I finally landed my first Flying Job with a survey company after a series of unlikely and probably divine events. Im very excited!

I was also not prepared for this because for a number of reasons I thought that ship had sailed until they called me up.

Any tips, anything to expect? I know its going to be a blast but its a long way from home for a long while. appreciate it

When cleared for the ILS circling approach, is the FAF considered at the glideslope intercept or do we have to treat it as a non precision and wait until RAWlS?

Had a few different answers and thought i’d ask here. The confusion is coming from a circling being a MDA which makes me think we have to treat it like a non precision.

Hey all,

A bit of context. I’m currently 22 and spent the last four years flight training while also getting a bachelor's in finance (my calendar was a crime scene). My plan was to always fly 135 or go to the Airlines and have a degree as just a backup. I now have my CPL with a multi-engine rating and close to 500 hours, and I was just starting to work on getting my CFI when I got offered a six-figure job in finance at a great company. 

I’m extremely grateful to have this opportunity and I know how incredibly lucky I am. But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t leave me a little torn. Flying has always been my childhood dream, and my biggest fear is that a 9-5 slowly turns into golden handcuffs, and I wake up at 30 wishing I had just stuck with getting my hours. Or not being able to make the jump back to aviation because of the job market or the oversupply of pilots in the coming years. 

My rough plan is to take the job, keep building hours and network on the side, and have a solid cushion so I can make the jump back one day.

Those who worked a 9-5 while finishing CFI and instructing? How was it balancing work and Flying?

If you made the jump later to a flying job, How did you do it, and how did it go? Did a career outside aviation help or hurt?

Anything else you would do differently?

Thank you so much in advance! Any advice, stories, words of wisdom, and “here’s what I would do” are all hugely appreciated. Happy Flying!

TLDR: Got a 6-figure job offer out of college, feels like it's the end of flying dreams. How to still fly professionally?

Last week I made a post on needing reassurance or advice on First solo nerves, I got my first solo on 10/10/26, my second on the 11th and third on the 12th.
Thanks to everyone who gave me the advice and the kind words super proud of myself for it and can say I enjoy flying a lot more again. Starting my cross countries soon!!

Completed PPL recently and figured I’d post the cost summary. Took about 1 year and ended in 10/26. This is Kansas City metro.

Flight + CFI at 77.5 hours (59.1 RX + 18.4 PIC): $19,093

Ground school at community college: $399

Check ride: $800

Insurance: $352

Written: $175

Fore Flight: $427

Headset: $1100

Books, charts, E6B, plotter: $250

TOTAL: $22,596

Wet rate for Archer is $190/hour and includes $5/hour discount for paying in $2500 blocks. Rate was $170/hour one year ago but at 9 gal/hour they had to increase the fuel cost. CFI is $65/hour.

if there‘s any costs to watch out for, it’s the long cross-country as that can easily be $600.

Within the last year, I finally had the opportunity to move to live in-base (Philadelphia). My Primary Care Doctor works for Penn Medicine, and while searching for AMEs in Philadelphia, it turns out the two AMEs within the city limits are both Penn Medicine Doctors as well, albeit in a different building on the opposite side of the city from my Primary Doctor.

Keeping in mind the tried and true advice of "Don't let your AME and Primary Care Doctor be the same person", would y'all be comfortable having them both work for the same hospital, or should I try to find someone outside of Philadelphia? I'd prefer to have an AME in the greater Philly area; I prefer to take SEPTA whenever feasible, and both AMEs are just off the Airport line, but I'm open to driving out of town if that's the recommended advice.

I'm turning 32 in a couple months. I have 300 hours and a commercial rating. I just started working on my CFI and have an aerial survey gig lined up once I hit 400 hours (very lucky connection).

Alternatively, I'm considering joining the Air National Guard. The unit near me flies KC-135s. I think I have a compelling application - I was accepted into the Air Force Academy (but did not attend), so this has always been a path not taken. Did corporate America throughout my 20s. Ran my own business, got a BSc in Math, etc.

End goal is the airlines, but serving my local community and diversifying my flying experience sounds really intriguing.

