I’ve been reading a couple of threads now about new ATP students’ experiences prior to beginning the program and their updates as they go about it, and decided to jump on the bandwagon.
My name is Michal, and I am going to be starting at the Denver, CO ATP location on June 17th. I couldn’t be any happier about this decision and cannot wait to being this journey. So far, I have acquired my First Class Medical and have completed my Intro Flight, and now am in the process of studying for my PAR w/ King Schools (love the dry humor in the videos). I plan on completing the PAR, IRA and CAX prior to my show time, to be able to come in “sorta” prepared for the program (plus the reimbursement for ForeFlight is a really nice incentive to knock those out).
My goal is to get signed on with an airline once I accumulate the required 500 flight hours and work as hard as I can to be able to succeed in school and as a flight instructor, and one day fly the “higher” friendly skies with you all. Getting signed on with American would be a dream come true, as I’ve been flying American since I was a born.
I really love that there is a site like this for us fellow aviators to communicate through and help build each other up with information and stories of personal experience. If any of you have any tips/experiences other than the ones posted throughout this site that you’d like to share, please feel free to message me or reply to this post - otherwise, thanks for reading my introduction and I look forward to getting to know you all.
Welcome Michal! We look forward to having you as a part of ATP and I’d be happy to assist you in your goal of getting signed on/Tuition Reimbursement down the road!
Welcome aboard. I just want to clarify that you meant 1500 and not 500 as the required hours for an airline and that was a typo? If not I hate to be the bearer of bad news but it is 1500hrs.
Also you know the “Fly the Friendly Skies” was United not American
Regarding the 500 flight hour time, I meant the 300-500 total time hours I would need in order to be able to interview with the airlines after I’m done with the program and working as a CFI. This program is going to require so much studying, effort, and persistence that needs to be put into studying and training, but it will be so worth it for where it can take me. And hey, with the recent news and headlines pertaining to United, I’m pretty sure that American can steal that motto from them easily, haha. But really, we can all be more friendlier up there, and scoring an interview with any airline would be great!
Good luck Michal! I too am glad we have this forum of such friendly and helpful people. Feels like a strong little community sticking together with the same goals and mindset
It’s been some time since I last wrote, so thought I’d give an update. Class started June 17th, and it’s been amazing every step of the way so far. Being at the DEN location, weather is always either hit or miss, especially if one is scheduled to fly in the afternoons; first week of school, I only got two flights in. My instructor has been amazing, really supportive and knowledgable. I’m currently a couple days ahead of schedule, to which I owe my instructor many thanks for scheduling some flights over the weekends. I have my TOL eval on Monday, and then starting Solo Prep. Today I passed my PAR test with a 98% - yes I was one of those who took his test after school started, and yes, it required some really really late night study sessions and really really early morning study sessions prior to flying. It was hard, but do-able (I have a strong work and study ethic, so I think that helps ). Everyone here at ATP is helpful, kind and friendly - they all want you to succeed. I have yet to meet anyone with a frown or rude / not encouraging. Anyways, I appreciate all the support and feedback from the mentors and participants on here. It only goes up from here!!! Till next time.
