a friend that my airline hired a person with only a HS diploma recently. May be true, may be not, but its believable in this day and age
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Oct 11, 2023 03:24
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It’s hilarious instructing new navy/usmc flight students in primary flight training because you will have the guy that went to ERAU struggle to complete and end up with his last choice (often helicopters) and the guy that went to online university with 0 prior flight experience end up flying a fighter jet.
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Oct 11, 2023 03:54
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Arson Daily posted:this is the advice I give to anyone who asks me about getting into aviation. Heard from a friend of a friend that my airline hired a person with only a HS diploma recently. May be true, may be not, but its believable in this day and age I'd suspect it is. I know the regionals would probably hire you if you flunked out of HS, and most of the majors have dropped the degree requirement, so I'm sure at least one of them has hired someone without a degree by now.
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Oct 11, 2023 06:59
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Bob A Feet posted:It’s hilarious instructing new navy/usmc flight students in primary flight training because you will have the guy that went to ERAU struggle to complete and end up with his last choice (often helicopters) and the guy that went to online university with 0 prior flight experience end up flying a fighter jet. What is the decision factor here, incidentally? I'd heard that fighter pilots were basically golden boys all the way through -- top notch flying, academy graduates, straight-A students, engineering degree, captain of the football team, yada yada. That it's just such a small field with such a giant pool of applicants that they can pick the cream of the crop going back to high school and earlier. Is it that straightforward or is there something else at work?
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Oct 11, 2023 07:41
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It’s a combo of your final scores, your choice, and the wants/needs of whatever service. Once you’ve started flight school, your past doesn’t precede you. I walk in to most flights with 0 idea who I’m flying with or what I’m doing. The student plans and briefs it all. I flew with an Auburn flight school grad recently who was flying approaches better than I can. He wanted jets. Good scores, great attitude, wanted jets, got jets. I flew with a Marine recently who wanted jets but didn’t fly so great and he ended up in helicopters. Sometimes you can want jets and have the scores but the follow-on training pipeline might be backed up so they put you somewhere else.
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Oct 11, 2023 13:27
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Bob A Feet posted:
That's gotta do wonders for recruiting
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Oct 11, 2023 20:11
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Wild that the low scoring guys get helicopters. I thought that poo poo would be harder than FW. Anyway there was shenanigans with the printer today:   The latter of which made my dickhead RT reading captain go apoplectic over. Made my day
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Oct 12, 2023 02:00
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Mesa unveils a pay for time program: https://www.flyingmag.com/mesa-airl...byUUK7DzydvTjyw Arson Daily posted:Wild that the low scoring guys get helicopters. I thought that poo poo would be harder than FW. Is putting political stickers on the printout from the cockpit printer a thing now? ... because the second one blows the doors off the first.
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Oct 12, 2023 02:30
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It's the first time I've ever seen it. I thought the printer was busted at first because it wasn't printing and I found the first sticker (the mugshot) when I manually advanced the roll. LOL'd heartily, the second sticker came out when it finally printed, then I LOL'd again because the mugshot sticker was of a higher quality than the FJB sticker.
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Oct 12, 2023 03:01
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wrong thread
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Oct 12, 2023 03:46
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CBJSprague24 posted:Mesa unveils a pay for time program: Since it's Mesa, I assume you have to have at least one DUI to qualify for the program, since they won't hire anyone with less than two.
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Oct 12, 2023 03:48
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yellowD posted:That's gotta do wonders for recruiting Well, if you fail out of flight training you can either go drive a ship or be a grunt!
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Oct 12, 2023 04:58
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Bob A Feet posted:Well, if you fail out of flight training you can either go drive a ship or be a grunt! Does the navy still not get you a civilian ship driving license? For sometime one of the funnier pieces of trivia was that if you wanted a post military merchant marine career the army was the service that could do the easiest transition.
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Oct 12, 2023 16:21
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No clue, but I’d believe it. I think they’re widely regarded as the worst ship drivers in the service but I can hardly blame them. Take a 23 year old with no special training and give him a year long crash course of 18 hours of work with 4 hours of sleep is hardly the recipe for success. On the flip side, the usmc got me every thing but my ATP.
