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Gradual steps from PPL to commercial pilot

Hi all,

I’m currently in the process of wrapping up my PPL and am seriously considering how I could turn flying into a career… somehow. The only thing stopping me really pursuing this path is the ability to be able to finance all the training, type rating etc. I am not considering borrowing the money as a loan. I have a full time job and dependents, and real costs so I need to keep a reasonable income while training and as such cannot really go the full time route.

With this in mind, I want to gradually (over the coming years) start building experience with the ultimate plan of being able to get an airline job/bizjet job. In the meantime I am happy to hour build in whatever way possible. One thing to note is that I am quite comfortable with the reality that I may not be able to get a job at the end of this. I am happy to build experience for the fun of it.

I have two questions really:

  1. Is this a bad idea? Should one rule this kind of thinking out if they are already established in a career, or is it worth a shot?
  2. What route would you take to get there – taking account of doing it gradually/affordably (as affordable as flying can reasonably be ).

Thanks

Last Edited by EHTX at 05 Aug 21:39

I am right where you want to go – after having a PPL for a while I just finished my CPL, IR and frozen ATPL. The way I did it is exactly as you say – gradually building up some experience and then going for it. I can share a few things with you:

  • Depending on your income it will be easier or harder to gather the experience and hours you need for a CPL. Still if you are flying, even only with your PPL, you will at one point have enough hours to be legally able to start with the CPL.
  • I left my normal job and founded my own company, cut down the hours I worked and spent a part of my savings to pay for the training. This means that while before I was able to save some money each month, last two years I was working less, learning more, earning less and burning savings. You should be ready for this.
  • The CPL, MEP and IR theory training is not that hard on money, it’s more about time. The practice however is expensive and comes quickly. You have to make only a limited amount of hours but an hour in those planes is expensive.
  • You already know that but let me repeat it again: it is very difficult to get a job in the lines or business aviation. Especially if you have worked something else for a while, that means you are not a 20 year old boy and your chances are low.
  • I also thought about a type rating for an A320 or a Citation 525. Not sure if they are worth it without having a job promised. They are expensive and don’t guarantee anything. The advice I get is to offer the airlines to pay for the type rating yourself if they guarantee you a job afterwards.
  • Get the support of your family – you will spend a lot of time and money on that, if they don’t like it, they will make your life miserable.

To answer your first question: I think the idea is great! Even if you don’t get a job, you will know more, have more experience and be able to fly other planes in other conditions. I am not sorry I did it, I just need to figure out how to be able to afford to fly more with more complicated airplanes.

LSZH, LSZF, Switzerland

I am not in the space but know many who are. It is a tough way to make a living. Do it if you love it and want to but not for the money.

EGTK Oxford

I can understand you perfectly well, as I have been down a comparable road. I did my PPL in 2005, rented airplanes for a time, bought my own aircraft together with a friend and still wanted more, so did my fATPL/ME/IR (and CRI) in 2012/13. I scaled down my main job in order to have the necessary time, but continued to freelance for my company. The idea was to find at least a part-time job in professional flying. I turned 30 in 2013 and thought “now or never”.

To put it shortly: Impossible.

Through personal connections I had one (in numbers: 1) interview with a German business jet operator, but their parent company cut them back soon afterwards, so nothing came of it. All the other applications (well over 50) led to nothing, despite first time passes on all tests, circa 97 percent on the theory exams and 400 to 500 hours flight time. I didn’t fail any assessement – I wasn’t even invited to them.

As a matter of fact, nobody I know has gained a real “job” in a cockpit in the past 3 to 5 years. This ranges from 19 year old zero-to-hero ATPL students to instructors in their 30’s who have way over 1.000 hours by now and still can’t break through. Instead, they are caught in a “job” that sometimes just barely covers the expenses of driving to the airport, keeping the licenses current etc.