My local unit is taking apps in the spring and I have a distant connection with one of their pilots, so I believe I have a good shot. My age is certainly against me, however. And I likely couldn't do the aerial gig (at least not more than a few months) if I get accepted to the ANG.

Has anyone taken this path? Any advice or things to consider?

TL;DR: make sure you’re insured, whether open or named pilot, and get a waiver of subrogation. I’ve seen legal, safe flights end in financial ruin for the contract crew and/or their estate if they’re gone. It can absolutely happen to you.

Hey y’all. I’ve been around a long time and have a lot of time on the CE-500 series mixed between every version except the +’s. They’re all absolutely wonderful airplanes and are a perfect first jet. But the current lull in hiring (eg ops normal) and intense social media marketing of pilot shortage/ATP/make-$500k-in-4 years/no-CFI means lots of low time pilots may see this as an opportunity. It is, and it isn’t. I posted the following as a reply to a recently deleted post and have copied below:

I saw a $7k CE-500 61.55 featured on miscellaneous social media the other day and people were absolutely fawning over it. That’s not the point of this.

I’m not saying gigs aren’t possible with a 61.55, especially with the new rule, but be wary and insurability is going to be key. Several “operators” are gonna circumvent their insurance to be legal in the eyes of the FAA but uninsured….because that’s what people do. I know seeing a day gig for $200 (please don’t do this) in the right seat of a shiny new (old) CE-500/550/560 is inviting but think about your future; we are professionals that are paid to mitigate risk. Regardless of your training and experience, things can happen that may be completely out of your control. For the low time amigo/as that find themselves with the opportunity of a contract trip thanks to a CE-500 61.55:

- ENSURE YOU ARE INSURED: NAMED OR OPEN PILOT. PERIOD. If you’re not insured, and something goes sideways, the plaintiff’s attorneys will absolutely not give one fuck whether you’re still on this earth or not. Ever wonder why even the company that manufactured the o-ring on the lavatory poop seal gets sued in a crash (yes I know this a bit of an exaggeration…but not by much)? It’s because they will go after everyone/anything and will absolutely attempt to go scorched earth on everything you have or have left over after you’re in the ground.

- Waiver of subrogation. Even if you are insured, help avoid the above and ensure one of these are signed before the tires turn.

It’s going to be fairly rare that an open pilot agreement will allow this to be approved, and named pilot is technically possible, for the love of god please protect yourselves. Be very aware of operators/owner pilots that say, “Hey yeah man you’re good!” just to get the mission done.

I'm 26, have the post 9/11 GI Bill and am planning on heading to a 2 year degree program for becoming a fixed wing pilot through a part 141 school paid for by the military. I am extremely motivated and committed to becoming an airline pilot and wanna know realistically how long would it take for me to achieve this? The school is 2 years and technically if I grind as a CFI could attain my r-atp license within a year. This is everything going right (which I know probably wont happen). I read all the time that it takes so many people 7+ years to become a pilot and I always wonder if this is because most people just don't commit to it full time or have the funding available. Would it be realistic for me to potentially get a job at a regional within 3-4 years being of full time working towards this goal? I guess mentally I just wanna know that if I commit to this I can probably be earning a decent living within 4 years vs something closer to a decade. I know there are a lot of unknowns and possible delays that could put me behind but I'm super motivated to try and achieve this.

Hello! I will be taking my ASEL PPL Checkride next week. Curious to hear what more seasoned pilots would recommend. The simulated XC is to go from the Fresno area (FAT) to CRQ (Carlsbad, outside of San Diego).

Would you recommend going around LAX/B airspace through the San Bernardino route via the Cajon pass or go at 11.5k over the grapevine directly over LAX/B and fly along the coast?

On one hand, the LAX route is quicker and if I fly over the airspace, then I dont have to deal with navigating with the chaos of class B. However, i have some mild concerns about flying along the water, especially with some hills/mountains along the coast near Pendleton in the restricted area.

