Pilots in the Air Corps

Call Me Jimmy

Let me begin by saying I have read information on the air corps website but it doesn't really answer some of the questions I have.

Basically, I would love to be a pilot in the air corps, I am a 20 btw. Are there irish pilots that would fly airplanes or helicopters regularly? I know it sounds stupid but I have no idea if we even have many planes.

Are there any air corps pilots on boards? I just want to know what day to day life in the air corps is like and if ye are actually flying often or what?

Any insight into the path to becoming a pilot or the average day for someone in the air corps would be much appreciated

ex_infantry man

Call Me Jimmy wrote:

Let me begin by saying I have read information on the air corps website but it doesn't really answer some of the questions I have.

Basically, I would love to be a pilot in the air corps, I am a 20 btw. Are there irish pilots that would fly airplanes or helicopters regularly? I know it sounds stupid but I have no idea if we even have many planes.

Are there any air corps pilots on boards? I just want to know what day to day life in the air corps is like and if ye are actually flying often or what?

Any insight into the path to becoming a pilot or the average day for someone in the air corps would be much appreciated

my friend if you want to become a pilot i suggest you go commercially because thats where the money is, there is a pilot school in waterford regional airport who have a 98% pass rate in total takes a year to complete and your guarenteed a job at the end with a major airline and the cost is €80,000 sounds alot but when you do finish the course you will be on a €100,000 grand a year and within a year you could be a captain, they send you for training in florida for four months and the rest of the training is done in waterford regional airport itself

therecklessone

ex_infantry man wrote:

my friend if you want to become a pilot i suggest you go commercially because thats where the money is, there is a pilot school in waterford regional airport who have a 98% pass rate in total takes a year to complete and your guarenteed a job at the end with a major airline and the cost is €80,000 sounds alot but when you do finish the course you will be on a €100,000 grand a year and within a year you could be a captain, they send you for training in florida for four months and the rest of the training is done in waterford regional airport itself

I suggest you take all of this with a pinch of salt, you will most certainly not walk from CPL training into a job with an airline on €100,000 pa.

If you are interested in flying (non-military) then visit the Aviation forum for more info.

Rowley Birkin QC

I went through the Air Corp Pilot cadetships competition twice. Made it to third round both times but from what I could gather there is only something like 3-6 places a year up for grabs for 400+ applicants.

cushtac

bigkev49 wrote:

I went through the Air Corp Pilot cadetships competition twice. Made it to third round both times but from what I could gather there is only something like 3-6 places a year up for grabs for 400+ applicants.

According to the DF's annual report, 10 Air Corp cadets were selected from 258 initial applicants.

ex_infantry man

therecklessone wrote:

I suggest you take all of this with a pinch of salt, you will most certainly not walk from CPL training into a job with an airline on €100,000 pa.

If you are interested in flying (non-military) then visit the Aviation forum for more info.

this is actuall fact because my girlfriend has enquired about it with the pilot school in waterford regional airport and that is what she was told fact!

therecklessone

ex_infantry man wrote:

this is actuall fact because my girlfriend has enquired about it with the pilot school in waterford regional airport and that is what she was told fact!

Yes, the pilot school that wants her to spend €80,000 on their training course have told her she's guaranteed work with "a major airline" and that she "will be on a €100,000 grand a year" when she's finished.

Meanwhile, what they say on their own website:

Suitably qualified students of PTC are guaranteed an interview with an airline following graduation.

That's not a guarantee of work.

PTC graduates work for airlines worldwide. We have a 98% placement record within two months of graduation.

No mention of "major European airlines". :rolleyes:

OP, if you're serious about flying, try the aviation forum where you'll get to ask actual pilots, or PPRUNE, the Professional Pilots Rumour Network. Best of luck.

Call Me Jimmy

Thanks for all the input, I don't think I want to do it just as a hobby, or work on a commercial airline, the air corps is the only place i'de wanna be flying. Anyone have any experience in the air corps? Sounds tough if there are only 10 places a year, would there be many people who sign up for the air corps who can already fly?

ex_infantry man

therecklessone wrote:

Yes, the pilot school that wants her to spend €80,000 on their training course have told her she's guaranteed work with "a major airline" and that she "will be on a €100,000 grand a year" when she's finished.

