Start Here - Fly with Trent

The Path to Becoming a Professional Pilot Starts Here

So you want to become a professional pilot do ya? Fantastic! You are definitely in the right place.

My name is Trent and I’m the informal world record holder for going from just a private pilot (Canadian license that I earned in the 90s) to getting hired by the largest regional airline in the US in just 23 months (at age 55).

BTW, I received my job offer just 13 months after starting flight school, and the last 9 of those 24 months were spent just waiting for my airline training class to begin – so technically, I became a First Officer candidate in just 13 months.

What if you’ve got some grey hair?

Worthy of note to all my other career 2.0 aspiring pilots, I started at 53 and was able to earn all 7 of my pilot certificates (PPL, IRA, CPL, AMEL, CFI, CFII, MEI) in just 91 days for under $50,000…so I definitely know what I’m talking about.

After my 91 day sprint to earn all those ratings, I started my independent CFI business and flew an average of 110 hours a month, while earning an average of $675 a day as a instructor. (If replicating my success as a CFI is one of your goals, I offer a training course on how to do it.)

On this page, I’m going to give you the clearest overview of the path from zero to professional pilot that I can, so that if that sounds like what you’re looking for, read on.

Budget

If you follow my advice, you should be able to earn your private pilote certificate for just under $10,000 and if you are training full-time, which I highly recommend, you can expect it to take you about 30 days; subject of course to how often you fly, how fast you learn, and how hard you hit the books.

I highly recommend that you do not start flying until you have your entire $10,000 saved up. Watch the video below to see why I say this. (Hint, people who spread out their training tend to spend a lot more $$$, and we don’t want you doing that, do we?)

Ground School

In the video below, I explain what ground school is and the things you will need to study for. The first, and easiest of those things are the FAA written exams. You can take all the exams as soon as you like, and you have up to 2 years to pass your check ride after taking the exam….so if you have time on your hands now, start taking the written exams.

When it comes to everything after the PPL, I’m a big fan of Sheppard Air written exam test prep software.

(Please don’t get written exams confused with the oral exams that are part of the check ride that you must pass at the end of training to earn your certificate)

For the PPL ground school, Sheppard does not offer a product for written exam test prep.

Especially for the PPL, you will find the learning curve quite steep and for that reason, I strongly recommend that you start ground school immediately.

The Devil Is In The Details

Being as I’m a YouTuber, rather than type out every last detail, I have instead put all the information into this highly detailed video. I promise you that you are going to learn things in this video that you have not heard else where, so please watch all of it now.

So....How I Can Help You?

So by now, I’m guessing you’re chomping at the bit and ready to get started.

If that is that case, I have some additional resources for you.

How to Select a Flight School

Picking the right flight flight school and or instructor is critical to your success, especially if you are operating on a condensed timeline like I was.

Currently in the US, there are a LOT of flight schools and they all make pretty grand promises. Some schools are operated under Part 61, and others operate under Part 141 – and these ones are expensive as hell. In my Guide to Accelerated Flight Training, I will explain the key differences that you need to know.

To help you sift through the heaps of schools you could choose from, I have created my Guide to Accelerated Flight Training.

The guide consists of about a dozen videos and some written material and you will find the lessons you learn will more than cover the tuition of the program, which is price at approximately the cost of a single training flight.

How to Select a CFI

Depending on where you are located, you may have a hard time finding a flight school that meets the criteria that I explain in the Guide to Accelerated Flight Training, so the next resource I have for you is a match-making service for independent CFIs around the country. There are now plenty of CFIs in the nationwide CFI network, so your chances of getting paired with a qualified CFI are virtually 100%. You can learn more about how this process works here.

Becoming an Independent CFI

Once you have earned your PPL, instrument rating, and a commercial pilot certificate, the next step for the vast majority of pro pilots is to become a CFI themselves. And you guessed it, I have my Six Figure CFI training program that will show you literally everything I did to earn 6 figures as an independent CFI.

Additional Resources

In addition to what I have shared with you so far, I have a few more resources that you will find extremely valuable.

Flight Simulator

First, I highly recommend you that you build yourself a home simulator using Microsoft Flight Simulator combined with some of the items on this page. While you can definitely drop big money building a super-deluxe simulator, you definitely don’t need to. In fact, all you need is a joystick with a throttle and a twist grip to operate the rudder pedals. You will find hours logged in MSFS extremely valuable for your PPL, and even more so for your instrument rating if you combine it with using Foreflight on your tablet.

Timelines

As I mentioned above, I went from having a Canadian PPL with 100 hours to having 7 FAA ratings over 91 days. If had zero hours when I started, I would have needed another month of flight time (although that is somewhat debatable because I lost 3 weeks of my 91 days to Thunderstorms in the midwest). Regardless, my advice for you here is simply this: fly as often as you can because the more often you fly, the less you will forget and have to relearn. And perhaps more importantly, the closer your check rides are together, the easier they are to pass because all the knowledge is still fresh in your head.

I will be the first to admit that flying came easily to me. That, combined with my ludicrous work ethic, was why I was able to go so fast. For most people going from zero to hero full-time, I’d say to budget for 5 months instead of 3.