Career as a professional pilot.

[Vic]

Hey everyone! Well, everyone dreams about it as a kid at one time - but when it is time to choose a career for the rest of your life (that time has come for me as I am almost 17). I would be interested to learn from the experiences of anyone who is now a professional airline pilot or would have some information on this matter. After all...it is quite a serious matter and I know that all of you folks really are serious people . Thanks for any information!
Vic

[Nexus]

You know what, start with your PPL.
It's a great of discovering if aviation really is your future.
It costs alot of money to getv the commercial licenses so it's really sad if you spend all that cash on some ab initio program only to realize the aviation industry isn't really what you expected.

Start of small, one step at the time

[Rocket_Bird]

Speaking of which.  Im currently getting a few hours towards my PPL, havnt really looked into CPL and stuff much since im still learning the aircraft maintenance side of things.  If for some reason in the future I would like to do a career change, can the stuff I learned in PPL easily be transferrable to CPL with just a little bit more cash?  Anyone know?

[Craig.]

Its done in steps, you have to get your PPL before you get anything else, with some exceptions, but those on the career path need the PPL. then you get ratings, Instrument, multi engine, multi instrument, then you have the commercial license, then various other ratings and eventually ATPL

[Nexus]

PPL and CPL are separate things, you cannot have a CPL without your PPL.

I had a couple of CPL students in my school, and we basicly did the same things.
But now they will continue with the ATPL theory (only that costs some 6.500 euros here) and the CPL+ME

Since I won't be flyin commercially in Europe there's no use for me to take the CPL under the JAA standards. But it is indeed temping at times. The students really love it, despite the heavy workload  :)

[Rocket_Bird]

If you make a living from flying, you don't really need an ATPL do you?  Can fly maybe corporate aircraft with just a CPL?

[Nexus]

Yeah you can...even some young first officers on airliners don't have the ATPL yet since it requires some 1.500hours I believe  :)