The San Bernardino route is a little longer (but not by much) and offers a lot of airports for e landing if needed but may be a little annoying to deal with air traffic coming in/out of the B airspace. But I would be flying over all the Charlies, etc so wouldnt directly be dealing with a bunch of airspaces. As a “student pilot”, I am also inexperienced, which should impact the decision.

Please, any and all feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

EDIT: Btw- whats your experience with DPEs and using foreflight instead of a paper log?

Hey everyone! I’m turning 16 at the end of November and I’m planning to start my PPL(A) training in Poland right around then. I’ve been thinking about flying for a really long time, so I'm glad I'm finally moving forward with it. For now, I'm just taking my time getting my Class 2 Medical sorted out. Ideally, I'd like to aim to be ready for the checkride around when I turn 17, since from what I understand that's pretty much the minimum age requirement anyway.

I’m planning to do the whole training with Zonda.aero, so if anyone here has any experience with them, I’d really appreciate it if you could share what it was like. They offer an online ground school for self-study that takes about 86 hours, and I’m wondering if that alone is enough to get well prepared for the exams, or if you’d recommend using any extra tools, apps, or books on the side.

I’m also a bit worried about balancing all of this with high school since my school is pretty demanding. I’m confident I can make it work, but I'd love to hear how others managed their time between schoolwork and flight lessons. Do you think starting at 16 will make things significantly harder, or is it pretty manageable? Any tips or insights would be awesome, thanks in advance!

Hello everyone! I've been in touch with the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), and they're excited about the possibility of establishing a new chapter at Van Nuys Airport! I'm currently looking for EAA members interested in helping get the chapter off the ground, especially longtime members who might be interested in taking on a more active leadership or board role. The goal is to bring together pilots, aircraft owners, builders, mechanics, students, and aviation enthusiasts to create a stronger aviation community at KVNY through events, activities, and opportunities to connect. I also have a hangar at KVNY that could serve as a space for chapter meetings and activities! There's no major time commitment expected, and everyone is welcome! If you're interested or know someone who might be, please reach out! I'd love to connect and get this chapter off the ground.

I’m moving to arizona to pursue my PPL but conflicted about what school to go to. I’ll be in glendale / peoria area but i know a lot of people train out of deer valley airport so i’d be open to that as well. please let me know if you have recommendations or schools to stay away from. I was interested in scottsdale executive which operates out of deer valley or fly glendale

I’ve been working in aviation for awhile, it’s always been something I’ve been passionate about so I recently decided to pursue a PPL.

I signed up with what seems to be the biggest instruction company in my area. There are 3 or so, this one has the largest fleet and offers training from PPL through ATPLs. Anyway, they seem legit and convenient so I paid a €500 signup fee and am happy to make forward progress.

My first lesson before flight is a basics of flight and controls classroom thing. I have a degree in aerospace engineering and I’ve been working in the industry for awhile so a lot of it seems obvious to me, but I don’t want to be “that guy” so I’m smiling and nodding my head, and paying attention to the bits of info that are new to me (my experience is all jets so I have a lot to learn about little Cessnas).

Anyway: there were several parts of this guy’s theory instruction where he was just absolutely wrong. There were a couple minor things, such as describing how LE flaps worked, where his rationale was wrong but the effect was the same so I just continued to smile and nod my head.

Then he got into secondary effects of flight controls and spent like 5 minutes trying to explain about how when you use your rudder to yaw in one direction the lift will become uneven on your wings for XYZ reason, so you should also do XYZ with your control column. This wasn’t intuitive to me so I’m trying to wrap my head around it while listening to him and looking at the PowerPoint slide, and it’s clear he doesn’t understand it at all. At the end of his 5 minutes discussing the topic he looked at the PowerPoint slide he was working off of and realised it completely contradicted him, like he said you should be applying right roll when the slide said left.

To his credit he looked at the screen, paused, then said “my mistake…” and corrected his instructions to match the slide.

I’m probably overthinking this but I’m concerned about receiving flying instructions from someone who confidently explains things incorrectly. I don’t expect my instructor to have a detailed understanding of complex behaviours of aerodynamics, that’s probably not necessary to fly an airplane, but I also don’t want them to just make shit up when they don’t understand it.

