ladies and gentlemen welcome back to another video and I hope you're all doing well now as you can tell by the title of the video in today's video I'm going to be explaining to you how I became an airline pilot at just 21. now I know a lot of you who watch my channel are aspiring Pilots some of you already are so probably have similar stories to mine but if you are an aspiring pilot maybe my story can give you a guide on which path to take on how you can become an airline pilot yourself or you'll maybe just don't want to be a pilot and you're just clicking on the video because you're curious I mean that's always a possibility as well so for me like many other airline pilots I pretty much knew as soon as I was bored that I was going to be an airline pilot when people ask I normally say I was around four when I said I was going to be an airline pilot but to be honest I feel like I was bored and I it was just Destiny for me and you know from a young age I was always really into maths and physics and I really enjoy just the mechanical side of maths and you know the physics of understanding why things did what they did and I was always interesting to me but that being said not interesting to every pilot but for me it was always an interest and that basically continued for my whole school career in the end I ended up taking them as my final subjects when I was 18 for my a levels in England but that's skipping forward a bit so coming back to my childhood yeah I was just obsessed with playing to the kid and I always said I wanted to be a pilot it was just a dream of mine now as I got older and that passion just grew stronger in the end I managed to convince my parents to give me a trial flight when I was 12. and I really recommend that for any of you aspiring Pilots just to make sure this is something you really really want to do go to your local Airfield and get a trial flight and for me as if you really want to be a pilot I'm sure it would be the exact same for you but that experience is life-changing I it's probably a highlight of my childhood was having that first time in light aircraft I just couldn't believe it it was unbelievable for me it was my first time being in a light aircraft and the instructor was even really nice let me hand fly a little bit to be honest I really pretty much only did straight in level a few turns a bit of climbing and descending but for me 12 years old I felt like a pilot it was the first time I felt like wow I'm a pilot but obviously little did I know that was just the beginning also it was my first taste of aerobatics the uh the instructor asked if I liked roller coasters and I was like yeah for sure and he was like do you want to do aerobatics I was like uh I'm not really sure what to expect and he was just like you'll love it and I did that was fair to say when I was 13 I went to my secondary school and that's when I joined the Air Cadets basically the air Cadets are something we have in England it's sort of you you're doing military activities and including that we got to learn a bit about planes and every now and then we got to head down to the local RAF base where one of the RAF Pilots would take us up flying in a grub tutor again doing some crazy aerobatic some of them were absolutely nuts but again this was more chance for me to get my hands on the plane and get flying and I absolutely loved it you know every chance I could get in the plane I was taking it and I did that from 13 all the way up to 17. so for you younger guys if you do have the chance to get into the air Cadets I really recommend it at least go give it a go you don't have to do it for your your whole childhood but if you're about 12 13 you can think about joining one looking around to see if there is one and I highly recommend it it was brilliant fun for me also in that time the Summer where I turned 16 I went back to the local Airfield where I originally learned how to fly and I did some work experience there I think I only did the week and to be honest I think I should have done more but I did a week at my local Airfield working for one of the flight schools there pretty much I just got to clean the planes do a bit of admin on the computers and every now and then they would take me flying and let me refuel the planes which I absolutely loved so I can't complain but not only that it does look really good on a CV and when you go to Airlines and show them that sort of thing it really does impress them so really recommend that now once I got to 18 this is sort of where it all changes this is now where you finish school and there's a number of routes you can take now as most of you know there's pretty much two main ways you can go integrated or modular and as it's my story today I'm just going to tell you the way I did it but by no means is this the best way for you so make sure you do your research before jumping to any conclusions don't just think that my way is the only way there are a few different parts you can take and each path does have benefits and negatives so definitely do your research before you jump into it however once I was 18 I had the big decision of do I go straight to flight school or do I go to university first and for me I definitely think I made the right decision whilst it was hard because a lot of my friends were going to University I just don't think it was the right decision for me if I spent three years after University doing a degree I didn't really want to do I just think it would have been a waste of a lot of money and a long three years and all I would have wanted to do is fly so that's what I did I had to start researching flight schools and researching the path that I wanted to take now the best way I did this and I seriously recommend to any aspiring pilot you do this and it's almost a must go visit pilot careers life this is where every flight school gets to present to you show you their best and you get to talk to them talk to Airlines talk to current Pilots current students and speak to different schools this is really where you get to learn a lot about each flight school and find try and find which one is best for you once you have got a handful of them I had about three or four on my list I seriously recommend going to open days now these are so good these are where the flight schools will show you their best they will be on their best presentation and that's where you can really set them apart if that's what they're going to act like and present to you as on their very best day think how they will present yourself on the whole 18 months if they're not impressive then they won't be impressive and they won't be the right flight school for you you should go to that flight school be absolutely blown away and just almost know as soon as you walk in the door that this is the flight school for me and whilst I went to a few there was one that really stood out to me by no means because I went to it was it the best one just for me at the time I believed and still believed to this day that I made the right choice for myself and I ended up going to Leading Edge Aviation but make sure you do your research