Meanwhile, what they say on their own website:



That's not a guarantee of work.



No mention of "major European airlines". :rolleyes:

OP, if you're serious about flying, try the aviation forum where you'll get to ask actual pilots, or PPRUNE, the Professional Pilots Rumour Network. Best of luck.

there is a 100% guarantee of a job outta that course they are close partners with ryanair,aer arann, westair,
the first two are major airlines, westair carry VIP,s on private jets, the director of the ptc works for westair as a captain, and if you looked into further instead of just going the ptc website you will see that there is a huge demand for pilots so yes there is work there and there is a guarentee of a job with those airlines :rolleyes:

cplm

Jimmy check out www.irishairpics.com
all the info you need is on their boards.

burnedfaceman

the year the air corps took in 10 cadets was an exception. they are taking on 4 cadets this year out of 300+ candidates. you may well want to fly for the air corps but the competition is extremely tough and given the small numbers taken in it is a difficult task to get yourself selected. best of luck if your going to go for next years competition.

www.irishmilitaryonline.com has a cadetship forum as does www.flyinginireland.com check them out

Samson

ex_infantry man wrote:

there is a 100% guarantee of a job outta that course they are close partners with ryanair,aer arann, westair,
the first two are major airlines, westair carry VIP,s on private jets, the director of the ptc works for westair as a captain, and if you looked into further instead of just going the ptc website you will see that there is a huge demand for pilots so yes there is work there and there is a guarentee of a job with those airlines :rolleyes:

Do you have any connection with, or interest in, PTC?

jmayo

ex_infantry man wrote:

my friend if you want to become a pilot i suggest you go commercially because thats where the money is, there is a pilot school in waterford regional airport who have a 98% pass rate in total takes a year to complete and your guarenteed a job at the end with a major airline and the cost is €80,000 sounds alot but when you do finish the course you will be on a €100,000 grand a year and within a year you could be a captain, they send you for training in florida for four months and the rest of the training is done in waterford regional airport itself

He he he.
Should we call you Hans Christain Anderson ?
Ask any Ryanair pilots if they are on 100 grand, never mind Aer Arann?
Captain of what within a year, a Cessna 172 ?

OP, disregard any posts by this poster as pure fiction.

Take an introductory flight if you haven't already.
See if you like flying, then check out if you pass Class 1 medical if you really want ot go for flying as career.
Check out PPRUNE as stated by other posters, for more information.
Disregard half of what you read, they are the antis and the pros.

Best idea would be to check different schools and what they offer. You will get better rates and more intensive training hours by going somewhere like States. You can do modular training in this part of world for CPL and ATPLs.

Never bulk pay up front for anything, there are too many people that have gotten burnt.

ex_infantry man

jmayo wrote:

He he he.
Should we call you Hans Christain Anderson ?
Ask any Ryanair pilots if they are on 100 grand, never mind Aer Arann?
Captain of what within a year, a Cessna 172 ?

OP, disregard any posts by this poster as pure fiction.

Take an introductory flight if you haven't already.
See if you like flying, then check out if you pass Class 1 medical if you really want ot go for flying as career.
Check out PPRUNE as stated by other posters, for more information.
Disregard half of what you read, they are the antis and the pros.

Best idea would be to check different schools and what they offer. You will get better rates and more intensive training hours by going somewhere like States. You can do modular training in this part of world for CPL and ATPLs.

Never bulk pay up front for anything, there are too many people that have gotten burnt.

for your info the ptc in waterford airport is one of the best in europe not many ptc,s can say they have a 98% pass rate plus they have people from all over europe training with them, the first month of training is carried out in waterford and them four months of your flying time is done stateside in florida and the remainder of the course is done over here there is tests done by the FAA and IAA so lads before ye comment on something that ye think ye know feck all about i,d suggest ya get your facts sorted out

jmayo

from ex_infantry _man...
for your info the ptc in waterford airport is one of the best in europe not many ptc,s can say they have a 98% pass rate plus they have people from all over europe training with them, the first month of training is carried out in waterford and them four months of your flying time is done stateside in florida and the remainder of the course is done over here there is tests done by the FAA and IAA so lads before ye comment on something that ye think ye know feck all about i,d suggest ya get your facts sorted out

Woooo there, someone is getting very defensive here and that leads me to think you have some link to school?

