Pilot Career

Hi My fellow aviators and aviators to be,
this is just to inform you all that there's a helicopter training school being set up in Abidjan.I'm in touch with the Chief Instructor and i'll let you all all as things unfold.

cheers
77 out

 About NCATs PPL course, the quoted price on their website is an old one. Its not been updated. Their price now is like 2.5M but you can pay in installments.

I was there three days back.  That place really needs serious funding.

 
This Is where we Belong


We Will Get There

 
Or here,

shushu,please check your yahoo messenger

 shu shu,i'm sending u a mail right away.

sorry i meant to write people not people

saw this article thought it may interest some;
Shortage Of Airline Pilots: Nigeria’s Creeping,  1 Week, 4 Days ago  Karma: 0   
Published at Leadership Nigeria
Author: Capt Daniel Omale

Recently, IRS Airlines’ Embraer 145 regional jet (RJ) was grounded for over two weeks because of lack of crew. The pilots were poached and offered more money by Aero and Arik Airlines. For any airlines paying less than N1.3m per month per airline captain, there is every tendency that another airline will offer more pay, and snatch pilots from the least paying company. This is the current trend in aviation industry in Nigeria. There is acute shortage of pilots world wide, but our focus is on our own industry _base_d on immediate and future demands.

When Virgin Nigeria debuted a few years ago, most of the airlines operating in Nigeria at the time lost experienced pilots to the new outfit; this created another circle of shortage of pilots in the industry. Many airlines had to hike pilots’ pay to avoid further loss of their valuable crews, but the issue became worse when Arik Air emerged and flooded the country with modern jets acquired in cash. The desperation to commence flight operations and register their presence everywhere possible in the country, led to higher demand for experienced crews within and outside the country. With more demand for pilots, salaries and other remunerations quickly rose to all new level ever witnessed in the country. Aero’s desire to maintain their standard led to the first explosion of salary upgrade in the industry.

As for IRS airlines mentioned above, the only solution was to import foreign pilots into the country for the job. Other airlines like Bellview and Virgin, even Arik are currently engaging foreign crews to help out the situation. Today, it is quite hopeless to give any time _frame_ for the utilisation of foreign pilots in Nigeria. Prior to this dilemma, foreign pilots were limited to six months of stay in Nigeria, especially for wet leased aircraft.

When Dornier Aviation Nigeria Aeip limited (DANA) called for pilots’ interview a few weeks ago, the very few that bothered to attend demanded nothing less than N1.1m per month in additional to boisterous flying allowances and other perks. As bad as the situation is, the overall effect is another envisaged increased in passenger fares in addition to the fuel -price crisis.

The main issue is not the situation but what the future holds for the industry, if the government is not looking at the best way to alleviate this problem. We say that it is up to the airlines to fend for themselves, but the resultant effects could truncate the whole industry whereby crews’ workload would increase, and the risk of fatigue which could cause major aircraft accidents would resurface in the country.

Many airlines in the country are fond of enticing pilots with extra flying allowances _base_d on actual flight hours flown in a given period. Most pilots are easily lured into more flights and more pay syndrome, a situation that has created accident prone tendencies that the regulatory authority can hardly detect.

The first question in our minds should stem from finding out some of the reasons responsible for the shortage of pilots in Nigeria, although the number of airlines has decreased over the years. There is acute shortage of airline pilots world wide and most airlines around the world are poaching crews from every where to augment demand necessities. Some airlines have embarked vigorously outsourcing crew training to reputable flying schools with tailored programs to meet their immediate needs. Unfortunately, in Nigeria, this is not the case. Since 1995, there have been less than 50 newly trained commercial pilots in the country. Within this same time, over 100 old pilots have retired from the system, thereby creating a big vacuum of shortages.

The biggest setbacks in the industry for available pilots are the demise of Nigeria Airways, the mandatory retirement age of 62 years, and of course, in the past, lack of regular pilot training program at the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Zaria, until the arrival of the current leadership of the college. The new team of NCAT under Capt. Bayo Araba, in less than 18 months in office, has trained young pilots to graduation stages. While commercial pilot program takes about 24 months to accomplish (all things being equal), the cost of training a pilot in Nigeria has risen to over N5.0 million because of fuel costs, instructors’ remunerations and supporting aircraft spares.

