What's the difference?

[ch47fe]

Are you still consodered PFT scum if you go to a school to get all of your tickets and then instruct a few hundred hours?

I have read the gammut(sp?) of the hated PFT guy who borrows the money to get all of his tickets and steal the other guys flying job.

Why are folks that borrow money and buy twin time or other training flamed out on the forum?

It seems as if someone is worried about someone else getting ahead of them in an unjust manner.

The free market will deal with the trends imposed on it, even the airlines.

 

[bigD]

I think that most anti-PFT'ers here have no problem with accelerated programs where someone plops down a ton of cash to get the ratings and a good amount of time.

The problem is when a pilot pays a scheduled airline to sit in the right seat with paying passengers in the back.

 

[bobbysamd]

The ABCs of P-F-T

Absolutely not. No matter how much of a stud stick you are, no one is truly born to fly. You have to learn how to fly an airplane. Since airplanes and flight instructors don't come for free, you have to pay for that training. Of course, military is different, but that's another kettle of fish. I paid to learn how to fly; my friend, BigD, above, paid to learn how to fly; every other civilian-only pilot paid to learn how to fly (for our discussion, it doesn't matter if someone worked three jobs to pay to learn how to fly or Mom and Dad wrote a $40K check to FlightSafety). Compare it to becoming a doctor or lawyer. You have to go to medical school or law school to earn your M.D. and J.D. degrees, respectively, and you certainly have to pay for that training.

Pay-for-training is when you are a certificated Commercial or ATP pilot and are offered a job. As a condition of employment you agree to pay for your initial training at that specific job.

Now, I assume that while you're instructing the few hundred hours you are receiving compensation for it. You are a chump if you've paid for your CFI and are paying to be an instructor at the school.

BigD stated the problem exactly. The problem with P-F-T is if a pilot pays an airline or freight company to sit in the right seat during a revenue-earning flight. The right seat, of course, being a normal, required crew position normally staffed by an employee of the company.

There are many reasons why the people you mentioned suffer criticism for P-F-T. Not the least of which is how privilege can let someone cut in line ahead of others. How lowering one's self to having to purchase a job is demeaning. How it hurts pilots struggling to earn fair pay when companies can obtain people who will pay for a job. The list goes on and on. I'll also mention whether any job is worth paying for it.

 

[PilotOnTheRise]

Going to a school, getting your ratings and then instructing for a few hundred hours is not considered PFT. PFT is schools like Mesa and Gulfstream, where you pay your way into an FO seat, that someone who is spending the time instructing deserves. Going to a school, obtaining the ratings and instructing is the away most pilots go. If you go to a part 141 school, such as FSI, it is expensive and requires most everyone to borrow money. However, FSI is not PFT.

 

[ch47fe]

Airline Training Academy

Well, somone tell me if this is classic 'PFT'.....

You give them alot of money they help earn your tickets. You get time in their CL65 sim and some groundschools for some regional type aircraft. Then you get in line to one day interview for a job with a commuter.

It sounds like the dirty PFT, is taking a job with a commuter and you have to pay for your own type rating?

If that's the case that woudl suk to borrow all of this money to jump through all of the FAA hoops and then turn around to pay a commuter to goto work!?

What kind of deal is that? About how long does this deal go on? I thought these deals were a thing of the past.

I also felt like the Mesa program produced qualified pilots that could be hired into their program to then be type rated for the aircraft they would fly. They bought the training but didn't work for free when they were hired onto the operation.

Am I getting it?

 

[bobbysamd]

Mesa

No, Mesa is not P-F-T. I worked there. Apart from the training, the only thing that students pay for is the promise that they might get an interview. They are not promised a job or the interview. In fact, I had one student there who every one hated. I had a lot of trouble with this individual and discussed him with my Chief Instructor. The long and short of it is, I was told, this student could finish the program but not get "the inteview." Take my word for it - and I'm someone who did not like working for MAPD.

The Commercial certificate you earn at MAPD is good anywhere. Unless you are hired at Mesa Airlines, you might need a CFI to find work.

FSI, where I also worked, most definitely is not P-F-T. Pay-through-the-nose, maybe, but it is a quality product.

Gulfstream? Well, that's a horse of another color .....

ch47fe, I think you're getting it.

 

[PilotOnTheRise]

Through Flight Safety you are not paying the airline itself to get typed and get your ratings and then a job. That is what GulfStream and Mesa pretty much do/do. There is a difference. Yes, it is confusing, but there is a difference.

 

[bobbysamd]

Mesa

PilotOnTheRise, you are mistaken. There is no "pretty much" about it. I worked at Mesa. I instructed there. It is not P-F-T. The only thing you are guaranteed at MAPD are your ratings. There are several criteria that earn you the interview. Note my use of the word "earn." Among other things, you have to maintain a "B" average in all of your flight courses. Granted, MAPD students do maintain that average and a large number of them are interviewed. But, once again, no one is hired to be a pilot at Mesa Airlines upon signup with MAPD. Therefore, it is not P-F-T.

For something to be P-F-T you have to be hired into an actual job for you to have the privilege of getting to pay for your training.

Once again, you are not hired at Mesa Airlines when you enroll at MAPD!!!! You can always get your Commercial at Mesa and not accept the interview, although you'd be a dam* fool not to! No one is holding your feet to the fire to be interviewed.

For that matter, neither is Comair. Not all Comair-bred CFIs are interviewed or hired at that airline.

Gulfstream, as I said above, is another matter. Even then, you can learn how to fly at Gulfstream's flight school. You don't have to on to the the P-F-T program, though, I'm sure, most people do.

 

[RJPilott]

i think this whole PFT issue would be alot less fuzzy if everyone would call it what it really is...."PFJ"..... Pay For Job.... everyone has done PFT at one point in their career/rising through the ranks... not everyone has paid for their job...

 

[Marcus]

P-F-T

ATA is not P-F-T. You don't get a type rating in a CL-65 and when you get an interview and get hired by one of their regional partners you go through that airlines training program and get paid by the airline.