Should I?!...big brother advice needed.

[Flymate]

Hi there

I'm a new member, and I'm thinking to maybe join you guys=]

Recently I have completed my year 12 and got OP of 5, I'm in the middle at the moment and I have no idea whether, is Flying good option for me or not...I have taken this year off to keep asking people to choose the best option maybe next year hopefully to start my uni then I registered here to hear from real Pilots advices...

I have no idea if is the flying for me, I do love the flying and the air crafts, even the airports :mrgreen: but there are still some gaps...

Firstly, my English is not that good(as you might noticed already) would that be a problem in future? but I have passed the English at high school tho,
Second problem is my height I'm a short fellow 1 meter 50-60 centimeters!would that be a problem for getting job?
My goal is to get a job at Qants airlines in future, and what i heard more about this, is pilots are not happy with their salaries is that a true fact?


Thank you so much, please help me to make the right decision

Regards

Jude

 

[harvyk]

Hi Flymate

I'd personally suggest going for it... I myself would love to be a pilot for an airline. (Unfortunately my first love won out)

But this probably won't be the best forum for you. As you'll usually find the members on this forum a little further back of the plane enjoying free booze than up the front in the coughpit. (There are of course a few notible exceptions)

May I suggest a forum like PPRuNe Forums - Professional Pilots Rumour Network ? Most of the members there are pilots and would be far more use to you.

Either way good luck,

 

[Flymate]

Hi harvyk,

thanks for the advice, so you think having a short height and not good English won't be a problem in future?:mrgreen:
are you a flight student or a pilot buddy?
thanks for the link, I joined here since it's an Australian forum...I'll register there as well.
cheers

 

[MrHyde]

Hi Flymate,

Welcome to AFF. This is a forum for frequent flyers, ie people who fly a lot (as passengers). There might be a few pilots around the place, but PPruNe would be a better place.

Another suggestion would be to read the archives from "Ask the Pilot" at salon.com. They are written by a real pilot and if the situation in Australia is similar to the US, then most pilots are paid very low salary. It is only when you become a senior pilot at an airline that your salary becomes reasonable.

Cheers,

 

[harvyk]

Hi Flymate...

I'm planning on getting (or at least start working towards) my pilots license this year...

 

[BAM1748]

Start small and grow, I guess start with an flying club, there'll be commcerical pilots involved there as well. Face to face a lot better than web sites when deciding your career.

www.aeroclub.com.au

 

[Hvr]

If it is your dream then go for it. However, you must improve your English to the level of a native speaker. As part of your career planning I suggest you find out where you can get some assistance with English so that you can focus on the actual course work required to learn to start flying.

No mater what you do being highly literate in English will always serve you well.

All the best and hope you realise your dream.

 

[anat0l]

I'm an environmental engineering graduate and not a pilot, however..........

Communication is going to be a big part of being a pilot, so being confident enough to communicate (written and spoken) in English is going to be very important. I know this might "go without saying", but you would be surprised how many people out there in professions lack reliable communication skills (I speak mostly of my profession but I'm sure there are several others out there as well).

Like others have said here, if it is your dream, you should go for it.

I don't know if being short is a disadvantage to being a pilot (certainly for flight attendants they cannot be too tall, and probably not too short either), but I'm not the authority to ask on this one.

As for how much pilots get paid, I don't know any stories there either. In the end, you want to pay your bills and have some left over to enjoy for the rest of your life. If you can do this whilst living your dream, then what is wrong with that? Some people can have easily more money than they can spend, but they are miserable.

What would you do if you didn't become a pilot? Did you have a plan there? If you really didn't have a good one, then that's even more reason to chase your dream.

In any case, you did very well - OP 5, congratulations! And good luck for your future endeavours, Flymate.

 

[Flymate]

Thank you all for your participation!I really feel welcomed here

What would you do if you didn't become a pilot? Did you have a plan there?

