We’re Looking for a Few Good Students
So you want to be a pilot, huh? Excellent! When you look at all the people out there who are working at a job they don’t like, I’m really encouraged when I meet somebody like you who is willing to hang it all up to pursue a dream. Believe me when I say that I’m happy for you. So what’s standing between you and your dream? Only fifty or sixty thousand dollars right? I’m here to tell you that that is not the case…and you wouldn’t want it to be either. If it were there would be many thousands more pilots who would all be competing for the same jobs. Trust me. It’s hard enough finding a flying job as it is.
I have dedicated myself and www.CompareFlightSchools.com to help you find the flight school that is right for you. There are lots of articles on this site that have been written to give you insight into the world of aviation. But I have written this article with the express purpose of helping you avoid one of the biggest traps that flight students fall into. What is it you might ask? Before I tell you let me say that I have heard this from owners of various flight schools. They are seeing a trend that is troublesome. There is apparently a growing lack of students. What? Yes. Let me say it again. There is a lack of students. How is that a pitfall? You might ask. Let me define what I mean by “student.” Now I realize as I write this (in the fall of 2009), that we are in a recession. It’s true that numbers are down for flight schools. They would love your business. But that isn’t what I am talking about. When I say “student” I am referring to someone who studies. The pitfall that I am talking about is the trap of not being studious.
If you found the perfect flight school with a fleet of perfect airplanes and a staff of perfect instructors…I would congratulate you on your remarkable find. But you’re not even half-way there. The school is merely the vehicle that will help you achieve your dream. You are the driver of that vehicle. And the way you drive makes all the difference in the world as to whether or not you achieve your dream. So when I said that fifty grand is not the only thing standing between you and a career as an aviator, I meant it. You can’t buy your ratings. You must earn them. There is no substitute for hard work, and friend let me tell you, you’ve got a lot of hard work ahead of you.
First of all, an airplane is a lousy classroom. It’s either too hot or too cold. It’s too noisy and too small. And thanks to a lot of other factors…it’s too expensive. In order to gain the most benefit from every flight you must be mentally prepared. Not only should you know in advance every maneuver you will perform, you should also have a good idea of how you will perform it…and the purpose for performing it. How? By reading and studying the books. You can also chair-fly. Go sit in the airplane and mentally fly through every maneuver until you can do it in your sleep. If you think a Cessna 172 has a lot of switches wait till you sit in a jet. You should be able to point to and touch any switch with your eyes closed.
But stick and rudder skills are only part of what you must acquire. The bulk of what lies ahead is what you must know. You must be intimately familiar with the aircraft systems. You must know the procedures by heart. You must also develop good habits and hone your decision making skills. In addition, you must also memorize the hundreds of rules and regulations that will keep you out of trouble. I once had a student whose father was the chief pilot for a large regional airline. He figured he had a pilot job in the bag. He could fly the airplane like a pro but he wasn’t willing to study. He could not tell the examiner what causes an airplane to spin. I spent hours with that kid trying to coach him through all the information. But he would always change the subject and tell me about wild parties he’d had. He even had films to prove it. After his second failure I had a talk with him and with his financier…his mother…and told him to get serious or get out. Apparently neither one of them took my advice. He got a new instructor and promptly failed the checkride for a third time…and for the same reason.
And while we’re on the subject of spinning an airplane, let me mention something else. Remember the pilot that caused a perfectly good Dash-8 to crash in Buffalo last winter? He spun a perfectly good airplane into the ground for no good reason. If he had done nothing and had just let the plane’s systems do their thing, he would have had about two minutes to fix his mistake. But that isn’t my point. Remember how it was plastered all over the news that he had failed five checkrides during training? That alone caused the FAA to go into overdrive. They climbed the hump of every regional airline’s training department and began watching them like hawks. If you fail one checkride during training, you’re still OK. It’s pretty easy to fail. But if you fail two-in-a-row? And for the same item? You’re finished! It’s not that the regionals won’t touch you with a 10 foot pole, they can’t touch you with a 10 foot pole. If they hire you and you have an accident, the FAA will find out that they hired an unqualified person (not that you will care, being dead) and they will severely punish and/or even shut that airline down. You might have gotten away with it a year ago, but not now. They’ll avoid you like the plague. And don’t bother trying to lie about checkride failures in an interview. If they hire you they will get a copy of your FAA training records. Then when they find redundant failures, they’ll fire you. So again, do yourself a favor, go home and study.
Now a word on checkrides. Check rides are not fun. They are stressful. They are nerve-wracking. They are difficult. They are also expensive. But if you are well prepared they are manageable. Depending on which route you take you will have to endure 6 to 9 check rides. But a checkride is really not the “real” test. The “real” test happens on every subsequent flight after the checkride. There won’t be anybody to hold your hand and fix your mistakes. You’ll be by yourself. Alone. Take advantage of your time with an instructor and show up prepared and ready for each flight. Save the parties for some other time in your life. Go home and study.
One final word. While any self respecting school will gladly take your money, they would prefer that you be a good student. Why? Because poor students are typically a pain-in-the-neck to deal with. They are the ones who usually wind up in the owner’s office wanting a refund because their training isn’t on schedule, and they are spending way more money than planned. I had another student who was in his mid 50’s and was finally able to save enough money to begin flight training. But he progressed very slowly because he would not study. I crack up when I think of him. He was more interested in making his shared apartment feel like a home, than he was in learning about aviation. One of the many extraneous things that he did was to find some coconuts and some cool looking pods from a palm tree in somebody’s yard. He went to the hardware store, bought some cans of paint and spent a couple afternoons painting coconuts. He had the best looking apartment at the school, and it’s a good thing too…I guess…for he lived in it many months longer than anybody else. I don’t know what happened to that guy, as I left the school before he finished his training (if he ever did). In conclusion, if you are a good student and approach your training being prepared to work your tail off, you’ll be doing everybody a favor. But mostly you’ll be helping yourself.