I went down the self sponsered route to become an airline pilot 20 odd years ago and now work for one of the european locos.
Just a few points..
Some are sponsored by an airline such as Flybe, Vueling, Aer Lingus etc.
Good luck!
As I understand it their entry to the training is sponsered by those airlines but the cash to pay for that training has to be stumped up by the student - somewhere in the region of £100k. The simple fact of the matter is, in todays world, if you wish to become a pilot you will have to pay for the training at least upto the issue of an fAPTL (the basic license you need to fly for an airline). Unless you join the military or are eligible for the very few schemes of fully sponsered training availible to nationals of certain countries, Quatar, for instance.
There is supposedly already a worldwide shortage of airline pilots (& ATCO's for that matter) that it may well be a very good option to explore further especially if i is something you want to do.
Good luck!
That's what I was hearing 20 years ago, as well. There never has been and (in my opinion) never will be a shortage of inexperienced FO's with no time on type.
I have a young family, so my only workable outcome would be to get something training out of Birmingham airport. I have zero practical flying experience.
Sounds like I need to get real.
In order to build a sucessfull career as a pilot starting out, you would almost certainly have to move, probably overseas. It's not impossible to get something out of Birmingham, but you are greatly reduceing your chances of getting that first job (and experience) by limiting yourself to a particular airport.
My friend's parents remortgaged their home.
For God's sake, don't do this.
I think the problem will be once the trainign is done and you've done some years at BS salary planes will be fiully autonomous.
This is decades away, if at all - its one thing to have a fully autononmous plane but the massive upgrade to air transport control and communications infrastructure (as well as the regulatory approvals) would render the whole exercise eye watering expensive, with no demonstrable improvement in safety (in fact most likely a decline). Its not something that worries me for the remainder of my career.
IN fact planes mostly fly themselves as it is. The funny thing is the pilots tend to only fly when its easy. If you have a very foggy airport then landings are done automatically in many planes. Pilots are also showing themselves to be problematic with modern planes, e..g boeing MAX. Hard to have autonomous safety systems that then get overidden by pilots when then don;t actually have the abilty to handle the unstable aerodynamics.
I'm afraid you haven't really understood the issues with the B737 MAX, and it is true that some aircraft can make automatic approaches and landings (sort of), I can guarantee that you want a pilot onboard when making a lo viz approach. What no aircraft can do and will be decades away from being able to do, is take the decision to discontinue to approach and try again, at the same field or elsewhere, when things don't go according to plan.
In all honesty, I'm not sure being an airline pilot is better than being an accountant, maybe finanically after you've paid off the loans - I don't know what an accountant earns. It's relatively fun for the first few years but starts to grind you down after a while.
Maybe flying as a hobby would be more appropriate, have you considered learning to fly a glider - its a relatively cheap way of learning all the fun bits about flying without the hassle of all the (many) boring bits. Check out Youtube for videos of people gliding in the U.K. and see if you think its for you.