I'm also in love with the Electronic and the circuits, and computers so I was thinking to do bachelor of IT and Electronic at QUT maybe next year, but the problem there is it's 5 year full time course!:-|

In any case, you did very well - OP 5, congratulations! And good luck for your future endeavours, Flymate.

thank you, same to you my friend, good luck.

If it is your dream then go for it. However, you must improve your English to the level of a native speaker.
No mater what you do being highly literate in English will always serve you well.
All the best and hope you realise your dream.

Thank you, I agreed with your statement. well, I actually took this year off to focus more on my English and full time job to assist me thro...

Hi Flymate...

I'm planning on getting (or at least start working towards) my pilots license this year...

Hi buddy,
oh that good, congratulations, how did you find it? are you studying at Griffith university? if yes, Please tell me more about the classes, lectures and anything you find would help.
Thanks!

Hi Flymate,

Welcome to AFF. This is a forum for frequent flyers, ie people who fly a lot (as passengers). There might be a few pilots around the place, but PPruNe would be a better place

.
Hi MrHyde,

Sorry my mistake, thanks for the links I'll check them out now.

 

[anat0l]

Thank you all for your participation!I really feel welcomed here

We aim to be accepting.

I'm also in love with the Electronic and the circuits, and computers so I was thinking to do bachelor of IT and Electronic at QUT maybe next year, but the problem there is it's 5 year full time course!:-|

thank you, same to you my friend, good luck.

Well FWIW I'm currently a full-time PhD student doing research in Sustainable Mining Engineering at UQ. It took me 5.5 years and 1 semester of overloading to finish my dual degree in Environmental Engineering and IT (Software Design).

IT is normally a 3 year degree by itself, although QUT vs UQ vs GUN, YMMV. Engineering is a 4-5 year degree by itself, duals are almost always 5.5 years, or 5 years if you're prepared to take an overload on a few semesters.

 

[harvyk]

Hi buddy,
oh that good, congratulations, how did you find it? are you studying at Griffith university? if yes, Please tell me more about the classes, lectures and anything you find would help.
Thanks!

Haven't started yet. I'll most likely be going through brindabella airlines, as they also have a flight school attached to them. They are based out at CBR airport.

I'll make sure I post up a "trip report" at the end of my first flight.

 

[Flymate]

Well FWIW I'm currently a full-time PhD student doing research in Sustainable Mining Engineering at UQ. It took me 5.5 years and 1 semester of overloading to finish my dual degree in Environmental Engineering and IT (Software Design).

wow, that's lots of years studying!
congratulations on your patience!:mrgreen:

IT is normally a 3 year degree by itself, although QUT vs UQ vs GUN, YMMV. Engineering is a 4-5 year degree by itself, duals are almost always 5.5 years, or 5 years if you're prepared to take an overload on a few semesters.

True, I forgot to mention earlier, I have also diploma of I.T with a high finall GPA, and enjoyed, um, would this help to take at least one year off from the actual 5 years course?(bachelor I.T./Electronic)?so it would be 4 years overall

Haven't started yet. I'll most likely be going through brindabella airlines, as they also have a flight school attached to them. They are based out at CBR airport.

Interesting, never heard of them, but I'm pretty sure the courses would expensive as...right? have you contacted them? how many years you've got there?

I'll make sure I post up a "trip report" at the end of my first flight.

That will be cool.

 

[futaris]

I'm also in love with the Electronic and the circuits, and computers so I was thinking to do bachelor of IT and Electronic at QUT maybe next year, but the problem there is it's 5 year full time course!:-|

I did this degree at QUT (from 1998-2002), so I can answer any questions about this field specifically...

NB, there tends to be a big dropout level in the first year. IIRC, at that time most of my classmates had OP 1 - OP 8.

Re Pilots, PPRuNE is your best bet. Re: getting a PPL (Private Pilots License) or CPL (Commercial Pilots License), I did see a pretty good blog, about a guy getting his licence in Wakatipu Aero Club in Queenstown, NZ.

