So I took the ATP CTP back in March, but am waiting til after the masses complete the practical by Jul 31st. I am curious what the thoughts are on prices dropping and/or smaller places folding due to business drying up. Seeing what the peanut gallery's take is on the subject. 

I'm sure there will be plenty of places who nobody will go to when there isn't the mad rush/availability isn't an issue at the good ones.  Can't say it enough times, Memphis is legit - they're already super affordable/great price right now during the ATP rush, so could be even a greater savings a few months after the rush.  That said, even if they didn't lower their prices, it's still a great deal and completely worth it compared to either shitty places or perhaps good places, but ones that charge way too much.

The bigger question is why do military pilots have to do any of this nonsense? All of this was covered in UPT and annually on Instrument Checkrides. What purpose does making a dude learn a light twin for one flight serve?

While I agree with you in principle, the counterpoint is that there have been plenty of pilots, from all walks, who "learned" stuff in their respective pipelines, and then packed it in to much media fanfare.

Including Mil pilots.

Yeah, I think the new ATP rules could have a MUCH bigger cutout for Mil, but the opposing forces (puppy mil ERU, ND, Perdue, All-ATPs, etc) would have dragged us back to 300hr wonders in the right seat of an RJ. ...pick your poison.

At the end of the day, an end of ADSC Mil guy still has a logbook that the civ guys can't complete with.

5 minutes ago, BFM this said:

While I agree with you in principle, the counterpoint is that there have been plenty of pilots, from all walks, who "learned" stuff in their respective pipelines, and then packed it in to much media fanfare.

Including Mil pilots.

Yeah, I think the new ATP rules could have a MUCH bigger cutout for Mil, but the opposing forces (puppy mil ERU, ND, Perdue, All-ATPs, etc) would have dragged us back to 300hr wonders in the right seat of an RJ. ...pick your poison.

At the end of the day, an end of ADSC Mil guy still has a logbook that the civ guys can't complete with.

And like every other .GOV program, this checkride/CTP-ATP program does little to prove that a guy won't pack it in. 

 

 

Another thumbs up for Downtown Aviation. If they can take a guy stuck in droids for three years with only six recent instrument approaches and 2.8 hours in a Cessna over the last 3 years and get him to pass the ATP I'd call that successful. Don't get me wrong, I worked my ass off preparing for it and studying their materials, and I walked away with my rating.

If anyone needs any info, PM me.

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Just did my ATP at Horizon Flight Center in Chesapeake, VA.

After the school fired my first instructor when we landed, I was a bit nervous, but they managed to pair me up with someone even better. He's an Air Force O-6 that's retiring, but likes to instruct. Former C-model dude and flew MC-12s. Great guy, really makes it easy for a military guy to understand. 

My recommendation is more for the examiner than anything. John Phelps out of Richmond (Also flies out of Hampton Executive and primarily out of Richmond) charges $50 extra bucks to go to Chesapeake, but it's well worth it. Military friendly, easy going. It's not a gimme, but the ground eval is fair and painless and the flight is low threat. 

I flew 4 sorties and a checkride. They direct-bill the GI Bill and I had to pay for the examiner and airplane for the checkride (reimbursable by VA). ~4 months of benefits all said and done.

Mr. Phelps has availability in the coming days since one of the planes he had been flying at Hampton Executive is hard broke. 

 

Taking my ATP with Downtown next week. If anyone has any nuggets of info they wish they would have had prior to their check there please shoot me a PM.

From the discussions here I'm pretty to happy to check there.

 

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Taking my ATP with Downtown next week. If anyone has any nuggets of info they wish they would have had prior to their check there please shoot me a PM.

From the discussions here I'm pretty to happy to check there.

 

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Let us know how it goes. I'm scheduled for the beginning of September.

Taking my ATP with Downtown next week. If anyone has any nuggets of info they wish they would have had prior to their check there please shoot me a PM.

From the discussions here I'm pretty to happy to check there.

 

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PM sent! Sorry for the delayed reply.

Thanks for the help from you guys here.

ATP complete!

I also highly recommend Downtown. Solid group there.

Did mine with Seth Lake and Mike Jones in Little Rock (Searcy) early July.

Started with Seth and studied the Aztec for two weeks prior.  At the end of our first flight a Tachometer cable broke and it was going to be five days to get a new one.  Seth arranged for me to fly with Mike Jones the next day and I checked the following.  Minor drama the day of the check, on taxi back from the single engine landing I was just about to take the active when the airplane started shaking, had a flat nose tire.  It took the maintenance guys almost three hours to fix it, but all worked out in the end.  It sucked have to learn a new airplane for a check ride in 36 hours, but I passed...the debrief was, "well I've seen all I need to see."

Apologies if this is addressed somewhere else...https://www.wsj.com/articles/advisory-panel-would-relax-rules-for-co-pilot-experience-1472808602...So from a practical standpoint what good would it do to lower the minimums for an ATP to 500 hours for military pilots? I would expect by the time the ADSC was up pretty much all would be above the current 750 hour requirement. Is this a bone (I'm sure my choice of word "bone" will garner a few remarks) thrown to those stuck in RPAs that aren't able to get enough manned hours by the end of their ADSC?

