Reid,
I would just pick the location that is most convenient for you and not worry about it beyond that. ATP tried very hard to make sure that all of their locations and instructors are standardized, you shouldn’t notice a difference from one location to the next.
Chris
Hoping Tucker gets to go for a few hours before we head out together next week. I have my crew eval flights in the morning and then I told flight ops I wouldn’t be available to leave on crew ontil Monday. Hopefully since we both have a lot of time, we will be able to do some cool trips! It’s pretty cool that two people off of this forum are supposed to be heading out on crew together!
Good to hear you enjoyed your intro today, Shaun is an awesome instructor. I agree with Tucker that TPA is great and I personally like the atmosphere a lot more than some other atp locations I have been through. I know both of us are ahead of the planned dates atp set for us as well. Overall, I am still very pleased with my decision to go to atp as well as choosing the Tampa location.
Well currently stuck in Naples on crew because of storms. We’ve been waiting around all week to be able to start our crew and got one flight in and here we are. All we need to do is get out of Florida and we should be fine for crew, but flight ops doesn’t seem to understand that and want to keep scheduling us to go to Naples or Daytona or Jacksonville and back to Tampa. So our crew is going to take forever because they want us to stay in Florida for some reason. 
We also had two days where weather was really nice but couldn’t get anywhere because all the archers in Tampa were in the 100 hour inspections or squawked for someother reason. Hopefully in the next couple days we escape to the north
Kamrin,
I would like to give you some advice, I hope that it does not come across as condescending, but part of being a mentor is giving advice even when it is not positive in nature.
Don’t be that 150 hour pilot that thinks he knows everything, it isn’t a good look and quite honestly isn’t true. Flight ops understands your situation just fine. They know where the weather is, where you are and that you want to fly. These are FAA certified dispatchers, they know the weather A LOT better than you do and are keeping you out of areas that could develop into problem areas, thus keeping two new pilots safe. They also know the needs of students that are ahead of you in the program and aircraft routing and maintenance needs. They see the big picture and are implementing a plan in a manner that makes the most sense for all of the students in the program while keeping safety as the number one priority.
Part of being an airline pilot is learning to trust your dispatchers. A classic example of this is the EWR bound pilot that can’t get into EWR and decides on his own to divert into PHL because “it is right there”, only to land and find out that PHL has fourteen diversions on the ramp, every jetway is taken, and it is going to be two hours until he can get fuel.
On the other hand, the pilot that consulted dispatch would have known that by flying just a few minutes further to BWI he would have found an airport with only two diversions on the ramp and no wait time for fuel. The point is that the pilots do not always have the big picture, but dispatch does. Dispatchers are a pilot’s best ally, they are incredible resource when used properly.
Chris
No offense taken! Flight ops definitely does a great job and have helped us anytime we call them up. We ended up stuck in Naples tonight because of a pop up storm and they had us a hotel within 30 minutes. They’ve also changed or schedules multiple times trying to get us to other locations when our original locations became unavailable. They’ve never tried to get us to fly into weather we weren’t comfortable with and have also been helpful when maintenance issues arose. Still love everything about being a student here! It’s just difficult to watch others go fly when we have to sit and watch, I’m sure you know that feeling!
Also that wasn’t mean to come across as negative originally. I’m sill flying airplanes around new to me places, so not much could be better! We have been joking about our misfortunes all week. So far we’ve had weather delays (it’s Florida ), a bird strike, a failed attitude indicator, missing static wicks on the plane, and best of all the fuel truck skipped our plane this morning and fueled all the others so we had to call them back up and wait in line again. We’ve had such bad luck that pretty much all the students and instructors at Tampa have made jokes on our behalf
Good, I am glad that you are still enjoying the program. All of those mishaps you mentioned sounded exactly like my typical week at work. There are so many moving pieces to an airline and it only takes one small hiccup to throw things off.
All of that being said, I hope that you get out of Florida soon, get to do some flying and see the country!
Chris
Thomas,
Florida generally has very good weather for flight training year round. In fact, Florida has been known as the hotbed of general aviation flying almost since flying began. I would not worry about the weather there.
As to Denver, they of course have great weather, also. I am no expert on mountain flying, but I would suspect that you will not be flying into the mountains much (if at all) in ATP’s airplanes. My suspicion would be that you would spent most of your time flying up and down the front range. Now there are a lot of good reasons to go to Denver, but I just don’t think that you will be doing much mountain flying.
As we always say, I would simply pick the location that is most convenient to you and not give it much else thought.
Chris
Chris is right. Florida weather is great. In the summer months we definitely have storms everyday around 3 or so but I’ve heard that the winter months (October to may) are usually perfect flying weather!
Thomas,
The weather in the mountains can be unpredictable, but Denver is on the beginning of the plains and is therefore far more stable.
Overall, Denver has great weather and is a very good place to train at.
Chris
Thomas,
Just to chime in I remember a few years ago Denver was hit with this heat wave. Planes could fly in and out in the morning and evening but during the day the temp was so high combined with the altitude many of the airplanes didn’t have the performance for the density altitude.
Adam
We made it out of Florida! Yesterday morning Tucker and I flew from Naples to Jacksonville to Atlanta. And today we went to the Louisville location up in Indiana and back to LZU. Still awaiting the schedule for tomorrow. Crew is really fun, and it’s nice to be able to work as a team to complete the flights. Plus free pizza in LZU!
Kamrin,
I really enjoyed getting to fly across the country at low altitudes, it was a great way to see the country and was just downright fun. I am glad that you are enjoying it, plus you can’t beat free pizza 
Chris
I don’t want to be negative but it is Georgia pizza so let’s not get too excited guys
Adam
Free pizza is always nice but we can all agree that pizza from NY/NJ is the best 
Not so fast there, I will argue for Chicago pizza all day long.
Apples and oranges guys. Completely different animals. Both have a place in the World.
Thomas - ATP is moving equipment and students out from the path of the storm.
We are out on crew so it actually worked out nicely for us. All the planes are moving out of Florida to locations further inland. We most likely won’t be back to Tampa till late next week.
I had to fly to Lakeland for my instrument checkride, about a 40 minute flight and it was no big deal. You’ll save time, about .5-1 hour from that portion of training for your flight there and the flight back will be taken from elsewhere in the program and if they can’t I’ve been told they still will not charge you for that time. For example my flight back from my checkride was 1.1 and it got taken out of my crew, which was no big deal. It seems most students are having to fly somewhere for their checkride but as for getting a checkride date it hasn’t seen to be an issue. I haven’t heard of anyone going as far as Dayton. Ocala, Lakeland, and Venice are the only locations I have heard of. As for schedualing it seems everyone has been able to get dates pretty quickly. I haven’t heard of anyone having to wait too long outside of weather delays.