I was wondering if anyone had any experience with the ATP in San Diego, Portland, or Seattle?
My wife and I are currently living in California, but we were considering moving to Oregon or Washington within the next year. My main concern is how much longer do you think it’ll take to get through the program and also to build time as an instructor in the Pacific Northwest with the cloud and icing issues versus being in San Diego? If it may only be another six months that’s not a huge deal to me, but if it’s substantially longer it could pose an issue and maybe we’ll put off the move. If anyone has any advice or general knowledge of these areas it would be very helpful. Thank you all ahead of time.
I trained and taught in CA. As you know the weather in CA is hardly an
issue. I don’t have any experience in San Diego, but close enough.
As for Portland or Seattle, that depends on the time of year! I’ve lived
in Seattle for two months now. The weather lately has been a lot like CA in
the spring/summer months…without the blistering heat. The only other
knowledge I have is during the fall/winter months, students and their
instructors from OR and WA would fly to CA to finish training and take
check rides. So, if you timed your training right, it should take the same
amount of time in either state.
And what do you think for when I reach CFI? I don’t even know if it’s possible to end up instructing at a location of my choice, but do you think it’ll take me a lot longer to build time in Portland or Seattle if we end up there? Thanks again for the help.
I trained in Sacramento and taught in Sacramento, Hayward, an two weeks in
Riverside.
If you chose a place like Portland or Seattle to instruct I think it would
take a few months longer than average to build time. But only just a few.
As far as instructor placement, what happens is instructors submit their
top three preferences and ATP awards one of the three locations based on
company need.