Am I embittered about that? Surely not, because a) I always had a plan B and b) most of what I learned benefitted my private flying. I would have done the IR and the MEP rating within the next years anyways. Okay, maybe not the full ATPL theory and surely not the MCC and JOC, but the latter were quite interesting and I now have mobile videos of myself on the 737 FNPT II .

After freelancing and job-hunting for close to year, I was approached by my old company because they still hadn’t found a satisfactory succession for the soon-retiring CEO. Therefore, I’m now back in my old job and flying is a hobby again. I would love to do the full FI rating and instruct on Friday afternoons/weekends one day, but at the moment I just don’t have the time because of work.

My 2 cents:

- Gain your licenses for the love of flying, but not because you regard them as stepping stones to a job. The chances are high (“high” like 80 or 90%, not 40 or 50%) you will not get one.
- Think very thoroughly about it if somebody is financially dependent on you. This was not the case with me, otherwise I would not have done it.
- Don’t do it if you need to borrow money from the bank.
- Have a realistic plan B.

Concering the job market for professional pilots in Europe: Allegedly it has always been cyclic, but the present depression has lasted now for 6 or 7 years. The over-supply of pilots in all age and experience groups (maybe apart from senior Captains) is enormous. To give you an example, even those pilots who have been DLR-selected and trained directly by Lufthansa are unemployed in their hundreds – not to mention those who financed their trainings themselves. And flying outside of the airlines? Most business jet companies only hire pilots with jet experience, and paid-for general aviation “below” the business jet level has largely disappeared.

A final word of warning: Do not fall for those training companies that promise you a “guaranteed job” afterwards. These jobs just do not exist. I know one such company in Austria which has specialised on squeezing the youngest of the money they and their parents often don’t have. First they pay more than usual for the training, then they pay for a few hundred hours on a TP with a very dubious operator, then they are unemployed – without training and experience in a job outside of aviation, with up to 100 K euros to pay back, often with severly damaged personal lives. Real personal dramas happen out there.

That’s a field the legislator should look into, instead of battering us spam can drivers to death with rules about how we should maintain our little airplanes that are in fact way simpler constructions than modern-day cars …

Last Edited by blueline at 06 Aug 05:10
LOAN Wiener Neustadt Ost, Austria

I recently met the students of my ATPL class of 2011 (I did the IR there). It’s one of the largest private FTOs in Germany. Out of the 15 students, 2 have landed a cockpit job, both at very low pay. Each of them has paid ca 80 000 € for unemployment and the vague chance of a low paid job.

I do not have a lot to ad to the above, but I missed this one: if you do get invited for an interview, are you prepared to accept any job? Even if it takes you to Asia or the Gulf with all the downsides to your relationship, friends and family? The chances of landing a job in Holland or even Europe are slim.

When I was thinking of getting my ATPL in 2008, I talked to a lot of people and I evenualy chose to fly for the fun of it, and I haven’t looked back since.

EHTE, Netherlands

I’ve instructed on and off for over 20 years and in all that time I only know half a dozen people who never manged to get a airline job. Those that didn’t would have been able to get 5 starts at Mcdonalds or health problems got in the way.

I read achimha comments above and I do see a lot of wannabes that paid over 100 grand for a frozen CPL/IR at some “world leading” flight training organisation. However if they don’t drop into a LoCo airline within a few months of graduating they are frankly unemployable.

As a Cessna 150 operator we need someone who can jump in the aircraft parked outside fly 100 miles take some photos and come back. Most of them have never flown in a Cessna and frequently never flown in the UK (or if they have done so never outside of controlled airspace, VFR in 2 mile Visibility)

So to me its no surprise they can’t find a job.

EHTX wrote:

I have two questions really:

Is this a bad idea? Should one rule this kind of thinking out if they are already established in a career, or is it worth a shot?
What route would you take to get there – taking account of doing it gradually/affordably (as affordable as flying can reasonably be ).

No I don’t think its a bad idea and I also think with some of the regulatory changes I think its become a lot easier and more cost effective.

