How to Become an Airline Pilot
I’m going to assume you clicked on the discussion for one of two reasons. Either you have decided to start your journey to become a pilot and don’t know where to begin, or you love my website and just love reading my discussion posts. Either way, welcome, let’s jump in. We will talk about how to find a flight school to go to, the first few steps you should take, and different things to expect.
Things To Know First
Before we get into how to find a flight school or talk about how to get started, I want to take this time to talk about the realities of what you can expect in both your training and your future job. With the pilot shortage becoming more and more of a problem, more and more people are deciding they want to be a pilot. There is nothing wrong with that, but you should first make sure you fully understand the road that is ahead of you. Also, plan on going to a local flight school and doing a Discovery Flight. This is usually anywhere from 30 mins to an hour long and give you a better indication if you’re gonna love it or hate it. This small flight can also be logged as flight time (every little bit counts).
What to Expect in Flight Training
Flight training is not something to be taken lightly. If done right, this will be hard; especially if you are doing an accelerated training to get done as fast as possible. If you have no knowledge of aerodynamics or the mechanics of an engine, this is going to be very hard. You will need to buckle down and devote a lot of your time to studying. If you are choosing to do a more pay as you go and fit it into your work schedule, this will involve a lot of reviewing before each lesson to make sure you are not forgetting the things you were previously taught. I can not stress enough how important it is to set time aside to study, LOTS OF TIME. If you show up for flight lessons unprepared, you will spend a lot of time getting the instructor to review things in the air and not as much time refining your flying skill. That makes for a very expensive ground lesson taught in the plane. Also, try not to space your flights out too much. You’ll want to fly on a consistency schedule in order to see improvement faster. If you finally get landings down and then take a week or two off before flying again, you may go backwards and spend more time trying to get those landings down again.
I went to a flight school that had an accelerated program and I finished from zero training all the way through to my MEI, CFI, and CFII in about 10/11 months. We flew once every day. Every minute I was not either sleeping or flying, I spent reading, learning, and studying. I had no social life outside of aviation for 11 months. For me that was easy because I’m a very motivated person and can easily put my blinders on and devote all my attention to one thing. Not saying thats a good thing, its sort of a fault too.
Another thing to think about is how long will training take. This is going to depend solely on you and what type of training you choose. It can be anywhere from 9 months to 4 years or more. Most accelerated programs can get you done in about a year with everything you need, other than an ATP (airline transport pilot) certificate. There is such think as a learning plateau. Do not be discouraged if you find yourself feeling stuck and can’t improve. This is completely normal. Take a little break and start with a fresh mind. You will eventually get over that plateau.
After you’re all done with your training you will need to find a job in aviation that will help you build flight hours. The most common jobs are flight instructor, cargo, or corporate pilot. Flight instructor seems to get you the most hours each month, depending on where you work. Ending would training, you will have anywhere from 250 to 300 hours total time (you might have more, but this is the average). You will need to build up to 1500 hours total time, which can take anywhere from a year and a half to 2 and a half years. Some people take longer. It really depends on what job you get after your commercial pilots license. Once you’ve reached your ATP minimums, you can go to a regional airline. This is where the timeline gets tricky. If you are apart of a special program, you could spend 2 years minimum at a regional. However, some people are going on 5 years+. This all depends on how much you’re flying and how competitive your resume is.
What to Expect in the Airline Industry
Have you ever worked for an airline before? Maybe you know someone in the industry. If you know nothing about the industry, I suggest you start networking and asking airline pilots their stories about the industry. The airline industry can have its ups and downs and it’s plus and minuses. Most people think it’s a very glamorous job and others think that airline pilots are glorified bus drivers. It’s all about perspective. However, what kind of things can you expect? Usually from day one you will get travel benefits with the airline. This is part of where the glamorous part comes in because a lot of employees use this benefit to travel all over the world. The not so glamorous part of being an airline pilot is that you can spend months to years on reserve, which is basically like being an on-call pilot. It’s a very dynamic job and your schedule can change rabidly, especially when there are a bunch of weather delays and cancellations. There will be days you feel like your working your butt off and days you are relaxing and getting paid. The industry is also dynamic. Someone once told me that the only constant thing about the airline industry is that it is constantly changing. This goes for all of aviation. Right now we have a pilot shortage in the future and are hiring like crazy to fill the void. Then with Coronavirus, we see planes being parked and new hire classes cancelled. It’s a perfect example of how quick things in the industry change.
Finding a Flight School
Your first step will include finding the right school for you. There are so many variables to look, which sometimes makes it a little over whelming. There will be flight school that training under the rules of FAR Part 61 and others that train under FAR Part 141. There is also schools that are more mom and pop as compared to larger nationwide flight schools. Below are just some of the many variables that go into selecting the right flight school that meets your needs. After going through the different variables, I suggest to start making a list of what your priorities are.
Location
First thing to look at is location. Is there an airport near you with any flight schools? Maybe you’ll have to travel a little further each day. Maybe you want to completely relocate to a specific school you’ve found. Some people who live up north will relocate to a flight school in either Florida or Arizona for more flying days a year. Phoenix has very congested airspace, but the weather is amazing and you get good terrain awareness and density altitude training. Florida has nice weather and you get a good consent of how to avoid thunderstorms.