9 hours ago, fire4effect said:

Apologies if this is addressed somewhere else...https://www.wsj.com/articles/advisory-panel-would-relax-rules-for-co-pilot-experience-1472808602...So from a practical standpoint what good would it do to lower the minimums for an ATP to 500 hours for military pilots? I would expect by the time the ADSC was up pretty much all would be above the current 750 hour requirement. Is this a bone (I'm sure my choice of word "bone" will garner a few remarks) thrown to those stuck in RPAs that aren't able to get enough manned hours by the end of their ADSC?

Need a link that doesn't require a subscription, or post the story.

11 hours ago, fire4effect said:

Apologies if this is addressed somewhere else...https://www.wsj.com/articles/advisory-panel-would-relax-rules-for-co-pilot-experience-1472808602...So from a practical standpoint what good would it do to lower the minimums for an ATP to 500 hours for military pilots? I would expect by the time the ADSC was up pretty much all would be above the current 750 hour requirement. Is this a bone (I'm sure my choice of word "bone" will garner a few remarks) thrown to those stuck in RPAs that aren't able to get enough manned hours by the end of their ADSC?

It would help reserve babies out.

16 hours ago, Toro said:

Need a link that doesn't require a subscription, or post the story.

Roger that.......I'm cheap and don't subscribe to anything because of the abundance of free content.....respectable and otherwise....it let me read the whole article the first time but not now......the gist as most have found out by now is there is talk of reducing the hours required for an ATP for Mil pilots from 750 to 500 to help alleviate the shortage of commercial pilots

Edited September 13, 20169 yr by fire4effect

Roger that.......I'm cheap and don't subscribe to anything because of the abundance of free content.....respectable and otherwise....it let me read the whole article the first time but not now......the gist as most have found out by now is there is talk of reducing the hours required for an ATP for Mil pilots from 750 to 500 to help alleviate the shortage of commercial pilots

Your constant use of the "..." makes me question where you learned English?


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10 hours ago, ihtfp06 said:

Your constant use of the "..." makes me question where you learned English?


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Tough crowd and I learned English in the South with NASCAR. Y'all must be channeling my high school English teacher. Seriously though she was a great teacher.

It's one of the downsides to typing as opposed to having a conversation face to face and not mention all the other non-verbal communication that gets lost in translation.  More than a few heated exchanges on Baseops started that way in addition to typing under the influence.

It was my attempt to denote a pause. I certainly wouldn't do that in official correspondence.

Roll tide... War Eagle.. Go Dawgs.


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Long time reader and first post here.  

I have a slot with downtown aviation in early October and would also appreciate any nuggets from those that have already completed their ATP with them.  I also still need the gouge if anyone has it.  Downtown still seems pretty busy with the length of time I've had between responses from their ATP instructor, though I am feeling lucky to check with them.

Thanks to the members who have posted their results, thats what drove my decision to go with them.

 

The best advice for Downtown Aviation I can give you is to always, always use the phone.

Corey is a good instructor, and the program is solid, and very affordable. But he's terrible with responding to emails.

On a side note. Doc (the primary eval pilot for ATPs there) was audited by the FAA very recently for having a huge number of check rides. They dug into every aspect of the operation and found zero discrepancies. So you can go assured the program is legit.

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On 9/14/2016 at 11:12 PM, Moose_VT01 said:

Long time reader and first post here.  

I have a slot with downtown aviation in early October and would also appreciate any nuggets from those that have already completed their ATP with them.  I also still need the gouge if anyone has it.  Downtown still seems pretty busy with the length of time I've had between responses from their ATP instructor, though I am feeling lucky to check with them.

Thanks to the members who have posted their results, thats what drove my decision to go with them.

 

I have a good deal of gouge that's almost three years old, but if they're still flying the Duchess and Doc's still doing the checkrides I'm sure it's still mostly valid.  Anybody who is interested can PM me with their email address and I'll forward it along.

I have a good deal of gouge that's almost three years old, but if they're still flying the Duchess and Doc's still doing the checkrides I'm sure it's still mostly valid.  Anybody who is interested can PM me with their email address and I'll forward it along.

They have a twin Comanche now as well. They send a sheet with all the plane-specific gk they want you to know.

The rest of your gouge was solid

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Long time reader and first post here.  

I have a slot with downtown aviation in early October and would also appreciate any nuggets from those that have already completed their ATP with them.  I also still need the gouge if anyone has it.  Downtown still seems pretty busy with the length of time I've had between responses from their ATP instructor, though I am feeling lucky to check with them.

Thanks to the members who have posted their results, thats what drove my decision to go with them.

 

I just completed mine at Downtown in the Duchess back in June. PM me and I'll send you the gouge if that's what you're flying.


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What documentation did you guys use to show proof of hours? I've never kept a personal logbook since 99.9% of my total flight hours are in ARMS. The system obviously has totals for night, instrument, etc, that can be used to show that a guy meets the ATP minimums, but what about PIC time? My plan was just to get SARM/HARM to print out a line-by-line list of my flights over the course of the past year and highlight 250 hours worth of PIC. Is that a valid COA? Is there an easier way to go about this?