On my visit to the college a few days ago, I learnt that the cost of aviation gasoline, the fuel used for basic training on the Tampico aircraft has skyrocketed to about N500 per litre and there is near zero availability. It is also estimated that the school burns almost N5.0 million fuels on a good training day. If we have to use a psychological term of "representative heuristics," there is immediate need for full financial support of NCAT to avoid future training distortions, since we have to look at the scarcity of the 100LL gasoline and the cost trend. Another serious solution to this crisis is the deployment of technology into the training program to reduce actual physical flight training in the aircraft. Aircraft simulators, computer -_base_d equipment that can substitute training requirements are not cheap, but they are the only substitute, if acquired, that can support the immediate need of the college. Another solution dimension is the need to change the current fleet of training aircraft used by the college. This line of thinking is definitely the most expensive as acquisition cost of the new type of aircraft may be too high to bear right away in addition to type -training expenses for the flying instructors and engineers.

On the whole, the government needs to do more than what it is currently doing to support the training of our future pilots. The immediate past rector of the college got approval of N3.2 billion intervention fund about three years ago, but up till now, the fund is still dangling in the Ministry of Finance without a clear path to its attainment. This, of course, is our _style_ of project financing, especially where federal government is concerned on serious issues.

But despite blaming the government for the delay in releasing funds to upgrade training equipment at NCAT, the primary responsibility for crew training lies completely in the hands of the airlines themselves. While there is great demand for pilots, the best our airlines have done is poaching experienced pilots trained by other airlines, whose basic trainings were paid for by the government or from personal purses. For airlines interested in future growth and expansion, there is a vital need to embark on paying for training for the future generations of young crews that would continue from this generation.

Unfortunately, our airlines plan and operate cowboy-_style_ approach because they do not see the benefit of training for the future or more so, they are skeptical of training pilots that would be poached by their competitors—the _style_ everyone in the industry is highly used to.

Whichever way we look at it, the future is getting very dim since planning for tomorrow is the only way to salvage this dilemma. Some one must take the bull by the horn; government must provide the infrastructure, while the airlines pay for the training if actually, they intend to stay longer in business.

Nice one superboi!

There's a similar article on the dearth of Aviators on This Day, 28th Jully. It just makes it a more lucrative job but probably more demanding (flying hours)

@Superboi
I reached the final Stage. I didnt reapply. They haven't even sent those that made it through for training yet. Bristow is playing with pples time and efforts. Its easier to scale tru with at least a PPL (fixed wings, OR better still, HPPL). It was almost like they just wanted to see how far those without training would go in the process.

@2.5m for a PPL I think NCAT will have tough time attracting students.
Read the thread from the beginning and glad I'm here.

So Wham here I am.

Hi All,

I stumbled on this thread while searching on Google for some information, I am an aspiring aviator as well, I have also attended 1 of the Arline interviews but wasn't called upon,and recently I applied to Virgin Nigeria as a Cadet.I am very much encouraged by this forum and hope we can make a headway with each others help.I am really interested in the Flight school in Abidjan as afore mentioned by Pilot77.

There are also some cheaper flight schools in Greece for fixed wing training, and they offer a JAR license, compared with the ICAO thats more common from SA.

I opine that Aviation training needs more funding in Nigeria if we are going to witness a sustainable level for growth and development in the industry.

All those who aspire should remain gallant.

I've been very silent in monitoring this thread but i dscovered i could be missin somthng,  PLss Airline peopl, need evry info possible,  I've applied for VirginNigeria. Culdnt apply for Bristow because havnt done NYSC. Graduated wit a 2ndClass Upper in Economics but my heart belongs to the skies.

You can send me any relevant info at nointdhands@gmail.com

Thanx alot bross,

Hi all, i have come across a couple of schools in Ukraine,their National University inclusive, but a PPL there could take as long as 18 months for some reason, though costs are the cheapest I have seen so far, will put the details on here as soon as I have them hands on.

That will be good (I mean the Arik Air idea).

Please keep us informed.

AS FOR BRISTOW APPLICANTS HAVING THEIR APTITUDE TEST TODAY. . .

ALL THE BEST, MAKE US PROUD

i also appiled 4 that college.when did they do their test? any how as thanks for the info wham you are a great help