How to become a Pilot?
By Graham, 26th March 2021
Flight Simulator Fairoaks Airport.
Opening as a private airstrip in 1931, Fairoaks Airport (EGTF) has gone on to have a rich 90-year history - creating numerous commercial pilots, engineers, ground crew and other such aviation-related careers. Those of us from Airline Experience, as the latest addition to this rich history, want to share and record our time and progress here at the airport. This blog is written by one of our Directors, Graham, describing how to become a pilot.
How to become a Pilot?
Congratulations on your choice of career! In this blog, I plan to bring some steps and facts to your attention about how to become a pilot. In order to apply for a job as an Airline Pilot you must have the following (legally) at a minimum:
A Commercial Pilot Licence (CPL, this means you are legally allowed to fly for profit)
An Instrument Rating (IR, this means you can fly in cloud)
A Multi Engine Class Rating (ME, this means you can fly aircraft with more than 1 engine)
These 3 things in their entirety make a ‘Frozen Airline Transport Pilot’s Licence (fATPL), when you reach 1500 hours, this licence becomes ‘Unfrozen’, meaning you can now be a Captain.
There are a couple of courses that have been added throughout the years that you can now count as requirements, they will take you up to industry standard;
MCC (Multi Crew Cooperation Course, this course teaches you to fly as a crew)
JOC (Jet Orientation Course, this familiarises you with the added challenges of flying jet aircraft)
UPRT (Upset Recovery Training, a new course to the industry, practicing non normal aircraft situations)
Once you are offered a job you will do some more training on the specific aircraft you will be flying, this is called a ‘Type Rating’.
There are now three routes to getting this licence, one of which will end up giving you a slightly different licence but we will cover that in due course.
Modular Route (This means you will do one licence at a time)
Integrated Route (This means you will do the training in three phases)
MPL (This is the newest licence and has to be conducted with a sponsor airline)
The Modular Route?
The Modular route to becoming an Airline Pilot is traditionally the cheapest way to do it, the full course should cost in the region of £50,000. It relies on you taking a lot more control and responsibility for your training and it’s time frame.
First step - PPL (Private Pilot’s Licence, appx £7500-9000), this will enable you to fly single engine aircraft up to a maximum takeoff weight of 5700kgs.
Second Step - Hour building, (Approx £11,000) this stage is flying done using your Private Pilot’s licence to build approximately 175 total flying hours in order to start your Commercial Pilot Licence (CPL) course, the goal being to pass the course with 200 hours. Included in this time should be a night rating which is 5 hours of training. During/after hour building, it is time to complete the third step.
Third Step - ATPL exams (Approx £4500-£5000), this is the stage most people find the hardest, 14 exams usually studied and sat within 6 months. You have the option of doing a residential course (recommended) or doing it yourself via distance learning, this can be the cheaper option but requires a lot of self discipline and you must be good at learning simply by self study.
Fourth Step - Commercial Pilots Licence (CPL, Approx £4000-£6000) This course will build on the skills you have learned and will open you up to commercial considerations and tighter flying tolerances.
Fifth Step - Multi Engine Rating (MEP - Multi Engine Piston, approx £2900) This will start you flying twin engine piston aircraft where you will learn about how to deal with more power and asymmetric flight (One engine failed).
Sixth Step - Instrument Rating (IR, approx £12000-£14000) This is the most challenging flying part of the training, it will teach you how to fly in cloud and how to navigate using instruments alone without outside references.
Final Step - MCC/JOC (Multi Crew Cooperation Course/Jet Orientation Course, Approx £5,000) This course is completed in a flight simulator, these courses teach you how to fly as a crew and handle then differences that come with flying jet powered aeroplanes, try to ensure if you can that it will be in the same aircraft type as the job you feel you are most likely to apply for (Airbus/Boeing), do try to make sure it is an APS course, this stands for ‘Airline Pilot Standard’, this is a new enhanced version of the MCC and is current best practice.
The typical time frame for this way of doing the licences is about 20 months, although it can be completed quicker depending on your availability. The nice thing about the modular route is that it gives flexibility on paying for the training (if you need a few months between courses to earn some more money for example) or if the industry has a downturn you can stretch out the training to coincide with industry recovery. As you can see the rough price for the whole thing is in the region of £50,000 (rough pricing based on Stapleford Flight Centre 2021 course prices)
The Integrated Route
This is the one I personally chose, traditionally this route was preferred by many airline recruiters but I must stress that this is no longer the case. Instead, I’ll focus on why someone would choose this route over the modular one on a more personal basis. This route, instead of a licence by licence process, does simplify things somewhat. It puts you through the training in phases and the tricky bits like licence applications are taken care of for you. Schools usually offer some sort of post training career development/industry contacts as part of these courses (Or they charge you extra for it).
