About how much education is needed and which types of courses do i need to take to be an airline pilot?

Question

About how much education is needed and which types of courses do i need to take to be an airline pilot?

Answer 1

I'm doing flight training and it's such a great feeling!  What a sense of accomplishment! I would've never known that I was good at flying a freaking plane if I hadn't taken that first step out of curiosity.  www.faa.gov  Good luck to you.

Answer 2

There are generally a number of rating you need. You will at a very minimum need commercial and instrument ratings. You will need experience, usually expressed in the numbers of flight hours. For the big jets you see flying out of the big airports, you are generally going to need something along the lines of 500 to a couple thousand hours of flight time, preferrably in multiengine and turbine aircraft and if you're headed for captain, an ATP rating. It's a bit more complex than this though, your best bet is to talk to the next airline pilot you can for a few minutes.

The route you take to get there can take many forms from military (NOT the majority of airline pilots), special airline endorsed school programs, aviation universities, the list is very long and there are many different stories out there. It all depends on how much the person REALLY wants the job, becuase with the starting pay and crazy schedules these days, you gotta love it. :)

Answer 3

check out University of North Dakota. they've got a great aerospace (aviation) program there.

Answer 4

DO not go the military route! Common misconception. Unless you have a four point GPA and a degree. Less than one percent of the people that go into the  Air Force fly. Also the Army has more aircraft than any other branch so if you really want too then maybe that's your best bet.

I Learned at my local airport, hopefully yours offers flight instruction. Somewhere around $20,000 will get your main ratings. Then you have to get some hours, most do that by becoming a flight instructor. But there are some options once you have 250 hours and your commercial license. Like flying skydivers, flight instructing, flying pipeline patrols, sightseeing flights, giving rides, flying co-pilot for different company's or airlines. Those are a few ways to get time. Or you can go to a "Pilot factory"  collage, something like Embry Riddle or Western Michigan University. I would only do that if you got money to throw around. I am not knocking there edecation its just that its normally 50-1000k. Ya know you could get a degree in something aviation related but you would be just as well off to get a bussiness degree at a community college and save your money and have a backup plan. The other problem with big pilot factorys is that they use flight instructors that were students and just got there flight instructors liscence yesterday and there pilots liscence 6 months ago and have never been in a cloud (slight exageration). There knowledge base is very very very limited.and stagnet. Some employers like to see collage but it is not must. Thats something nice about aviation, is that if you can do it, you can do it. Degree or not.

Answer 5

join the military and learn there.  paying for your own training will not work because the ex-military guys will have way more hours than you could ever hope to pay for, and they will get the job.

Answer 6

OK, all of this talk about going the military route is a bunch of BS...and I dont mean the degree type....My copilot is a former fighter pilot...he retired...with 2700 hours of flight time in 24 years (not very smooth on the stick either..not good at making callouts on speeds and altitudes,etc)....I am 27...been flying for 9 years...I have 3500 hours....I dont know where people get their info...but it is off...airlines DO NOT want someone that can fly a single engine fighter...or make tight turns..they want someone smooth...with comfort of the paying customers in mind....todays flight schools tailor their training to meet those needs....so....go the civilian route...be a CFI for a while...build some time....you will make it...I went the corporate route...but really no difference at all when it comes to creature comfort of the job....Good luck....

Jonathan S

ATP-LRJET,HS-125

CFI/AGI

Answer 7

Many airline pilots have come from the military.  However it is possible to take a civilian undergraduate degree in aviation & flight training.  There are several colleges that offer this.  Embry-Riddle is one that comes to mind; there are others.