How does a typical week going to school for the 9month program work? Are you in class or training Monday through Friday?
Gerald,
There really is no typical day. Some days will be all classroom, some all flying, some simulator, and some mixes of the above. There are different phases of the program and they all bring with them a different experience.
Here is a great run down from ATP about what to expect in each stage of the program: Airline Career Pilot Program Flight Training Timeline / ATP Flight School
Chris
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Gerald,
As Chris mentioned, every day is different depending on the phase of training and the weather. On a beautiful blue sky day during private you may go fly first thing in the morning and do grounds after or vice versa. In instrument with crappy morning fog you may sim and ground and then fly once the weather improves. Really all you can expect is to be at the training center with an event (flight, sim or ground or mix of a few) every week day. Weekends are reserved for makeup time in case your required events didn’t get completed during the week.
-Hannah
Gerald,
Also, lots of study time is done at home. If you have a flight, you may also have a ground that day…but if not, you certainly have plenty to study even if not staying at the training center that day. I usually don’t have grounds and flights the same day. But like I said, that means ground is me going home and going through self-study modules, PHAK or FAR/AIM information. If you haven’t taken your written yet, a lot of time will be devoted to that too.
Can someone who completed their written before starting provide some idea on what to expect for time & workload. I am expecting M-F and know weekends may be necessary, but is it all day on some days or maybe 1/2 days on occasion?
Just trying to figure out what time is left for things like doctors appointments, groceries, laundry ….
Vivian,
Yes, there is of course time for groceries, doctors and laundry. You can’t fly if you don’t eat and we certainly do not want you to smell in dirty laundry either. Think of it as a full time job.
Chris
Vivian,
There is plenty of time to do personal things. When I was a student, I came in with writtens completed ahead of time which opened more time for me to do things that I found calming than just studying. As an instructor I watched students that had to do both studying for written and configuration/flows for the aircraft to have less of what we could consider “free time.”
If you have a doctor’s appointment, let your instructor or TSS know, and they can try and work around that - you don’t want to miss checkups or routine visits.
Brady
Vivian,
Think of your day as comprising of a flight, a sim, ground school or self study each day. It can be arranged as flight first, then ground after and afternoon free. Or maybe in reverse, ground school with your instructor first then some self study and prep time before a flight in the afternoon. In the instrument phase you’ll incorporate just as many sims as flights.
Plan on spending about 6-8 hours at the training center per day with weekends or holidays as time to “catch up” from previous weather cancellations or get ahead for forecasted bad weather or mx delays.
Hannah