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Oct 12, 2023 16:48
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PT6A posted:I want to fly a light sport aircraft? Can I do that? You missed two entire classes or aircraft and a completely separate license. I don’t have the numbers in front of me but I suspect that there are more UL permits issued than Rec. So in Canada we do not have light sport aircraft or FAR103 ultralights. Instead we have two categories of ultralights that share a common license. Basic ultralights and Advanced ultralights. Both require at least an ultralight pilots permit or greater (theoretically the glider pilot permit is greater but good luck getting that by your insurance company) The UL permit is issued by your instructor with no flight test requirement much like gliders and has a more basic written exam. The only add on for a UL permit is for passenger carrying in advanced ultralights and it also requires you to go from a class 4 to a class 3 medical. Unlike FAR103 ultralights basic ultralights can actually have substantial gross weights and top speeds in the exchange for that you need to get some flight training register your aircraft and get insurance. This class is otherwise pretty wide open as long as you meet the stall speed requirement. You cannot carry passengers unless they possess a license that would allow them to fly the aircraft. Advanced ultralights are mostly the same but can allow an appropriately rated pilot to carry unlicensed passengers. In order to get that extra privilege the aircraft needs a letter of conformance and must be maintained according to the manufacturer’s schedule. The numbers for basic and advanced are the same. Maximum gross weight of 544 kg (1,200 pounds) and, Maximum stall speed of 39 knots (45 mph) indicated airspeed Doesn’t sound like much but you can get some European glass missiles that fit the bill. The vast majority trend towards the slower and lighter end of things but that does not represent the entire category. I personally owned a very flying lawn chair ultralight and it was loving rad. I get that people here are working towards careers and fun is not allowed but flying doesn’t need to be all business all the time. The other interesting privilege that the ultralight pilot permit gets you is that you can legally fly any aircraft that would qualify as an ultralight regardless of its actual category. So plenty of cubs, champs and luscombes that can be flown by ultralight pilots. I should also write up something about gliders.
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Oct 13, 2023 20:10
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helno posted:You missed two entire classes or aircraft and a completely separate license. I don’t have the numbers in front of me but I suspect that there are more UL permits issued than Rec. Please do so! We always have time for fun in aviation. Thanks for the write-up, I've never dabbled in gliders or ultralights so I appreciate the input. The only advice I would give is: be extremely careful with who you use for ultralight instruction. I was teaching an ultralight instructor toward a recreational pilot permit, and frankly he was a danger to himself and others. Now, there are also plenty of ultralight pilots who know what they're doing and will teach you to be a good, safe pilot. You can't know the difference if you don't do your research.
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Oct 13, 2023 23:52
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Back to degree chat for a little bit. At least on the non-flying side aviation feels like one of the last industries you can have a great career trajectory without a degree, or even any formal schooling if you get your A&P through work experience. Two of the airlines I have worked for had CEOs that started their careers as mechanics and eventually worked their way to the top. In my case, after getting my A&P and first set of MAC tools for effectively free courtesy of the city of Memphis 13 and a half years ago I've had a great career so far. I've gone from a mechanic at a heavy maintenance facility, to a lead at a hangar, to a mechanic at an airline, to a maintenance supervisor at an airline, to a structures engineer at an airline and finally a major repair embodiment engineer for a multinational aviation consortium. Many of the airlines currently have apprenticeship programs and partner with A&P schools as there just aren't enough licensed mechanics in the US right now. Its not uncommon to be able to go straight from school to a Major airline and very common to be able to go straight to a budget airline out of school. When I got out of school it was almost impossible to even get hired at a regional airline without 3-5 years of experience. And starting pay is almost triple what it was when I got out of school. A few months back UAL was offering a $75,000 signing bonus and would start you a few rungs up the pay scale to try and hire people in San Francisco.