NB, I did have a work colleague that did a B.EE/IT and was getting their pilot's licence at Archerfield.

Another friend of mine, who learnt to fly at Archerfield, already has his pilot's licence and is flying commercially in Indonesia (NB, he's Indonesian).

True, I forgot to mention earlier, I have also diploma of I.T with a high finall GPA, and enjoyed, um, would this help to take at least one year off from the actual 5 years course?(bachelor I.T./Electronic)?so it would be 4 years overall

Generally, if there is some cross over of the coursework, you can get credit. Best to e-mail a course coordinator, or compare the classes that you did with the course curriculum. When I did my Coursework Masters at UQ, I did something similar, and shaved 12 months off a 2yr fulltime course.

 

[markis10]

You have two options open to you, self finance your licence, which will be at least $100K and around 10 years before you see a return on that investment in terms of your income, or look at getting the Military to train you, repay that investment with service then look at an airline career.

If you are looking at self finance, one thing you can look at is perhaps not doing it initially as a primary career, for instance if you decide to be an air traffic controller first you will be able to train as a pilot in your spare time and count the cost as a tax deduction, you might be interested to know that the current "plane speaking" captain that does the explanations with QF on their "radio" channels was actually an ATC based in Melbourne until 1986 before pursuing a career as a professional pilot.

The friends I have who are pilots have mostly taken the military path, one of them is now a Captain with CX after 15 years riding FA18's including being an instructor, another took the civil way around the same start time and has only just started as a FO on turbo props. A third friend has been a pilot for a long time, has significant time on jets but fell foul of the locals with the pilot stirke in the 80's, it took him 15 years to recover including 5 years flying westwinds that did not have self load freight (night freight runs). he is now flying scarebusses with KA after getting back in with Impulse on the 717's.

A common way for many new pilots is to get their hours up flying piston twins doing jobs most run away from, such as bank runs that involve early morning starts and late evening returns along with half a day in a motel room "resting", on more than one occasion I was the last controller they spoke to prior to having an accident on such a run so they are certainly high risk and I personally believe fatigue is a factor in pursuit of the hours the pilots need to get a better job. I am not sure if they still do the bank runs from Bankstown, Essendon etc but I would caution it is a hard way to get up the hours and not without its risks, the same would apply to flying in PNG which is a path others have taken.

As others have mentioned you will need to improve your language skills, english is the default language around the world for aviation. Pursue your dream but make sure its a realistic one, and above all be patient, network like crazy, avoid reckless behaviour that could tag you as a cowboy and always ask if you dont understand something. If you want something bad enough and you have the skills, it will come to you eventually.

Best of luck.

 

[TimB]

Check out the PCDU blog and podcast at Plane Crazy Down Under. They frequently talk to pilots, and ask how they got started. While they look at all aspects of aviation, the two presenters both have backgrounds in flying, although they're not doing much of it at the moment. They're very entertaining, and also really informative, and I'm sure that they'd be happy to hear from someone interested in taking up flying.

 

[Flymate]

Thank you guys for the info

I won't join Air force nor self finance, since one costs too much and another takes too long.
I'll email QUT as futaris mentioned to see if I can combine my diploma of I.T. with the bachelor.

what I go from here is to see which field has more jobs to it?Aviation or Engineering?

cheers,

 

[The Rok]

European pilots are paid a lot more. Ryanair Pilots are paid 90K Euro and Captains 126K Euro! EasyJet & City Jet Pilots are up there on the money also. Not sure about in Aus, or long haul pilots. But Ryanair & Easyjet don't recognise unions

 

[awilcockson]

I was surprised to hear how little a Captain for JQ, DJ or QF domestic earns ...

 

[Australian]

I registered here to hear from real Pilots

...

Firstly, my English is not that good(as you might noticed already)

can i just say, the fact that you can differentiate (correctly!) hear from here puts you WAAAAAAAAAAAY ahead of most people posting to online forums