into all the flight schools go visit them all so you can find the best one for you after finishing school I had about six months between starting at Leading Edge Aviation and finishing school and in that six months I did a few things and there's also some things that looking in hindsight I wish I did differently and that's why I want to make this video so I can share that with you now firstly I worked I saved up money for flight school and that is something you should definitely do flight school is not cheap so make sure you save up as much as possible now one thing I did and this was probably an amazing decision I tell this story in all of my interviews and it seems to impress interviewers and it shows initiative it just it's just a great story and I suggest you do something similar essentially what I did was through a few connections I managed to get a sit-down interview with the CEO of air mortar now that was amazing I got to speak to someone so high up in the aviation industry I got to sit with him face to face and we had a good half an hour chat and he just gave me so much advice this is where I also first learned about the pilot core competencies and these are things that you need to develop all throughout your Avi Asian career and really what makes a great pilot now being 18 and fresh out of school I didn't really have a lot of opportunity to develop my own core competencies and I knew that if I went for my interview as I was today and either wanted me to give examples of those sort of competencies I wouldn't have many things to go off of so I needed to find ways to develop my core competencies so what I did at the end of the interview was ask the CEO if he would be willing to let me work at air mortar now unfortunately he said no but what he did offer me was two weeks work experience which in my opinion was just as valuable whilst it was only temporary and it was only short term it was amazing so I worked for two weeks at air Malta in operations where I I learned so much about an airline the knowledge I consumed in that two weeks was insane there were pilots coming in and out so I got to speak to them pick their brains about questions of what I should do and I just learned so much that brings me on to another point of try talk to Pilots I learned so much by talking to pilots and but yeah those two weeks that animals were amazing for me and when they asked me for show me a time where you worked with another team and I could bring up times and teamwork which we used in the operations department at air Malta it really made me stand out but apart from those two weeks in Malta majority of my time was simply working and saving up money and I was just doing admin in an office it wasn't anything glamorous and that's something I wish I changed and now I'm not sure why I didn't at the time but looking back at it if you have the opportunity I one thousand percent recommend going into an aviation job now that doesn't matter what it is it can be cabin crew which is probably top of the list if you can get a cabin crew drop before you fly before you start flight school it's going to make you stand out at your flight school interview it's gonna make you stand out at your airline interviews afterwards I'd really recommend doing cabin crew if you can you'll learn so much about Airline operations you'll get to speak to Pilots you'll learn so much but if that's not for you operations works great as well or crewing scheduling anything you can do within an airline is great experience and that's what I really wish if I could go back and do it again I didn't know six months but the route I took working an admin job just saving up money purely and also those two weeks work experience which were so valuable to me now I've gone over my interview in detail in another video I'm going to leave that link down in the description so you can check it out after this one if you want to learn a bit more about the interview process but luckily I passed my interview which I was thrilled with and shortly after just before I started covert hit which was gut reaching I mean it was it was awful because I didn't know what I was going to do I'd already put my deposit on my flight school I was so lost I thought I would I should have gone to University my whole flying was delayed but in the end this is where for me Leading Edge Aviation was by far the best choice for me at the time because while every other flight school stopped working completely Leading Edge kept going we did basically Ground School from home for the first half so my leading Aviation journey and my flight school Journey began at home in my bedroom learning because because of kovid we were doing all the online learning on teams and the first time I met any of my course was when we were going in for our exams luckily I passed my first set of exams completely fine then I sat the second seven set of exams that's a tongue twister but again I finished ground school and that took about six months I started in May 2020 finished November 2020 and I worked so hard in these six months and I cannot explain to you how hard you have to work and this is where you really really have to be passionate about being a pilot I was working 12-hour days and I'm not saying I was awake for 12 hours I was awake more because I had to eat and get ready in the morning I was revising for 12 hours a day just because I just didn't want to do anything else all I wanted to do was do well in these exams these can be the difference between getting your first job and not I just wanted to give my 1 000 into them I did extremely well I came away with a 93 average across the 14 exams the first time path is in all my subjects and for sure that's not the best score anyone has got people have got way higher and fair play to them but that was the best that I think I could have done and that's the most important thing as long as you give your 100 and you work as hard as you can there is nothing more you can do so that's what I did and I'm really happy with how hard I worked and the result I came away with next up was the fun part which was flight training so we start on the single engine we did that for a while and a twin engine flying and if you're new to the channel just click on my videos on my page and scroll down you have flight school start to finish you can watch all my flights pretty much I mean not all of them but a good handful you can really get a good taste over what flight school was like I'm sure many of you have seen them already so I don't need to explain what I got up to on my flying but if you are interested to see what I was doing while flying just go have a scroll on the channel and you'll see loads of videos that then finished with uprt upset prevention and Recovery training and my APS MCC my APS MCC is essentially was done in A320 and was the closest thing I got to being an airline pilot whilst it's all in a simulator you really got to get the taste of what your life could be like in the very near future APS MCC was probably a highlight of my training I really enjoyed it eventually I finished Flight Training and I