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Oct 14, 2023 22:52
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PT6A posted:The only advice I would give is: be extremely careful with who you use for If you think that is unique to ultralights you should try flying with some one man flight schools. Our local airport manager and flight school operator did a lot of harm to aviation due to flying way beyond his useful years. Scared the crap out of more than a few potential new pilots. How he was still getting a medical when he was nearly blind and had an ostomy is extremely frustrating. So as for gliding. It is very fun and a great way to learn how to fly. It is a very different experience than typical GA flying. With GA you show up shortly before your lesson fly for an hour or so and then head home. Gliding is a group activity and you can easily spend all day at the field. A typical day goes like this. Arrive around 9-10 AM. Unpack the hangar and give any of the aircraft that are going to fly a daily inspection. After the daily inspections they will be washed if they need it. From there the get towed down to the flight line and lined up to get ready for launch. As far as getting airborne goes there are two main ways. Winch launches and Aerotows. Winch launching is like getting a kite up into the air. A few thousand foot long cable is attached to the glider and it quickly gets it up to flying speed and then the glider pitches up into a kiting attitude and rapidly climbs up to 1000+ feet for release. Aerotow is much more gentle and is basically formation flying with a rope enforcing your following distance. It does take finesse to tow well as any drag reduces the climb rate. Most tow planes are taildraggers with 180+ hp engines so Scouts, Super cubs and various AG planes like Pawnees are the norm. You get attached to the towplane and then a wing runner uses hand signals to get the towplane to take up slack and then power up for takeoff. There is always a chance that the rope or winch cable will break or disconnect early so this is trained for (Just about every glider is capable of doing the impossible turn from about 300') Approaches and landings are pretty routine and are flown very similar to the way that powered aircraft fly them only they tend to be a lot tighter and are adjusted a lot to account for wind and lift/sink in the downwind. Spoilers and sideslips are used for approach control and give gliders a lot of control over where they touch down. Bigger glider operations will have quite wide runways so that the runway is not blocked by a single landing glider. After landing the gliders are towed back to the flight line with golf carts. So like I mentioned earlier this is a group exercise. You need a handful of people to move aircraft around and get them launched. The nice thing is that while waiting to fly you are waiting with a bunch of likeminded people and there are a lot of learning opportunities by helping out. One of the best parts of the club environment is the opportunities to fly with very experienced instructors and the wide variety of aircraft available. At some point I'll write up something about the training process and the progression from heavy duty trainers to single seat high performance.
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Oct 15, 2023 01:30
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I have a high school diploma & dropped out of college, probably would be homeless if it weren’t for airline corporate lol Started in the call center
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Oct 15, 2023 01:40
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Hi, everyone. I'm in the process of getting back into aviation after a ~20 year hiatus. I earned my PPL and IR early in my college days, built about 300 hours in light GA, switched majors to maintenance, got my A&P from a 141 school, spun wrenches on GA a/c for a few years, then got out of aviation altogether after 9/11. I ended up getting a good break in IT and have been building my career there ever since. Now that I have a little discretionary cash and my son is expressing an interest in flying, I would like to get current, then get my CPL, CFI, and CFII and instruct on the side... then maybe instruct my kiddo some day. I love mentoring and teaching, and my passion lies with GA, so I'll never go on to the majors or anything; I've no desire to fly anything heavy. I can see myself really enjoying flight instruction, so to that end, I've started looking into a few flight schools in the area. I flew for the first time in 241 calendar months - to put it in FAA parlance - at the beginning of October, but am so far batting about 1/7 in lessons. Five have been canceled due to weather (autumn in the midwest hasn't changed in 20 years), one because I was sick last week, and one last night were I rejected the aircraft due to maintenance issues. Weather is weather. Illness is illness. Maintenance is... well... I don't know. This one's got me a little irked and I just need a platform to vent a bit. I'm currently working with a small flight school with an embedded maintenance shop at an uncontrolled field. On the preflight yesterday evening, I came across a number of things that my old A&P brain couldn't ignore. 1. The a/c we were supposed to fly (Cherokee 140) was just returned to service a week ago after an extended downtime for an "ongoing electrical issue." First thing we notice, the landing light is out due to a blown fuse. It's a day VFR flight not far from the field, so no big deal. Then as my instructor and another instructor are talking about it, it comes to light that this is the 3rd time the fuse has popped in the week this a/c has been back in service. The instructors alerted the mechanic whose solution was to provide yet another fuse.  