With over 30 years of experience, ATP designs our flight training programs with enough flight time for the vast majority of students to be successful. At my airline a few years before I was hired they had 8 month captain upgrades. It's always bittersweet to imagine flying as a profession. The private phase was uneventful. When does repayment of the loan begin? You are self-motivated: it's a ton of information to absorb in a short amount of time, so know that you can make yourself stay on top of the studying and commit to it. And then these are the people teaching the next iteration of students. ... ATP Flight Schools – Airline Sponsored Training; ... that owns a plane and is willing to let you use their plane for training purposes can be a great way to reduce a huge cost in flight training. But some instructors hold large, group grounds and guided discussions at some locations. ATP provides up-front, fixed-cost pricing in a way that differentiates us from most other flight schools and academies. Oh ATP, where to begin. I started my journey to the airlines in Oct of 2015 at ATP Flight School in California. Consequently, many new airline pilot training programs and college aviation courses have recently been created to meet the growing demand for pilots and provide financing options for flight training. I chose ATP because of their advertisements regarding 0-airline pilot in 2 years. good lord. Related Article – ATP Flight School Review: My Experience As A Student #1. It's mostly because they have the largest fleets there, which means they can accomodate the influx of students coming through and have the # of aircraft necessary to get them flying. Expressjet (ASA) is now 16 years with the announcement of the cancellation of the -200 fleet. I agree. With over 30 years of experience, ATP designs our flight training programs with enough flight time for the vast majority of students to be successful. First, They do provide a $1000 monthly salary to all flight instructors as a "ground guarantee". In order to establish what courses are eligible for reimbursement, contact the VA representative at an approved school. When you burn through training in six months, you haven't experienced half of the flying you're likely to do, especially in places like Denver. What worries me is that I keep reading about how after you get done you end up only making 20k a year for 10 years until you finally get lucky and find that good airliner job or what have you. If anyone is going to ATP I can't stress enough how beneficial it will be if you already know all the ground knowledge from PPL through instrument. And some instructors don't. They actually just opened two other CFI schools, one in Tampa, and one in Atlanta, to help ease the congestion at the other two locations. Granted, anywhere you go, you'll have good instructors and bad ones, but the typical demographic of ATP is early 20-somethings with low maturity and little to no work experience. If you look around near you, you can also probably find an instructor with 10,000 hours dual give who is instructing for his career not some 23 year old who learned to fly in 6 months trying to get to 1500 as soon as possible. Other than that, highly encourage you to go take an intro flight, and best of luck! I would like to know if anyone has dealt with them before. The only thing ATP is really good for is getting all of your certificates in the shortest time possible. Paying for pilot school is often the main hurdle to becoming a professional pilot. -Your essentially paying double the cost for half the quality of training. The only way I would have for paying off the debt though would be through a pilot career aftee finishing the school. I did the same program a couple years back. Holy shit. I have always wanted to be a pilot and I am thinking now is the time to do it but I don't want to go about it the wrong way. One of these schools is ATP Flight School which in appearance (and by recommendation) seems like a very good school. To locate flight schools, you must select Flight under program type. They have a fast track to airliners program that seems like a good quick way to get my training done. ), but if you have endless cash to spend you will be a pilot ( or not ) because they love to suck you dry. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. Four days of "ground school", two focused on regulations and endorsements and two practicing mock orals on teaching different topics. I now make just over six figures in a job I hate (especially at this time of year), and wish I could go be a pilot without living in poverty and taking out over 100k in debt. After PPL, ATP treats you more as an employee than a student/customer. Easy to pay down that much money as the airlines are screaming for pilots right now. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. Any info is greatly appreciated! I just never could bring myself to justify spending that much money on something so short, not particularly enjoyable, and likely quite grueling at times. 0 time to all 8 in 7 months. Also, it's hard to really gauge upgrade times now, compared to 2-5 years ago. I left after that tour, and didn't come back. Our flight instructor (David Thompson) was also great - he genuinely cared for our future. It will benefit you exponentially if all your "down" time is spent chair flying and not memorizing from their ground school. With the amount of movement at the majors in the next 5 years, it wouldn't surprise me to see him at a major within 5 years. If you go for the flight-instructing route after graduating, tighten your belt and prepare for a couple lean years as you build hours. Amazing equipment, CE-172 s / PA-44-180's Airline Atmosphere Airline hiring events Airline partnerships Decent instructor pay Low cost instructor housing ($0-300/month), Cons: DPE availability Almost 0 single engine night flying *except for 3 pvt hrs Strict safety procedures. He told them to fuck off and that he is paying them, not the other way around. However, the program is probably not for you UNLESS: You know exactly how you are paying for it before you start. ATP flight school is a puppy mill. Oh ATP, where to begin. The ATP certificate gives them Air Carrier privileges, meaning they can be hired by an airline operating in the United States to carry passengers or cargo. At this point, I'm playing the waiting game. The mandatory federal age for a pilot to retire … I've been non-flying for 6 years. It's difficult to put into words the feeling I had after leaving; but I'm sure that having 50 hours of PIC time as a student, hearing a lot of the pilot community's opinion about ATP, and being a student pilot long enough to know that six months is way too fast to get all your certificates definitely didn't help me form an unbiased perspective on the school. The problem is that these ground sessions were usually just 10-15 minutes of my instructor telling me what needs to get better, or what to study when I got home. It's sad that there are almost no pilots that tell me to get into the profession, and absolutely no young pilots that recommend going into it. It's expensive, and not worth the price for the instruction you're getting. TIL making captain depends on the quality of your pre-121 flying and is independent of when you get hired. The price was reasonable since I'd be making that captain salary that much sooner. These kids become instructors, have their eyes set on the 1500 hour mark, and tend to do the bare minimum required. You can't possibly think you can be a descent CFII and MEI when 6 months ago you had never flown a plane. They're few and far between, but they're out there. ATP Flight School. Ground is still subpar at many locations (Long Beach), but they at least realized this and are trying to take steps to correct this. -It's almost "too structured" you can't pause your pace of training to work on something your struggling with; you just move on to the next lesson -Shady marketing: There is no guaranteed CFI job no matter what they tell you. In addition, new regulations were instituted a few years ago that require multi-engine ATP applicants to take a training course before they can take the written exams. I did not want to go the full sail of flight colleges or schools. 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