Cost
Flight Training is very expensive. It’s a good idea to shop around and see what all the schools are charging and understand what those costs include. Some of the costs will include:
Aircraft Rental - Does the rental fee include fuel and oil (wet) or not (dry)?
Instructor Rate - Do all the instructors have the same fee rate?
Ground Time - How much ground training is involved? Is the instructor rate the same for ground time as it is for instructor time?
Extra Fee - Are there any extra fees other than aircraft rental and instructor fees? This could include things like landing fees, overnight fee for long cross country flights, processing fees, or and required training materials.
Examiner Fees - What are the fees that are charged by the FAA examiner for your checkrides?
Keep in mind you should set aside more money than you’re initially planning. You will usually end up paying more than you thought you would due to maybe needing few more lessons to perfect a skill that might be taking a little longer than anticipated. Maybe you failed a checkride and need to pay for retraining and then have to pay the checkride fee again to recheck. There are many ways that you will end up spending more than you initially planned, so be ready for that. There is nothing worse than getting all your training done and running out of money just before the checkride.
Instructors
Some schools will have very experience “career CFIs” and some will have minimal experienced “time building CFIs”. Some schools will have a mixture of both. It really depends on what you’re looking for. Usually the more experienced instructors are a bit pricier and aren’t as familiar with new technique, but are very good at teaching and helping each student individually understand each concept. The instructors that just became instructors and are doing it only to build time to get hours to move on, those are the ones I call “time building CFIs.” Don’t let this scare you, they are fully qualified to be an instructor and some are actually very good at it too. However, be sure to stay on the look out for the instructors that are ONLY looking to burn time. This can be rare, but there are a handful of them out there. They just want to build time and will go fly in conditions that aren’t very productive for the phase of training you are in. If you suspect your instructor is just trying to burn your time, get advice from another instructor.
Aircraft
What kinda of aircraft do you want to do your flight training in? The most common are Cessna and Piper aircraft. Some aircrafts are stocked with the basics needed for legal flight. Some are equipped with brand new technologically advanced avionics. Of course the more the aircraft is equip with, the higher the cost will be. Some want to start right off the bat. On the other hand, somewhat to do their training in basic equipment like the 6 pack in order to understand the basics before moving to a glass cockpit with GPS. On the other hand, newer aircraft usually require less maintenance, where old aircrafts might be unavailable at time due to more maintenance being done to fix things. On terms of maintenance, make sure you ask the flight school about their maintenance program. If they refuse to let you see their maintenance records or ramble the discussion, this should be a red flag.
Part 61 or Part 141
As you start looking at schools you will start hearing them tell you wether they are part 61 or part 141. What on earth are they talking about? This is hard to really explain to someone who has no knowledge of aviation, so I will do my best. Aviation rules can be found under the Federal Aviation Regulations. These regulations outline all rules from whats required to get your licenses to rest rules for airline pilots. Part 61 and Part 141 will give you the same results of a flight certificate, but the structure is different.
Part 61 is less structured, but allows for a lot more flexibility of the instructor to really focus on training different areas as needed for each student. The instructor works off of their own syllabus for each student, as a posed to a syllabus made by the school and approve by the FAA. This is common at small flight schools. It doesn’t matter how many lessons you have or how the instructor works out the syllabus, as long as all the minimums that are laid out in Part 61 of the FARs have been met
Part 141 is much more structured and follow a strict syllabus that has been approved by the FAA. This is good for those who are looking for the structure of knowing how the whole training will be set up. You will have to complete the syllabus and each lessons in entirety in order to qualify for your certificate.
Start Learning Before Training Starts
While you’re in the process of finding the right flight school for you and trying to figure out how you’re going to handle finances, you can start prepping. Flight training shouldn’t start on the first day you show up as the flight school. Start reading now. You can find a list of suggested reading here, but I would definitely start with reading the Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical knowledge. You’re not going to understand or retain everything you read the first time, thats ok. The more you read, the more things will start to make sense. Start watching youtube videos that help explain the topics you are having a hard time understanding. Use all your resources. Also start getting involved with Facebook groups. Maybe you don’t have much input, but reading information about the struggles other people are going through during their training will help you feel like you’re not alone. These Facebook groups can also help guide you to schools that have a better reputation or help you explore resources that you wouldn’t have found otherwise. Also look for local organizations such as OBAP or WAI to help network.
Does Your Health Qualify?
Next step is to go to an AME (aviation medical examiner) and schedule a first class medical exam. Make sure you’re able to pass a first class medical before you invest a lot of money into your training only to have it come to a stop when you’re waiting for approval from the FAA on some medical issue. You won’t need a first class medical as a student pilot, but if your end goal is to become an airline pilot, you’ll want to make sure you qualify for a first class medical. I’ve heard of too many students having to stop training for months waiting for their medical issue to be cleared by the FAA.
I hope some of these things helped answer a few questions you had about how to start your new journey of becoming a pilot. If you still have some unanswered questions or looking for advice, head down to the comments and post your response. Lets start a discussion. Maybe you have already started your training and there were a few things that you wish you knew before you started, share your stories and start a discussion in the comments to help future student pilots.