I’m thinking of requesting from the flight school that they don’t assign this guy as my instructor going forward. They seem to have several instructors and I assume they can accommodate this request.

If you’ve made it this far through my post, thanks.

My questions are: * is less-than-strong understanding of aerodynamics normal for a CFI, so if I object to this guy I’ll probably just get more of the same? * Am I overthinking this? * If my instincts are on the right track, what’s the best way to approach this with the school? I don’t want to cause any problems with/for the guy, but I’m not comfortable receiving flight instructions from him based on this.

I recently gave a third class medical with plans of starting training for PPL soon next month. I mentioned on my medical application form 8500-8 of me undergoing therapy for work related stress/anxiety (no medication involded) and also listed Septoplasty (nasal septum deviation) surgery from 2024.

He said he deferred it to FAA since anxiety falls under Mental Health and they need to dig deeper into this which I totally understand.

I just received mail from FAA seeking info on the therapy but also is asking for history on the multiple eye surgeries I supposedly had. I never had these and not sure how they were misinformed on this.

I am stumped right now on how to tackle this. Did anyone go through this issue? How do I address this?

Im wondering what online grounds school is the best bang for my buck, Im not the biggest fan of flight Insight because its very monotone but i can admit it gets the job done and I like gold seals tone towards the teaching but the explanations seem dull in the information department so I would love to hear your guys recommendations!!

Hey guys, I was recently on a Discord call with an instructor getting some tutoring, and we got to talking about some of the things my instructor has me do during flight training.
I mentioned that, from time to time, my instructor makes me suck on the pitot mast to help clear it out. Everyone on the call immediately started laughing and making jokes, saying that’s not actually a thing. Is this really not a thing? I don’t know who to trust anymore.

I currently am using the paper E6b from ASA and feel like the electronic version would be much quicker and more accurate but it is 90$. I saw on some other posts how it would be faster and could help with the exam. Does it give a meaningful enough advantage on the test that I should buy one or would the paper one be enough.

I have CJOs at both.

I live a little over an hour (driving) away from a junior UAL base. EWR.

I live about an hour and a half to two and a hour hours (driving depending on traffic) from a Delta. LGA/JFK.

I cannot move.

Which would you choose?

It has been said that on the oral portion of the checkride, you should say only what you need to answer the question. If you say too much, you might dig yourself into a trap the DPE could exploit.

My question is this: on the flight portion of the checkride, should you be talking, verbalizing your actions, or keeping silent? Verbalizing your actions allows the DPE to gauge what you're doing and how you're making decisions, and helps him evaluate your thinking and analyzing skills as a pilot. But, you can also trap yourself, much in a similar way to the oral checkride.

How much talking during the flight is too much?

Thank you.

Every here and there, I would have an FO quickly hover over the yoke on short final or during flare (out of fear or something?). Especially when I have like 3,000 hours more than them on the plane.

When the FO lands, my hands are rested on my lap... But ready to say "my controls" and quickly put my hands on the throttle and yoke if need be. I don't ever hover over the yoke or quickly go over it, especially during flare. It's kind of insulting imo. I never even did this when I was an FO myself.

So what's up with these FOs?

As a 135 FO, what would be the best option for me? I’ve heard good things about piedmonts training since it’s AQP and mixed things about ATI’s training. Homebasing sounds nice but worried about fatigue on the road. Which would you choose?

hello,
I'm from southern california, inland empire, riverside to be exact

Im currently waiting for a class date at a regional, in this economy things are slow, I'm also a cfi but no one is hiring

I did a few aerobatics lessons in the super decathelon with Bill Hill out of KSNA but the flight school shut down

I'm looking for a place I can train, fly solo, and practice for competitions, I've only done the beginner course and all it's maneuvers and loved it

thanks in advance

Hey, I have been told by a CFI that for Eights on pylons, I can pick my pylons as I go. The ACS says that a skill is to identify two pylons. I've heard the argument that you need to identify them before starting the maneuver, but I have also been told that this way is fine because you still end up identifying them. Thoughts??