In my head, I'm thinking "strike 1," and noting that whatever happens, we will not be energizing the landing light circuit under any circumstances.2. I sump the right tank and after inspecting the fuel in the cup, I notice that the sump is dripping at a rate of about 1 drip every second. So, I wiggle the sump a little bit, pop it a few times with the sump cup, and the best I can do is get it down to a drip rate of ~1 drip every 3 seconds. My instructor goes to get the mechanics again and two of them crawl under the wing while I continue the preflight. They more or less do what I did, then get more excited about the dead earthworms splattered on the bottom of the flap (the a/c had landed after a rainstorm and the tires kicked up some worms off the pavement). The mechanic got it down to a drip rate of ~1 every 10 seconds, but it definitely was still leaking... right on the tire... next to the soon-to-be-very-hot brake rotor and calipers. He waved his hand and said, "you're fine, don't worry about it," then walked back to the hangar. Once he was out of earshot, I turned to my instructor and said, "that's strike 2 on this aircraft. If I find strike 3 before the end of preflight, we're going to call it a day." He was very supportive. 3. I noticed the brake reservoir was a little low, maybe an inch below the designated fill line. Odd, but not a show stopper, so I just filed that one away. As I hop in the aircraft after preflighting, I looked down and notice on the floor directly under the pilot's right brake pedal a ~3"x8" swatch of fresh brake fluid  (there's no carpet in the aircraft at this point). I poke my head under the IP and immediately see an active leak on the brake cylinder for the parking brake. That explains the low brake fluid anyway. I point it out to my instructor who again goes back to the hangar, but this time comes back without the mechanic. "He [the mechanic] says it's airworthy, don't worry about it." I politely but firmly declined to take the aircraft, gathered my things, and left. There were more things that I didn't bring up to anyone - the cowl was cracked and outrunning its stop hole, and the fairing between the vertical stab and fuselage was so badly cracked it was held on by one washer and some hot glue. And, while none of these issues alone are airworthiness issues, I feel that each one adds risk and that the risk curve is usually exponential, not linear. Besides, for everything I saw, how many things did I not see? I talked to the mechanic on the way out to say that I'd been on both sides of the squawk sheet, so I hope there were no hard feelings. I'm still early in my relationship with this school and I don't want to be labeled as "that guy." While he was polite and said things like, "nah you're good, man, I understand," he was clearly annoyed. During the course of that conversation, he revealed to me that he was already aware of all of those issues and had chosen to leave the a/c in service anyway. In the course of saying that he was planning to bring the plane down for maintenance "the next day" he also revealed that the seals on the nose strut were shot and the only reason it was holding air during my preflight is because they serviced it immediately before my arrival.  Strike 4, I guess.Here's the thing... old aircraft break. The Cherokee was built in the 60's and has had a hard life. I have never flown an aircraft that was newer than 20 years old at the time of my flight. I don't expect perfection. I expect old airplanes to have cosmetic issues, old avionics, dings, dents, bumps, crazed windows, an inop thing or two, but I would never have signed off on any one of those things in my A&P days. (Lord knows the C172M I flew a few weeks ago was anything but pristine.) The thing that really really bothers me is the absolutely flippant attitude of the maintenance staff. Their instructors (and most of their customers) are from a local 141 school and are all very nice people, competent, but all relatively low time. Not one of them pushed back on any of the maintenance issues that we saw last night and that leads me to believe that the maintenance guy's word is considered gospel. I have another lesson scheduled in a different Cherokee 140 this Sunday and I will be going through that a/c with a fine toothed comb. If I see more of this sort of thing, I'm going to find a different flight school. I'm just super worried that some of these low-time instructors and students are going to get hurt.  Even though I'm rusty, I have the wherewithal and knowledge base to recognize a problem and push back against it. They don't and it just worries me that they may get hurt. Am I crazy? Am I overreacting?
Chuck_D fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Oct 18, 2023 |
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Oct 18, 2023 21:42
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Hey Chuck, its Jeff and nope, not overreacting. If you can, take your money elsewhere since they've proven, in one preflight, that their maintenance isn't capable of maintaining the aircraft and don't seem to care that they're not either. I think, unfortunately, that small town aviation is gonna be pretty tricky since most flight instructors are going to want to be in the large college or pilot mill programs, because that is what's going to get them to the majors the fastest, while instructing the dad with a full time job at the local uncontrolled field isn't. If time and money allow it, I'd suggest looking at one of the larger pilot programs near you. West Michigan isn't too far from Chicago or even Detroit so those might be options. I trained back when you did, and the aviation landscape has changed so drastically it's hard to put into words. It's not even the pre 9/11 hiring boom, its bigger than that, and there is an absolute frenzy to get people through training and on to the regionals and majors, which is leaves people like you with a much harder task of finding a place where you can achieve more modest goals like instructing on the weekends or teaching your son. Good luck!
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Oct 18, 2023 22:22
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Don't teach your son or any family member, do what my chief instructor did and just authorize the first solo after someone else has done the training.
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Oct 18, 2023 22:36
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