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In Brief PCN grilled Andy O’Shea, former Head of Training at Ryanair. Watch the interview video here: https://youtu.be/5zb39XImvTE
A free mentoring service and website designed to provide a one-stop-shop to support pilots across the aviation community has been launched. It’s called Resilient Pilot and can be found here: www.resilientpilot.com VA Airline Training (VA) is offering individual pilots a half-price discount on their hourly dry sim rate to enable them to refresh their skills, while not flying nor awaiting future job opportunities. https://va-airlinetraining.com Guidelines for keeping passengers and air crew safe from coronavirus once airlines resume flights have been issued by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). Full story: https://bit.ly/2ZFgELR easyJet will resume flying from 15 June. Services will be operating from London Gatwick, Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness, Belfast, and Isle of Man in the UK. Full story: https://bit.ly/2zrrVVw The easing of lockdown restrictions has prompted Bristol Ground School (BGS) to update its own advice – including opening ATPL exam dates through its relationship with Austro Control. Full story: https://bit.ly/2ZGVQUo +VIDEO Leading Edge Aviation, based at London Oxford Airport, has restarted flight training for student pilots after weeks of lockdown. Full story: https://bit.ly/2zqC9pb
16 | FLYER | Summer 2020
A Commercial Pilot Licence in £32k By Dr Helen Owton When I started learning to fly, I knew it would be a challenge to fund the training to become a commercial pilot. Not only did I need to manage my time between learning to fly and working full-time with family responsibilities, but I needed to be financially astute. My first step was to complete the Private Pilot Licence (PPL). I learned to fly at Central Flight Training, close to where I lived, which just happened to be both very good and affordable. A PPL involves 45 hours of flying and nine ground exam fees, but this is a minimum requirement which can be quoted at approximately £8k. Most pilots are likely to need more than 50 hours – an additional £1,000. Also, there are landing fees, a skills test and a licence fee to account for. Total PPL costs: £9,070 CAA licence fee: £196
Hour building
To be eligible to take the Commercial Pilot Licence (CPL) test, a pilot needs 100 hours PIC and 200 total hours, which meant hour building. I considered going abroad to the US to build hours, but I figured out that after I paid for accommodation and lost income, I would be better off finding a share in an aircraft based in the UK. This took longer than I thought, but while I was building hours slowly at the aero club, hanging around the club had benefits such as being offered flights with experienced pilots in different aircraft to different airfields. A non-equity share came up which worked out at a monthly fee of £65 (for a minimum of six months) and hourly costs of £90 (less if you leaned the mixture well). Spending time to find airfields with cheap fuel (e.g.
knowledge and my skills were fresher. Total IR(R) costs: £2,670 CAA licence fee: £127
Commercial Pilot Licence (CPL)
Above Helen Owton on her £32k route to a CPL + ME+ Night +IR(R)
Eddsfield) can be financially satisfying as well as fun. Total hour building costs: £5,124
ATPL exams
Once I had completed my PPL, I signed up to CATS Aviation to complete my ATPL theoretical exams. Once I had paid £2,560 for the materials, I had to pay £79 per exam and account for fuel and accommodation costs to attend the three study weeks. Total ATPL costs: £4,060
Night Rating
When I was looking for hour building packages, I saw some costs associated with Night Ratings but none of them beat my aero club. Total Night Rating costs: £800 CAA licence fee: £127
Instrument Rating (Restricted)
My goal is to achieve a frozen ATPL, therefore doing an Instrument Rating (Restricted) made sense so that later down the line I could complete a Competency Based Instrument Rating (CBIR). I was lucky to have really experienced commercial pilots I could learn to fly with right on my doorstep at the club. I used the opportunity to fly more accurately and try and get rid of bad habits that I developed while I was hour building. I completed this a couple of months before I started my CPL, so this meant the
I had heard rumours where pilots had achieved their CPL in three days. While the speed of completing this course might have sounded impressive, I was concerned about the lack of time this allowed for making mistakes – and learning from them. I am someone who values a day or two between training. I chose a smaller school in the UK which had an excellent reputation for getting the best out of their students. They worked their training around people who worked, and their motivation was to produce pilots of the highest standards. One example to help you save money was the way they planned their training so that you completed the MEP Rating with the CPL, which meant just one skills test, saving me the costs of the MEP test and the aircraft hire. Total CPL costs: £8,347 CAA licence fee and skills test: £256 & £826 Total MEP costs amounted to £2,800 in a Beechcraft 76 Duchess alongside simulator training. Additionally, the CAA licence fee was £256 but the skills test was combined with the CPL test, so I didn’t have to pay the additional aircraft hire and MEP skills test. Therefore, my total costs from zero to obtaining a CPL equated to £31,603. Not only have I saved remortgaging my house and stayed based in the UK, but I believe I have received an extremely high standard of training along the way. Helen’s full story can be read here: https://bit.ly/2Xz01ib