Usually it is us dispensing advice, but now it is your turn. Please take a few minutes to consider the following:
What do we (the mentors) do well on the forum?
Where could the mentors stand to improve?
What would you like to see be different on the forum?
What aspect of the forum do you find the most and least valuable?
Any other feedback or advice you have.
Our goal is to help you, the potential and current students get the best advice possible, but we need you to tell us how we are doing. Give it to us straight, the good, the bad and the ugly.
Everything. I appreciate how, no matter how repetive a question is (do I need a college degree to be a pilot), (I’ve been arrested for XYZ, can I still be a pilot), you guys respond with patience and professionally.
Nothing
Nothing
Most valuable is the student experience section and the Airline Pilot Question and answer section. I browsed these sections a lot before joining ATP and got many of my curious answers answered this way. Least valuable is the airline news section, just because I think most people get thier news elsewhere than on here, and it’s not updated with the most up-to-date airline news as often.
Keep up the good work. I plan to stick around here for the years to come even after I finish the program. I like it here.
I think you guys do an awesome job at keeping everything straight forward. You guys don’t sugar coat anything and I love that because I know the airlines are going to be cut-throat.
Thank you for the detailed feedback, it is great to know that you found the forum to be so valuable. Please do continue to stick around after finishing up, we love it when people do and continue to add their insights as they progress through their careers.
As everyone said, the answers are pretty straightforward. Another thing that stands out to me is that y’all stay in your lanes and don’t hesitate to defer to others with more expertise in a particular subject (I.e., medical, financial, and military.)
I thought really long and hard about this to try to find something but to be honest y’all do a good job and run a pretty tight ship on this forum. There’s nothing significant that I would say that you guys as mentors need to be better about. Maybe if I was really being picky I could find something but I’m one out of the hundreds and maybe thousands that read this forum so no need to change anything so insignificant for little old me. Sorry if this is not what you wanted to hear. Even though I don’t say much I do read this forum daily so if I see anything I don’t like I’ll be sure to let you guys know .
It would be cool if maybe you guys added a greater variety of mentors other than just airline pilots. Maybe you could try to find an active or retired AME that would be willing to put some of his/her time towards the forum. Also, there’s a guy that y’all mention about being an expert about financials when dealing with flight training loans. Maybe see if he or someone else just as qualified can be available to answer questions directly on the forum. Another basis that could be covered could possible be an active duty, reserve, or even retired military person to answer more direct questions concerning the military side of things. Such as flying for the military then transitioning to the civilian side or someone who was in a non-aviation MOS that transitioned over to being a civilian pilot. I’d assume that being involved on this forum to the extent that y’all do takes extra time and dedication so I’m sure that finding other mentors with these type of quals that are willing to do this is probably a little too much to ask for but just an idea that I thought about and if y’all can’t do it, it’s not the end of the world.
The “Airline Pilot Questions and Answers” section is the most valuable. I also think that the “Student Experiences” is really valuable too. I love hearing about people finishing, just starting, and progressing through their flight training. I would like to see a little more posts from the mentors or even other professional pilots on the “Flying the Line” section. I think that hearing real world experiences are valuable. Since I’m not familiar at all with the 121 world, I don’t know how much information and details about flights or experiences that you guys can you share publicly.
I think I pretty much covered everything in the previous 4 paragraphs. Sorry for the long essay but I really wanted to think about this and give some specific and detailed answers. I’m a really easy going person so if I’m out of line on any of my assumptions or some suggestions are way too unrealistic and out of reach feel free to let me know. Thanks for your time and everything y’all do on this forums, the effort given from you and the other mentors is greatly appreciated. Have a good rest of your week.
Thank you for the detailed responses. I would love to get somebody with a corporate background on here, in addition to the other areas you mentioned. As you deduced though, not everybody is willing to spend so much time on places like this. Adam and I are just old and don’t sleep and Tory is still young and full of energy, so we all manage to find the time
Here are my thoughts, one year plus few weeks on the forum:
The mentors (Chris, Adam, Tory, the other airline pilots) provide great answers for us. They are honest and get us straight to the facts. Without the experiences and professional facts, it is hard to see behind the scenes, mentors provide us the “bts.” Love no matter how many times the question has been asked, the mentors all provide the same response with direct answers…no hesitation.
I thought hard during my 10 minute break on Zoom during my CFI training, I cannot find one thing that jumps out at me…@Chris, this is a challenging question!
I would love to see a few more admins possibly from ATP hop in once and a while and answer questions directly, I understand corporate has a contact number and email, but I am big into relationships and I think that could solidify prospect students decisions on whether they’d be interested or not. Everything on this forum is categorized well, formatting is solid, love the applicability of emojis on the paragraph/formatting - it adds spice sometimes.
I love student experiences, it allows us students to help give an insight for those prospects and show our daily lives. For example, I provide a synopsis of how specific training went along and places that I could have personally improved. This is great for incoming/current students to maybe see a relevance and find an idea how they can correct a slip/mistake. I think my second greatest portion is the biographies for those airline pilots, it tells a story and shows that anything is possible, if you truly put in the work.
Just waiting on @Adam to open up that food truck…yes I have remembered that since day 1 - I think it’s been over a year since I heard that.
I am grateful this forum exists, it helped me solidify my choosing of ATP. I hope to see more growth from students in the future and those that are current students stay active on the forum after graduation.
That is great feedback and I really appreciate the time you took to write all of that. We will be working on incorporating as much of the feedback as possible over the next few months.
Honestly I really appreciate the work you all do on this forum. You have all contributed to make it very informative- I especially like getting to see the schedule and hear realistic opinions on what the airline pilot life is like these days (things that many news outlets simply don’t have any reason to care about).The biggest negative I’ve seen is that some of the replies from the team can be a little rude or grumpy… but that’s not the norm. Thanks for the good work!
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