Hello Bobby

[JohnD-IL-509]

Hi Bobby,

Next year I'll be graduating High School. I have always felt I have had a calling to become an airline pilot. I have no official flight experience. I plan to go to a university that has a flight school (i.e. Western Mich, U of I, Southern Ill, Lewis, or North Dakota). I have visited most of these schools and all of them claim to be the best. I would like to know what your opinion is of them and what the airlines think of them. I look forward to working with you on my process of becoming an airline pilot.

Thanks

John

[Pinnacle Bobby]

Welcome to the Forum, John--

Smart on your part for beginning to explore your options early. Gaining as much knowledge about aviation, becoming a pilot, and flying will allow you to make the best choices for you when that time comes.

As for my opinions on the other flight schools I'm going to decline to comment based on the fact that I haven't attended them and am not familiar with their programs. Without facts it wouldn't be fair to you, the other schools, or myself if I speculated.

There are several things you can think about when determing which school is the best fit for you, here are a few:




Are the airplanes owned or leased?

What resources are available to me to assist with career planning an placement?

Do you offer Jet training? Is it in-house our outsourced?

Is maintenance in-house (full time maintenance employees)?

How many airplanes do you have? Are backups available to me if one breaks?

Is the fleet standardized?

Do you rent airplanes? (competing for resources)

Do you require payment for the entire cost of training up front?

What if I decide to quit during my training. How much will I get back? (What is your refund policy?)

Is housing included in the price?

How much will housing cost me?

Must I sign a lease?

If I leave before the end of the program, am I released from my lease?

How long does your training take?


Questions for the school:
1) Do you have set pricing?
2) Do you have a set time frame?
3) How much multi time is gauranteed in the program?
4) Is that multi time received as a student, or received later down the road when working as a Instructor?
5) How many students?
6) How many Instructors?
7) Student / Instructor ratio?
8) How many aircraft?
9) Do they own their aircraft or are they on lease back?
10) Are their mechanics company employees?

Questions to ask the prospective flight school's current and previous students:
1) Did you pay the price you were quoted?
2) Will they give you an exact quote on pricing, or will they only tap dance around a ballpark price?
3) Did you finish in the time frame you were quoted?
4) What was the quality of the instruction you received?
5) What was the quality of the aircraft, were they often broke?
6) Did you have to wait for aircraft to be fixed for longer time frames?
7) Where did you fly to on your XCs?


Bobby