How to become a pilot?

Check out this link. This goes through the process of how you become an airline pilot.


http://travel.howstuffworks.com/pilot2.htm

kluivert wrote:

i was wondering where in Ireland can a person go to train and get there private pilots license. I live in the North East (Monaghan) so i am getting Dublin would be the closest right?

Its not that cost effective getting a ppl in ireland. The major factors being cost and available flying days.

When you first go for a license you can only fly on good weather days - which as few and far between here! This means racking up the prerequisite hours takes a very long time. I've heard that South Africa is a popular place to get a ppl. Reason being it is much cheaper and the weather allows many more potential flying days.*

*All said to me by a mate who seriously looked into it.

Just walk into Dublin airport and tell them you're here for the pilot interview.

Seriously though, my cousin has been training as a pilot for years... I can only imagine how much it must have cost him.
My hat goes off to anyone who pours their own money into lessons and flight hours... seeing as how it's not going to make you a millionaire... so you know it's more about the fascination and love of flight than greed with these people.

kluivert wrote:

i was wondering where in Ireland can a person go to train and get there private pilots license. I live in the North East (Monaghan) so i am getting Dublin would be the closest right?

To get a job as an airline pilot you need to have as a minimum, a Commercial Pilots Licence with a mutil-engine instrument and have passed all 14 of the Airline Transport Pilots Licence (ATPL) written examinations. You'll see this written down as CPL/Multi/IR, and when combined with the ATPL written exams it's sometimes referred to as 'Frozen ATPL'. Confused yet?

There are only two places in Ireland authorised to train pilots to ATPL standard. One of them is the National Flight Centre at Weston, and the other is a school in Waterford Airport which I can't remember the name of. Personally, I wouldn't recommend any aspiring airline pilot to train at either of these schools because it will cost you a fortune, it'll be slow, and the standard of training isn't great. You can look into flying in the States, and you probably will find this to be the cheapest option, but cheapest isn't usually best, and I wouldn't really recommend it again due to poor training standards in many US flight schools. There are also many differences between the US and the European licences, training syllabus, and rules and regulations, so you may find yourself having to re-sit the european Air Law exams, and/or flight tests when you return to Europe looking for a job.

If you are serious about it, my advice is to train in either Oxford Air Training School or BAe Systems in Jerez. These are widely accepted as Europe's elite flight training schools. The cost of training in these two schools is high, but it's a full-time intensive course for about 14 months, and will almost guarantee you a job when you graduate. Most European airlines take their pilots from these two schools. Aer Lingus and British Airways use these two schools to train their cadets. The course will cost around €70,000. If it is what you want to do, the money is worth it in my opinion. You could have it paid back in a couple of years after you get a job. The only other alternative is to try to get yourself on an airline sponsorship scheme, where the airline will pay for your training and give you a job when you finish. The only such scheme run in Ireland was run by Aer Lingus and it's doubtful whether or not they will ever run the scheme again. The last time they hired cadets was in the summer of 2000, and they subsequently let the 44 cadets go in the aftermath of 9/11 when Aer Lingus was in trouble.

Best of luck with it, if it's what you want to do. You really have to want it to get there. The training is not easy, and will require bucket-loads of commitment, dedication, and hard work. If you've any other questions feel free to ask.

FX Meister wrote:

Not that many jobs in it at the moment. And the pay isn't great now compared to what it used to be.

Its worth noting the pay is still pretty good by anyones standards if you are working for a major airline. 60-90k is easily achievable. Over 100k with long service and multiple type quals.

Actual working hours are also short although obviously the hours can be awkard ones.

secret_squirrel wrote:

How does that avoid a collision? If both planes are climbing then the net effect is that they are still heading towards each other.

the collision aviodace system on the commercial aircraft send signals one will tell one pilot to climb and the other to descend. very unlikely a mid air collision will ever happen again after the russian tuplov and the dhl boeing over germany