Corporate captain pay and rations seems quite dispersed. Some PC12/King Air jobs are $125k plus, while some Citation roles are quite basic. Long haul Global, 7x, Gulfstream all pay very well.
Reading back up this thread are some interesting reactions from people who think this will make bizjet pilot pay and working conditions even worse than they are now. I guess there is a loser for every winner – as is usually the case in life.
Wonder what that does to the economics of small, regional airports. Should in theory help keeping them viable and open.
One eleven. That’s UpTo date when I did it we used the VC10 and that was in 1991
alioth wrote:
(another friend who already had multi/instrument ratings going the modular route was told that he had too much pilot experience to apply)
Looks like you couldn’t have been far in ATPL, otherwise fine? I had a friend who was considering applying but then moved with work to hong kong.
If you have completed, or are planning to complete, any JAR-FCL Airline Transport Pilot ground school examinations (or EASA equivalents) then you should note that in order to be accepted onto the Future Pilot Programme you must NOT have already sat any of these exams at the point of commencing training under this programme.
Noe wrote:
1000:1, really? were there any application requirements other than knowing how to read / write?
Yes. I remember looking at the application, it required 3 “A” levels to C grade or above, or alternatively a university degree (in anything), as a minimum to apply. Then for those who were selected from the initial application, it required a simulator aptitude test, you were expected to pass a mathematics and physics written exam (approximately GCSE level maths/physics – so you’d need to be able to do things like trigonometry, algebra such as finding the roots of quadratic equations, basic physics F=ma kind of stuff) to get to the initial interview stage. They were taking potential candidates up to a maximum age of 51.
It was ab-initio – in fact, if you had more than a PPL and IMC rating they weren’t interested in you (another friend who already had multi/instrument ratings going the modular route was told that he had too much pilot experience to apply). My friend who was successful had a PPL and IMC (and was my co-owner in the Auster).
172driver wrote:
Here you go: http://www.surfair.com/eu/
The European site shows a big picture of a blue Learjet (N-reg!) with a caption below saying it is a “PC12 NG” and giving the specs as: 3650km range 839km/h high speed cruise and 13,716m operating altitude. I desperately want to fly one of these PC-12s!
1000:1, really? were there any application requirements other than knowing how to read / write?
RobertL18C wrote:
Your implied 90% washout rate for Airbus officers is a bit unrealistic – the frozenATPL sausage machines aren’t able to churn out the tens of thousands of candidates this implies
I’ve only heard this second hand – but we have an A320 “washout” locally who had said about 50% of the course was washing out.
The BA Future Pilot Programme – a friend of mine got accepted onto this and is now an A320 FO with BA – he was saying there were roughly 1000 applicants for each opening (this was around the 2010 timeframe). However, being BA and with the financing options, that was probably a more popular route for people to try than going it alone, but it does show the kind of demand that’s out there. He said nobody on his intake washed out – but then again, a lot of screening was done to merely get onto the course in the first place and I imagine BA by now is pretty good at only selecting those who will succeed and they can be picky.
The other surprising thing was all the antiquated stuff taught on the integrated ATPL course, all the avionics bookwork taught to all these aspiring A320 pilots were from the BAC One-Eleven! (And then of course when they get close to flying the Airbus, they start learning what they really need to learn). My friend was astounded at how much irrelevant crap they had to learn.
I think in Europe Surfair wants to use Embraer Phenom jets. Unless that has changed since they announced their plans in July.