As for the route well you no longer need a CPL to be a flying instructor so complete that first after your hour building. Then work part time as an FI around your day job. As your experience builds knock of the TK, CPL and then a CBIR.

Remember this advice has come from a failed airline pilot who works for the smallest crapest operator around.

Last Edited by Bathman at 06 Aug 09:45

Like everywhere in life, everything is possible in aviation as well. But things are a lot easier when you stay in control of things. And that means (in my opinion) that you need a financially solid base first with the option to change to an aviation career when the right time has come. Otherwise you “end” like all those 22-year olds with their frozen ATPL and 50.000+Euros of debts and no other qualification, who have to work as ramp agents of taxi drivers for years, until they finally fall into one of these pay-to-fly traps out of sheer desperation.

So my number one foremost advice would be: Try to finance your flight training without borrowing money – unless you can borrow it within your familiy with low (or zero) interest rates and no deadline for payback. It might take a couple of years longer, but who cares. The later you start flying commercially, the later you will get bored by it (believe me, I know). Talk to your tax advisor before spending another Euro. If the Dutch tax office is similar to the German one, you may be able to deduct the cost of your commercial flight training from your taxes. Depending on your income, this can reduce your effective cost of the license by up to 50%.

Don’t waste too much time and money on “hours building” or “gaining experience” by hiring piston singles and flying circles around your hometown. When it comes to landing a job, privately flown time on piston singles, especially under VFR, counts nothing. Zero. As if not flown. Talk to your FTO what the minimum amount of hours is to continue your training, either CPL or IR or an integrated course. Don’t fly a single hour more than necessary unless you do it for pleasure. You might even consider some amount of cheating here, but I didn’t tell you that If it fits your learning style, go for distance learning for your theory course. That’s the easiest and cheapest way to accommodate the training beside a full time job. An hour of reading every evening after work over the winter is all it takes.

Usually, airlines have some age limit for hiring direct entry crews. So people tend to say that once past the age of 30, the road to the airlines is not an option any more. This may be true now, but it has not always been like this and times will change again. Commercial aviation comes in waves with a period of five to ten years and with demand and supply substantially out of sync. When demand for pilots is greater than supply, airlines change their rules on short notice. I got my CPL/IR in 1990 or 91, almost 30 years old. There were absolutely no jobs then. Since that time, I could have joined an airline – even a good one, not some pay-to-fly scam! – two or three times, had I wished so. I never cared the least for airline flying (otherwise I would have tried to join one right after school instead of going to university) so I didn’t take any of these opportunities, but I could have and that is the important bit!

So if you really want to fly professionally, go ahead! There is always a way. But stay in control and don’t let other people take the decisions for you.

EDDS - Stuttgart

I agree with what_next… In life, always stay in control of your destiny, and borrowing €100k and then begging for a job is just a way to end up over a barrel and having to play with the lowest common denominators.

In aviation there is always somebody willing to race to the bottom, which is one reason the GA scene is often so decrepit… too many people work for almost nothing just because they love flying, or want to build hours.

However, I think the €100k people spent €100k because they were severely under-informed. It doesn’t cost anywhere near that to get yourself a ME CPL/IR. I reckon you could do it for 1/3 of that, and most of the cost will be hour building which should be done in a C150 in Arizona. The hardest bit will be self study for the 14 ATPL exams, for which you need to be pretty focused and mentally sharp, and if doing this outside the “FTO resident” environment you will be doing it all alone which is hard.

BTW you need the 13 CPL theory exam passes to teach the full EASA PPL.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

BTW you need the 13 CPL theory exam passes to teach the full EASA PPL.

But not to teach for the LAPL, NPPL, SEP, TMG, SLMG, Microlight and differences training.

In fact I know of two instructors who work full time one of whom I know well and he logs cica 600 hours a year. Neither of them have CPL TK and therefore can’t teach for the PPL but can teach for all of the above.

Last Edited by Bathman at 06 Aug 11:17
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