finished the end of March 2023. once that was finished the airline industry was still pretty sore from covid I'm glad to say today it's looking 10 times better it is so much quicker to get a job than it was back then still hard still not how it used to be before covid but by all means very possible now to get one pretty quickly within a few months for sure however at the time options were very limited for me so I had to do something to fill in the Gap and this was when I learned from my previous mistake of not doing anything in the six months before I started flight school and I knew I had to get a job within the aviation industry now I had a few options on my list cabin crew was there not really suited for me but it was a really good option and while I still highly recommend for any of you operations was another option ground handling was an option within an airport there are definitely a few options out there but in the end I actually went to work for my current flight school in marketing which allowed me to stay within the aviation industry speak to students and when it came to to my interviews I was able to use the resources at Leading Edge from the instructors to help me with my exams and that was such a huge bonus of still working at the company I had all the resources available for my interview as well as that again it looks so good on a CV to finish Flight Training and then the company rehire you because clearly they must have liked you after getting to know you for nearly two years and I worked there and in that time there were a few opportunities not a lot but in the end I was applying to anything and everything and I got so lucky with an opportunity honestly think it's still one of the best opportunities out there that I could have grabbed at the time and by no means is it the best job perfect for everyone definitely not but for me and what I wanted I mean I wasn't very picky at the time as long as I was flying for an airline I was pretty happy whether that have been on a small play in a large plane as I was flying and getting paid to do so I would have been happy but I managed to land an A320 commercial airline job which is what I'm currently doing today and absolutely in love with I started my type rating on the A320 November 2023 so between March 2023 and finishing flight school to November 2023 where I started not too much of the Gap I had my interview end of September which was really hard I'm so glad I passed it though and I again the help from the flight school and having worked there really did help while I passed my interview and started my type rating in November 2023 first of which was Ground School this was essentially a lot of Home Learning for a tie rating it's not like flight school where you're sitting in classrooms a lot learning from the instructors for type rating the large majority of it is just here's the content go and learn it which is exactly what I did I learned it inside and out back to front as much as I could and I might as a past My Ground School exam with a hundred percent so I guess I couldn't have done much more and then it was time for the simulators again I've made another video of a week in the life of a type rating student which shows all my week of simulators in depth I did that for just over a month I want to say about five or six weeks of simulators but if you want to check out in detail what I got up to in those simulators I was in Stockholm for the large majority of it so go check the video out I'll leave another Link in the description so you can go have a look at that as well but once the simulators are complete it's time for base training and this is the first time I flew an 80 20. real life it had no passengers on just students but we went and did six touch and goes in an A320 I mean just still saying it out loud is bizarre I mean touch and goes in an A320 that is the sort of unheard of isn't it it was the best experience of my life but once we completed base training it was time for line training and unlike base training this means we have passengers and we are operating as normal airline pilots I was my first time flying passengers on an A320 180 seats on board I mean it was surreal and I really felt like I'd achieved everything I worked for and this is pretty much the stage I am up to now now when you see this video the next following week I should have completed line training at which point I am released a full-on normal airline pilot just doing normal airline pilot operations and duties and living my dream but as of today I'm still just finishing off my line training this is essentially complete normal flying it is to a passenger you have no idea line training is even going on for you it is a normal flight completely however for US airline pilots essentially it's just a Cadet sitting with a line training Captain someone with a bit more experience you can teach whilst also flying in the cruise we get discussion items we're going in detail about different operations and they're really testing your knowledge that you learn from the type rating but to be honest it has gone really well so far for me I'm not sure how it is at every Airline however on the 80 20 at the company I'm at my line training is 66 sectors followed by a line check on the 67th and 68th which I should have next week so fingers crossed for that but hopefully it will be all okay speaking of line training you'll be glad to hear that coming out in the near future I do have recorded not edited yet but I will get on that a week in the life of a line training student so you guys could get to see pretty much what I got up during the week of a line training student so I know you'll like it make sure you stay tuned for that one and that is essentially where I am today at just 21 and how I became an airline pilot at 21. now I hope I went into enough detail about my journey and I you guys got a great Insight of ideas for yourself and how you can do it and of course if you have absolutely any questions leave a comment I will do my very best to respond to as many as possible I want to help you guys I know you guys can do it and I wish I had that extra person I could just buy loads of questions at who's been there and done it feel free to leave a comment I'll do my best to help you guys out and that for me is really what this YouTube channel is all about helping you guys inspiring and educating just helping you guys get to the dream that I know we all share because I can tell you now from someone who's done it it feels amazing and it is definitely worth all the hard work and if this content is something you'll enjoy and you want to check out all the videos coming out in the future from this airline pilot make sure you subscribe like the video so I know you enjoyed it and found it helpful and if you did enjoy and you want a bit more information I've also made this video which is how to become a commercial pilot it goes a bit more into detail about the different ways you can get there something I'm sure a lot of you would find helpful but guys that's it for me thank you so much for watching I'll see you in the next video