The Disadvantages Of Training Abroad i.e. Outside Ireland And The UKOver the past few months I have been increasingly inundated with queries from people who have been tempted in one way or another to go abroad to train as a commercial airline pilot.The reasons ,which are cited to me, are many and varied,a few examples being..." oh the weather is so much better and I can get my training done much quicker" or "the prices are so much lower than what they are here" and so on and so forth. However for every one success story I have come across I have met two to three horror stories with belated pleas such as "why was I not told this before I signed up and paid my money" or "no one told me it was going to cost me thousands extra to get my licence converted". It is precisely beause of this that I,in my capacity as CHIEF FLYING INSTRUCTOR here at Atlantic Flight Centre have decided to take it upon myself,and entirely without predujice,to make the complete situation clear for once and for all, so that anyone who is even remotely thinking of doing their training abroad will at least know the pitfalls they are facing ,both abroad and, more importantly, when they return. Lets start with the very basics ie the cost of converting your brand new CPL-MULTI,IR which you have just returned with from,lets say,Canada or the USA. Whats that I hear you say ?... "Surely my USA or Canadian licence is the same as having an Irish one"... not so I'm afraid. The Irish national carriers such as Ryanair,Aer Lingus,Aer Arran and indeed the British national carriers will only hire you to fly "home registered" aircraft if you have a JAA licence. "So what now" I hear you say... well,what now indeed? Firstly you will be required to sit your Airline Transport Pilots Exams, a total of 14 exams in all,the time and cost being somewhere in the region of 4 to 6 months and approximately €4000 .When that is completed you will now be required to undertake a flying course on both single and multi-engined aircraft to prepare for your three upcoming skill tests... yes, you did hear me right THREE. 1. MULTI-ENGINE RATING In my experience an average student will require at least 25 hours flying,which will amount to, in the region of €15000. Already the costs have come to a "mere" €4000 +€15000 +flight test fees+hire of the aircraft for the flight tests... something in the region of €22000, that is of course presuming you pass everything first time and dont encounter any hitches. I would imagine at this stage that the "low" cost of training abroad does not look so "low" now,unless of course you intend to live and work in Canada or USA for the rest of your life. Next lets take a look at some other important points before I make you too financially depressed.Recently I have had to deal with a few students who had returned from Spain only to find that the QUALITY of their training was such that I would not even sign them off for a PPL skill test.Now dont get me wrong here,I am not saying for one minute that all Spanish schools or indeed all foreign schools for that matter have a poor standard of training,on the contrary,in fact some of the best instructors employed by Atlantic over our many years have been Spanish,French and even Italian with various other nationalities from time to time... but then again they are specifically handpicked by ourselves. What I am saying is,how can you tell the good ones from the bad ones abroad....do you have that experience... do you trust implicitly what someone else is telling... can you see the record of their results on paper........have all their graduates been hired by Airlines or are they still working partime in some supermarket just waiting for that job to come ?... I wonder! It is a known fact that all national carriers prefer that their new employees have been, as it were,home grown and even better if they come from a school which they know and trust and have had a strong and steady relationship with in the past. This is true for a variety of reasons EG Air Traffic Procedures in Europe are so much different to Air Traffic Procedures in the States, flying procedures both VFR and IFR are so different, Air Law is so completely different, I could go on with this list all day,but believe me they do make a difference when two students go for a job interview and one has been trained "at home" and the other abroad... no prizes for guessing which one has the advantage from the off. A conversation with a senior Airline Captain,who shall remain anonymious,over a coffee lately alerted me to another problem.His job included the hiring of new pilots and his observation over a period of time was that training of student commercial pilots ,in a country where the weather was always blue skies and sunshine was for the most part, as he put it in his own words... "bloody useless". He had observed that pilots trained in countries such as Ireland and England,where the weather was,as he put it,"a mixed bag from day to day, never knowing what you are going to encounter weatherwise",had a much better developed sense of CAUTIOUS WEATHER DECISION SKILLS, as compared with students whose training was for the most part completed in blues skies and sunshine. Again something which may possibly make a difference between two students applying for the same job. Probably one of the biggest disadvantages of training abroad is the lack of net working skills which are developed by home trained students on a day to day basis.This may sound a very trivial point but believe me its not... especially in a world of... ITS NOT WHAT YOU KNOW ITS WHO YOU KNOW. It is very important for a student to have contact with his peers through his training for various reasons.Remember these are the guys flying jets on a daily basis, they know whats expected of a pilot on a daily basis and can impart this information and training to the student,especially in accordance with the airline they are working for.At Atlantic we have several partime instructors who are working for various airlines and it has benefitted the students in lots of ways from procedural flying of company aircraft to a personal insight into the company itself to becoming aquainted with future collegues and keeping up with current recruitment polices.Its like the old saying "live with me to know me". I could bore you silly for another couple of hours but I think I have given you enough food for though to help you to make that all important decision, one last point to make is when you do go for that career making or breaking interview the Airlines are always very impressed when you can produce that letter of recommendation from the school where your training was carried out, especially if they know that school and its staff personally,this is rarely the case when it comes to foreign schools. Anyway I would like to wish you the best of luck and good fortune in whatever decision you make concerning your training and if I can be of any further assistance dont hesitate to give me a shout at the Atlantic Flight Centre or email me at info@atlanticair.ie Safe Flying |