Studying a private pilot in Middle-earth: moving and living in a New Zealand village

Hello!

I would like to share a rather unusual experience and supplement the wonderful bvitaliyg article on how to come to the sky and become a pilot. I'll tell you about how I went to a New Zealand village near Hobbiton to get behind the wheel and learn how to fly.

How it all began

I am 25, I have been working in the IT industry all my life and do not do anything that even remotely connected with aviation. I have always liked my work, but in recent years personal development has increasingly lagged behind the professional one, and the rhythm of life in the capital has motivated me to change the situation.
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Aviation seemed like an appropriate challenge. I never sat at the helm, did not know anything about the control of the plane, poorly understood English and did not have large cash savings.

Flight courses in Russia did not attract me, because small aircraft in our country are in great decline and much has not changed since Soviet times. I saw no demand, no supply, no prospects.

I did not want to study in the USA because of the sensation of conveyorism. In the States, every third person has a pilot license, and some get these licenses in 2-3 weeks with a standard course duration of 2-3 months. It is even faster than to pass on the right, only ten times more expensive.

I wanted to study in an English-speaking country, so there was little choice in Europe either. Life in the UK seemed overly expensive and difficult in terms of visa restrictions.

The choice was New Zealand. An English-speaking and developed country with amazing nature and responsive people seemed to me an ideal place to study. I also loved the Lord of the Rings very much and knew that the filming of the trilogy took place there. A private school was found 20 kilometers from the Hobbiton film set, near the town of Matamata.

English

Clear requirements for the English language was not. It was assumed that he should be free to understand and talk. Aviation English was not required for an amateur pilot's license.

I had to get an English course in Moscow. It was even possible to find a New Zealand teacher who led IELTS preparation courses. For two months, we managed to raise the level from 6 to 7.5 and successfully pass an interview with representatives of the school. Formally, a level no lower than 6 was required, but I did not have to take the exam itself, although some New Zealand schools require it for admission.

Money

The course of a private pilot on a Cessna 172 plane at my school cost about 12 thousand US dollars. This is quite noticeably more expensive than American schools, but much cheaper than Australian ones.

In general, the cost of a private pilot PPL course worldwide varies from 7 to 15 thousand dollars depending on the country of study. The commercial pilot CPL course is significantly more expensive, and the full course from scratch to the ATPL linear pilot with the ratings required for work in the airline is about 60 thousand US dollars.

The cheapest in the Republic of South Africa, where you can learn and for 7 thousand. Given the abolition of visas between Russia and South Africa, for many this option may indeed seem interesting.

There is an opinion that studying for a private pilot or an amateur pilot is an investment very dubious, since it will not be possible to recoup the costs directly, because you cannot make money with this license. You can, of course, go step by step, getting a license for a license as funds become available, but it is just much more expensive and longer.

Many people prefer to save money and study at the integrated courses of the commercial pilot of the CPL, or, if finances permit, immediately at the linear ATPL.

It should be understood that aviation in the career plan is a very complicated, long and expensive story. Even having received the maximum admittance of ATPL with the necessary ratings and having a theoretical opportunity to work in an airline, nobody will take you to work without this experience so easily. It is good if, after several years of work, an instructor is invited to a conditional Costa Rica to work as a co-pilot of a regional airline for an extremely modest salary. Everyone understands that every year the United States releases thousands of pilots who need to compete and collect hours. There are ways to convert a US license and fly to Russia, but this is also expensive and dreary.

I initially did not consider aviation as a way to make money through flights. Having a basic license of a private pilot, you seriously diversify your resume, whatever you do. Aviation gives such skills and experience that it is impossible to evaluate with money and which will eventually make you an interesting person and a sought-after specialist.

Visas

At first it seemed to me that New Zealand’s visa was elementary, but it turned out to be not so simple.

For a private pilot license, a tourist visa is also suitable, but firstly it’s impossible to work on it, and secondly, to receive it in any case, you will have to transfer the full amount for studying from Russia. In the case of a student visa, everything is much worse, since it will be necessary to transfer not only for studies, but also for several months of housing and various other costs. The result is indecently expensive.

