For those with no flying experience, the path to a career as an Airline Pilot and pilot jobs can be confusing and overwhelming.
But not to worry, thats what flying schools are here for. We take people with zero experience and prepare them with the skills and qualifications required to succeed in the Airline Industry.
Airlines will always need pilots so pilot jobs are always available for the right people.
The first step to become an Airline Pilot is to complete the Private Pilot Licence. This is broken into 2 major phases: the “how to fly” stage and the “how to navigate” stage. The “how to fly stage will teach you all the basic skills like straight and level flight, turning, climbing & descending, take off & landing etc etc. Once you know how to fly, we will then teach you how to navigate and use your compass and map to find your way to the planned destination. For each stage you will need to pass both a theory exam (s) and a flight test. Once you have passed your Private Pilot Licence exam and flight test, you are then licenced to fly yourself and passengers anywhere in Australia but you CANNOT be paid.
If you want to work as a professional pilot (i.e get paid), whether it be in small aircraft or large aircraft, you need to have a Commercial Pilot Licence. To secure your Commercial Pilot Licence you will need to pass 7 exams and the flight test. Before sitting the Commercial Pilot Licence flight test you need to develop your flying skills further and will undertake further intensive training with an instructor. You will also need to build at least 70 hours SOLO (Pilot in Command) before sitting the test.
Once you have your Commercial Pilot Licence, the world of pilot jobs opens a little but there is still more to do. All the flying until this point will be VFR (Visual Flight Rules i.e we must look out the window and use landmarks to identify where we are) and we will use single engine aircraft. VFR flying is okay for some jobs but Airline Pilots do not get to their destination by “looking out the window”. They use their instruments to navigate by.
Therefore we will need to teach you to fly by IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) and to get your Instrument Rating. In this course we use a two engine aircraft, so we will also need to teach you how to fly aircraft with more than one engine (a Multi Engine Endorsement).
Once you have your Commercial Pilot Licence with Multi Engine Endorsement and Instrument Rating, you then have the minimum qualifications to apply to an airline and the world of pilot jobs is open to you.
If the airline employs you, they will then train you on the aircraft type they want you to fly and at the end of the course you will enter the airline as a “First Officer” sitting in the right seat of the cockpit.
So, in brief thats how its done and how to get into the world of pilot jobs.