Did I question the schools pass rate?
You will get good pass rate if you take long enough to train people.
People from all over Europe may be training with them, so what ?
There are loads of schools all over Florida with loads of foreign students from all over the world.
Oxford Aviation gets loads of foreign students so what.

All of that does not guarantee you a job, never mind get you promotion to captain and €100,000 in first couple of years.

Actually you are the one that knows feck all if you believe that.
Anyone that comes on here telling a wantabe pilot that if he goes to Waterford he is guaranteed to get airline job, be on 100,000 within a year and be in line for captains seat is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Ask any pilots how hard the interview process is and then when you get your first job how long it takes to progress through the ranks never mind reach €100,000.
No wonder lots of the airlines were/are in trouble if they pay all their pilots that much.
Check out how much first officer makes in the US.
Oh and not everyone can get a job with a major airline so they have to settle for smaller operators meaning less pay.

5uspect

OP I spent some time in the Air Corps as an engineer during my undergraduate. While I enjoyed my time there the air corps is top heavy with officers and lacking proper numbers of technical staff.

This is, in part, direct consequence of the arrogance of the officers whose petty rank pulling and often stupidity results in many technicians leaving.
Its a rich boys club (some Cadet's high ranking daddies even buy their way in, and out). The officers mess is even known as the Ryanair club as many used the air corps as a spring board into commercial flying.

They have a limited number of aircraft and is no where near as romantic as you may think. 6 hour patrols of Irish waters, cash escorts, VIP flying Bertie and his cronies about. If you're lucky after fixed wing training you can get into heli training and from there get into the GASU flying the copper chopper. You'd be very very lucky to get that tho!

You can apply to the RAF as an Irish citizen, if you want to do military flying I suggest you apply there.
If you do get into the air corps good luck. Don't turn into one of the bad officers.

Call Me Jimmy

Thanks a lot everyone, but just to clarify, there is a sort of competition once every year that guarantees the top 3 or 4 a place? And you have to know how to fly before entering?

therecklessone

ex_infantry man wrote:

there is a 100% guarantee of a job outta that course they are close partners with ryanair,aer arann, westair,
the first two are major airlines, westair carry VIP,s on private jets, the director of the ptc works for westair as a captain, and if you looked into further instead of just going the ptc website you will see that there is a huge demand for pilots so yes there is work there and there is a guarentee of a job with those airlines :rolleyes:

You are talking out of your arse.

There is not a hope in hell of a command position one year out of PTC.

Ryanair alone require 3000 hours (500 on type) before they'll consider a candidate for their fast track command system.

Unless PTC include a 737 rating in their training course then you're forgetting the cost of obtaining a type rating before Ryanair will consider an applicant for a position as FO. That's an extra €25,000 on top of PTC's fee.

FO pay at Ryanair is up to €80,000. source

5uspect

Call Me Jimmy wrote:

Thanks a lot everyone, but just to clarify, there is a sort of competition once every year that guarantees the top 3 or 4 a place? And you have to know how to fly before entering?

As far as I know you don't have to be able to fly.
Here is everything you need to know:
http://www.military.ie/careers/aircorpcond.htm

cushtac

You don't have to know how to fly, but you would be expected to know some of the theory - the physics; the basic flight controls; some of the instruments you'd find in a cockpit. All of this can be found in books.

ex_infantry man

jmayo wrote:

from ex_infantry _man...
for your info the ptc in waterford airport is one of the best in europe not many ptc,s can say they have a 98% pass rate plus they have people from all over europe training with them, the first month of training is carried out in waterford and them four months of your flying time is done stateside in florida and the remainder of the course is done over here there is tests done by the FAA and IAA so lads before ye comment on something that ye think ye know feck all about i,d suggest ya get your facts sorted out

Woooo there, someone is getting very defensive here and that leads me to think you have some link to school?

