Good morning, AP.L admin and members!
My name’s Nate, and a few days ago I put down the commitment to join ATP Orlando’s flight training center as a Fast Track (Private Credit) student. In the process, I was advised to poke my nose in here and say “hi,” so here we go!
I’m 29 years old, and my flight story (and career path overall) has been one heck of a tale. I’ll provide it below for those interested in the “history,” but please don’t feel obligated to read it–I get that it’s long. I provided a TL;DR in case you’d like to just skim!
Anyway, I’m excited to get started/get back into the cockpit, and I look forward to interacting with all of you.
- Nate
The (Long, Boring) History:
TL;DR: Started flight training at a “flight university” in 2012. Forced to stop in 2014. Started again in 2018. Forced to stop in 2019. Decided to reconsider, then discovered ATP and resumed as of the time of this posting. Whee!
So, my career has been all over the place. I’m hoping that my story will inspire people who’ve had a rough road of getting into the aviation industry. When I left a [troubled] home at 18, I enlisted in the United States Air Force, with the intent of later doing OTS and ending up a commissioned officer. As part of an OTS/AFROTC partnership program, I was sent to a “prestigious flight university” (that I won’t name out of respect for the quality education I received there) to complete a Meteorology and Aeronautical Engineering dual major. Halfway through that program the USAF changed its mind and offered me a chance to begin flight training; I got halfway through my PPL when budget cuts caused the program I was on to be downsized. I was “below the line” so I was unceremoniously dropped. I finished my PPL at my own expense but stopped there to focus on finishing my degree.
Luckily, the glorious Financial Aid system compensated for my sudden lack of scholarship and stipend until my senior year, when my luck ran out and I was denied financial aid (read: loans) due to my family’s poverty and medical issues. I was forced to drop out where I was, and enter the workforce. I spent the next four years working in the Entertainment industry (where I had prior job experience) saving up money to go back to school. During that time I re-evaluated my career opportunities and decided that the “flying bug” was worth getting bitten by again. [It’s also worth mentioning that after 4 years of going cold turkey on senior-level Calculus and Physics, there was no way I was going to complete my engineering degree in any reasonable amount of time-- or money.] In 2018 I returned to said “flight university” since prior credit would accelerate the completion of an aviation degree. I began pursuing my IR until halfway through, where I was told that “due to a lack of resources at the CPL-SE and CPL-ME level,” my program was being put on hold. I realized that I couldn’t finish my flight program and degree by my required graduation date, so I dropped flight again and ground out the remainder of my degree… and proudly (yet unceremoniously) graduated, smack in the middle of COVID in May 2020.
This graduation time cost me a certificate that I was pursuing at the time, known as ADX, Aircraft Dispatcher. Due to FAA requirements for time in-classroom, COVID restrictions cost my entire graduating class their eligibility for the ADX, and none of us graduated with our “capstone certificate.”
So, I graduated with an Aeronautics degree (fancy), with no qualifications or certifications outside of my PPL.
I have since spent the last 10 months unemployed due to COVID (entertainment is dead and rotting). Another life re-evaluation, and after talking to tons of pilots, instructors, and flight schools, I decided that the timing is good for me to focus all my energy on gaining the qualifications my degree was originally intended to grant me: my R-ATP/ATP. Thus my enrollment in ATP Orlando.
Needless to say, after the horrendous past decade, I’m ready to move on and make my 30s what my 20s should have been: marginally successful.
Thanks for reading this (if you managed to stay awake), and I hope that upon completion of my ATP program my story will be an inspiration to anyone else who’s had one hell of a ride getting here.