Phase one - ATPL exams, these are conducted first usually, although there are some schools that will mix the basic flying phase with the exams. This usually takes place over the course of 6 months, expect to do 7 subjects and exams per 3 months
Phase two - Basic flying, this will usually take you from flying single engine aeroplanes and will likely finish with you having the experience for a Multi engine CPL, the school will apply for your licence on your behalf when you have finished the entire course. The hour building requirement is exempt in an integrated course. Bear in mind that this phase is likely to be completed in a foreign country, this may mean 5 months away from home.
Phase three - The last phase encompasses the Instrument rating and MCC/JOC as part of the advanced flying.
The typical course length for an integrated course is 18 months, although check with the current/recently graduated students as to the accuracy of this time prediction, at time of writing (Feb 2021) the typical delay on one of these courses is up to an extra 10 or so months. Pay particular attention to what is included in the course price as some schools do not include accommodation. The rough price range for an integrated course is between £75,000 - £95,000.
The MPL Route
The Multi Crew Pilot’s Licence was originally designed to streamline airline pilot training and be more multi crew focused from the beginning of the course, the difficulty is that it must be sponsored by an Airline and until you have 1500 hours you are tied to that Airline and aircraft type. At 1500 hours your MPL licence becomes an ATPL by experience and you are able to transition elsewhere into the industry.
As of Feb 2021 I cannot find an MPL course being offered as there are currently no airlines recruiting who signed up to it. It potentially cost a little more than an integrated fATPL but there was a guarantee of a job at the end of the course, until during COVID-19 suddenly there wasn’t when the airlines pulled out with some people halfway through training. This left some students potentially having to pay an extra £40,000 to transfer themselves onto an integrated course leaving their total training bill up to £120,000.
My advice when this route becomes available again is to steer clear from it. However I will agree it has some standing in where pilot training is going in the future, I’m not sure that it is worth the risk in the current situation when it returns.
The Big Picture
The best thing to do when making your decision about how and where to train is to meet and visit as many different flight schools as possible. Pilot Careers Live host a yearly event, usually in the Sofitel hotel at London Heathrow airport (in 2020 it was held virtually) where the majority of the schools attend. Below I will include a few ‘stock’ questions to ask every school however it is useful for you to come up with your own. One thing to bear in mind is while I will never suggest all or any school is deliberately untrustworthy, remember you are worth a lot of money to them so do expect some ‘salesmanship’, be wary of promises that seem too good to be true and ensure that once you have picked a couple of schools that you like the look of, do some independent research and try to reach out to some current and past students via social media to see how their experiences have been. Interrogate the schools pass rates and job placement statistics, once you have narrowed it down to one or two schools, visit them on an open day, get a feel for the place. You will be spending a lot of time and money there so it is vital that you feel comfortable in their environments.
Depending on your ideal career trajectory it is also worth looking into what schools have partnerships with airlines, sometimes these airlines offer a mentorship program where you are more likely to secure employment. I will include at least one that I know of at the bottom of this blog.
I think the overall best advice I can give is talk to people, when COVID is finished, head to your local airfield and chat to the pilots, reach out on social media and get the best overall picture you can before you commit to any of these training facilities, learn the jargon so you aren’t overwhelmed when you go to visit by all these terms and acronyms.
Some schools may offer some security in that if you pass their assessment and in their view should be successful in completing the course, if you struggle and require more training this may be covered by the school itself, due to the events of 2020 these security bonds may be less available but to my knowledge Skyborne do still offer this although they have a high course price point.
Medicals
The Medical is something that needs to be considered before any courses are signed up for or any money is paid. The requirement for a Commercial Pilot Licence holder is that they pass an initial ‘Class one’ medical and then renew it every year. To find out more about where you can do this and how much it will cost please click here to visit the CAA website. Expect to pay about £600 for the first (initial) medical, thereafter it is about £180 a year for the renewals. There are a lot more places you are able to do the renewals so you will be able to find a medical examiner close to you. Bear in mind that every 5 years there are a few extra tests done so expect that one to cost about £260. With some companies, the medical is paid for by the company but this is not true in all cases.
To be clear, you are allowed to be a Pilot if you wear glasses, and if you are colour blind it does depend on what kind of colour blind you are so please do not be disheartened, please phone them up or email them and ask.
To Summarise
For now this is where I will leave it, ‘how to become a pilot’ is a big question with a bigger answer, and there will be a follow up blog finishing this subject in a couple of weeks time. If you have any questions or any suggestions of what you would like to see in that blog please do email me or find me on LinkedIn so we can connect and I can answer personally. In the meantime, the mentioned mentored scheme can be found here. In the next blog I promise to cover some bursaries and scholarships that you can apply for if you need help with funding your dream to become an Airline Pilot.
Purchase a flying experience in our Boeing 737 Simulator at Fairoaks Airport and try for yourself here. We can offer training and experiences from both, our Boeing and light aircraft sims and can’t wait to meet you! But wait, before you fly with us, grab a coffee from either SEMET Aviation or the Fairoaks Café, enjoy a walk around the airfield looking out for all of the different species of birds and wildflower and enjoy the entire, Fairoaks Airliner Experience.
Thank you for reading, please do get in touch