Did I question the schools pass rate?
You will get good pass rate if you take long enough to train people.
People from all over Europe may be training with them, so what ?
There are loads of schools all over Florida with loads of foreign students from all over the world.
Oxford Aviation gets loads of foreign students so what.

All of that does not guarantee you a job, never mind get you promotion to captain and €100,000 in first couple of years.

Actually you are the one that knows feck all if you believe that.
Anyone that comes on here telling a wantabe pilot that if he goes to Waterford he is guaranteed to get airline job, be on 100,000 within a year and be in line for captains seat is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Ask any pilots how hard the interview process is and then when you get your first job how long it takes to progress through the ranks never mind reach €100,000.
No wonder lots of the airlines were/are in trouble if they pay all their pilots that much.
Check out how much first officer makes in the US.
Oh and not everyone can get a job with a major airline so they have to settle for smaller operators meaning less pay.

ye my girlfriend is taking up a training course with them and FYI i said ya "could" be a captain after your first year it was,nt a definate yes that a person would be, shur there is a huge demand for airline pilots so why should,nt a person be guarenteed a job out of the course? especially when the fee is €80,000 there,s new routes opening up all the time with airlines who do you think is going to fly the planes!! cos the passengers definately could,nt. anyway whats not to say a person could,nt a captain after there first year of flying? thats like saying a car sales man who,s selling the most cars in the show room and has been there over a year does,nt deserve a promotion to sales manager because he has,nt worked enough hours, lads do ye have jobs at all? they must be dead end ones if ye do

jmayo

ex_infantry man wrote:

ye my girlfriend is taking up a training course with them and FYI i said ya "could" be a captain after your first year it was,nt a definate yes that a person would be, shur there is a huge demand for airline pilots so why should,nt a person be guarenteed a job out of the course? especially when the fee is €80,000 there,s new routes opening up all the time with airlines who do you think is going to fly the planes!! cos the passengers definately could,nt. anyway whats not to say a person could,nt a captain after there first year of flying? thats like saying a car sales man who,s selling the most cars in the show room and has been there over a year does,nt deserve a promotion to sales manager because he has,nt worked enough hours, lads do ye have jobs at all? they must be dead end ones if ye do

Yes the future I forsee is very bright.
Your girlfriend will sail through her exams and flight tests.
She will get her interview with Ryanair, pass her 737 rating with flying colours, and then after few months will get a captains seat on one of their longer European routes.
Then within few months she will be head hunted by BA, where she will work for a few months as captain on the Paris route.
She will get tired of the 737 and move to 747s.
Then she get first officer on the Oz route.
Then within another year she will be captain of 747.

While she is off conquering the aviation world, what will you be doing?
Lecturing in English at Oxford?

scitpo

jmayo wrote:

Yes the future I forsee is very bright.
Your girlfriend will sail through her exams and flight tests.
She will get her interview with Ryanair, pass her 737 rating with flying colours, and then after few months will get a captains seat on one of their longer European routes.
Then within few months she will be head hunted by BA, where she will work for a few months as captain on the Paris route.
She will get tired of the 737 and move to 747s.
Then she get first officer on the Oz route.
Then within another year she will be captain of 747.

While she is off conquering the aviation world, what will you be doing?
Lecturing in English at Oxford?

Haha. Thats the only sensible response to the rubbish posted above.

OS119

ex_infantry man wrote:

ye my girlfriend is taking up a training course with them and FYI i said ya "could" be a captain after your first year it was,nt a definate yes that a person would be, shur there is a huge demand for airline pilots so why should,nt a person be guarenteed a job out of the course? especially when the fee is €80,000 there,s new routes opening up all the time with airlines who do you think is going to fly the planes!! cos the passengers definately could,nt. anyway whats not to say a person could,nt a captain after there first year of flying? thats like saying a car sales man who,s selling the most cars in the show room and has been there over a year does,nt deserve a promotion to sales manager because he has,nt worked enough hours, lads do ye have jobs at all? they must be dead end ones if ye do

oh dear God.

ex_infantry man

**** that think ye know it all well ye know **** all !!!

Hagar

I can only take so much of this, I'm not as young as I used to be.