The bank assured me that the SWIFT transfer takes several days, but in fact Russia recently passed a law according to which all operations and transfers are higher than 600 tr. undergo thorough checks. They can neither be removed normally nor transferred abroad. Money went more than a month.

Moving and housing

I must say that the importance of the issue with housing is greatly underestimated. The fact is that most of the airfields where they are trained are located far from populated areas. New Zealand is a vivid example, our school was located 10 kilometers from the nearest village with a shop and 200 kilometers from a large city.

At school I was assured that it would be extremely hard without a car, so all students buy it first. The cost of the car in New Zealand will add several thousand dollars to the total cost of the courses. I managed to agree on renting a room in one of the houses on the territory of the airfield. This allowed me not to buy a car, but added a lot of other problems.



The main thing - had to live almost in complete isolation from civilization. For several months, I clearly understood that there is no other such country in the world that would differ from Moscow more by atmosphere and way of life. In New Zealand, no one is in a hurry to go anywhere, startups do not take root in the country, and workaholism is not welcomed.

Shopping has always been a real adventure. Several times I had to walk, and this is 10 kilometers one way and 10 kilometers back with packages. Here I want to thank the New Zealanders who were always ready to give a lift. If you are on the road, then every second car will stop nearby. So I met a whole bunch of great people.

As for the housing conditions, the situation here was far from comfortable. The fact is that most of the students of the school were Hindus, and Hindus are not always clean and consider their housing very temporary and unworthy of their attention. My neighbors were guys from India, Malaysia and Tibet. The guys themselves are nice and non-conflicting, but the cultural gap between us is still enormous.

Separately, I want to say about the temperature in the house. I arrived in the month of May just before the beginning of the New Zealand winter. Winter is certainly not like in Moscow, but subzero temperature sometimes lasts a long time. Nobody heard about central heating in houses, so a heater will be your main friend, and the average temperature in the morning is good if it is more than 10 degrees. For excessive use of heaters will have to pay extra and a lot of money to the rent, which, in turn, was NZ $ 200 per week.

I can not say that the difficulties with the living conditions went smoothly, but at the same time I had no reason to regret my choice. New Zealand is a completely unique country in its attitude to people and nature. All problems are forgotten here, you just rejoice every day that you live.

Study

Before arrival, I assumed that before practice I was waiting for a large amount of theory. Everything turned out exactly the opposite, from the very first day at school and before the start of the theoretical classes I flew off for several weeks.

Practical classes were built as follows: we had an internal online schedule where the instructor assigned a student to himself every day. The school specifically forced instructors to take different students so that no one gets used to any one style and does not relax. Most of the instructors were British, with enough English to understand, but there were also New Zealanders.



On the first day, we were given a logbook, where we recorded our watches and the occupation that we practiced during the flight. Before each flight, the instructor conducted a small briefing, where they told which forces act on the plane, what is happening in the air, and how to act in a given situation. At the end of the briefing, there was a small oral test to check the mastering of the material, and then we went to the aircraft and performed preflight training, after which we sat down at the helm and practiced the exercise.





In principle, nothing is more complicated than school physics in the theory of training for a private pilot, but you need to remember a lot of information. Much falls into the habit immediately, but something needs to be practiced every day.

It seems to me that the curriculum itself is standardized, and the examinations are about the same as in Europe and the USA, except that New Zealand is still preparing pilots more for the Asian market and is not very popular with the rest.

Our school took very seriously safety issues, but at the same time made us be independent from the very first day and not count on an instructor. On the one hand, during absolutely every pre-flight preparation, I had to pour gasoline into a test tube 11 times and check its quality. On the other hand, I performed an independent landing from the second day of classes.

As bvitaliyg correctly noted, aviation is not only about flying. These are emotions and incredible responsibility. I do not remember that at least sometime in my life I experienced what I had to experience during an independent piloting of an airplane. We flew over the Hobbiton film set, flew up to the waterfalls and mountains of the northern island, performed different elements in different weather conditions and even learned how to get the plane out of a spin.

I was captured and inspired by videos and stories about flying, but I absolutely agree that not a single video will convey even a small part of the sensations from the minute at the helm. It will stay with you for life.