Flight Training in the US If you are an international flight training student thinking about doing your flight training in the US you have some unique challenges. This is a great place to train because of the climate and the cost of training is generally lower here. One of the problems that international (non US) residents have is actually getting the attention of the flight school here. The reason is that so many people are interested and so many of those people never start training. So this means that US flight schools have thousands of inquires per month and are not able to easily determine who is really interested and who is not. Pilot Journey has a program called FlyUSA which solves this problem though. Because when international flight students join the FlyUSA program they get a member number to use when communicating with US flight schools. Other issues that international students might face are dealing with the fact that in order to be a pilot all pilot candidates much read write and speak the English language. The better the English and reading skills the more money the student saves because learning is faster and not as much work. Besides being able to speak English as with all international arrivals in the US, the student must get a VISA to enter the country and study. Plus, international pilot candidates must visit the Transportation Security Administrations website and be approved to enter the US for the purpose of pilot study. Additionally most US flight schools do not fully understand the rules and regulations of being hired as a commercial pilot in the country in which the student wishes to begin flying. So the some of this research must be done on the part of the student or learned from membership in FlyUSA. The last very important item is that there are dishonest and under capitalized flight schools that do not deliver on what they promise. And since the international student may not know the success rate or other students of the flight school they wish to attend it can be difficult to do the research to protect the investment in an aviation education. A great source of information for international students wishing to train in the US is available on www.pilotjourney.com. There students from all over the world can join the free forums and ask questions plus meet other student pilots. |
