How to Succeed on an Integrated Flight Training Course

Tips and advice to help you get the most out of your integrated ATPL flight training

An integrated flight training course is one of the quickest routes from having little or no flying experience to obtaining the licences required to apply for a job as a commercial airline pilot.

It’s also intense.

Integrated training is completed full-time through an Approved Training Organisation (ATO), with the various elements of commercial flight training incorporated into a structured training programme. Unlike the modular route, where you can generally progress at your own pace, an integrated course moves quickly and requires a significant commitment from start to finish.

You’ll have ATPL ground school, flying lessons, simulator sessions, progress tests and eventually flight tests and assessments to contend with. There will be periods where things are going extremely well and, almost certainly, periods where they aren’t.

Having been through professional flight training ourselves, we’ve put together some advice on how to approach an integrated course and, importantly, how to get the most out of it.

Treat Your Flight Training Like a Job

From your first day at flight school, start treating the course as if you’ve already started your professional flying career.

That means turning up on time, being properly prepared, knowing your schedule and having everything you need for the day’s training.

It sounds obvious, but instructors quickly notice students who consistently turn up well prepared and those who don’t.

Your instructor shouldn’t have to spend the first ten minutes of every briefing discovering that you haven’t read the relevant material or don’t know what exercise you’re supposed to be flying.

Nobody expects a student pilot to know everything – that’s why you’re there. But there is a big difference between not knowing something and not having prepared.

Start developing professional habits from day one.

Stay Ahead of the Course

The pace of an integrated course can catch people out.

There may be times when you’re flying several times a week whilst also preparing for upcoming lessons, studying theoretical knowledge and dealing with progress tests.

Try not to get into the habit of only preparing for whatever you’re doing tomorrow.

If you’re currently flying circuits, start looking at the exercises that come afterwards. If you have a simulator session later in the week, start preparing for it before the night before.

You don’t need to teach yourself the syllabus in advance. In fact, trying to do so can sometimes be counterproductive. The idea is simply to arrive at the briefing already familiar with the basic concepts.

That makes it much easier to absorb what your instructor is actually teaching you.

Take ATPL Ground School Seriously

The ATPL theoretical examinations are a substantial part of your training.

For a UK or EASA frozen ATPL route, you’ll study 13 theoretical subjects covering everything from Meteorology and Principles of Flight to General Navigation, Performance and Air Law. The volume of information that needs to be absorbed in a relatively short period is one of the things students can find particularly challenging about integrated training.

The key is consistency.

Don’t wait until a few weeks before the exams before starting serious revision. Keep on top of the material as you go along and make sure you actually understand the underlying principles rather than simply memorising question-bank answers.

Question banks are useful, but they shouldn’t replace learning the subject.

You’ll need much of this knowledge again during your flying training, airline selection and eventually your type rating.

Arm Chair Fly – It Really Does Work

Chair-flying is probably one of the most useful things you can do outside the aircraft. It’s something you’ll find yourself doing throughout your airline career!

It costs nothing and you can do it almost anywhere.

Sit somewhere quiet and mentally fly through the lesson. Visualise the cockpit, think about where your hands are going and say the checks and calls out loud.

If you’re practising circuits, mentally fly an entire circuit from take-off to landing.

If you’re preparing for an instrument procedure, draw it out and talk yourself through the sequence.

If you’re practising an emergency, think about the initial actions, subsequent checks and how you’d manage the aircraft.

The more familiar you are with a sequence on the ground, the less mental capacity you’ll use trying to remember it in the aircraft.

That leaves you with more capacity to actually fly the aeroplane.

Don’t Just Memorise – Understand Why

There is inevitably quite a lot of memorisation involved in flight training.

You’ll learn checklists, procedures, limitations, speeds, calls and various sequences of actions.

But wherever possible, try to understand why you’re doing something.

If your instructor tells you to use a particular attitude, power setting or configuration, understand what that change is doing to the aircraft.

If there’s a particular limitation, understand why it exists.

If you’re learning an instrument procedure, don’t just memorise where you need to turn. Understand what the procedure is designed to achieve.

This becomes increasingly important as your training progresses.

Professional flying isn’t simply about remembering a sequence of actions. You need to understand what’s happening sufficiently well to recognise when something isn’t going according to plan.

Make Notes After Every Flight

You’ll receive a debrief after your flying lessons, but don’t assume you’ll remember all of it a few weeks later.

Keep your own training notes.

After each flight, write down what went well, what didn’t go particularly well and what your instructor wants you to improve next time.

It doesn’t need to be an essay.

A few useful notes written immediately after the flight can be extremely valuable when you come back to the same exercise several weeks later.

You’ll also start noticing patterns.

If several instructors are making the same comment about your flying, that’s probably something worth concentrating on.

You’ll Have Bad Flights

Every student has them.

One day everything seems to click. Your handling is good, you’re ahead of the aircraft and you leave feeling like you’re finally getting the hang of this flying business.

Then you turn up the following day and apparently forget how to fly an aeroplane.

Don’t panic.

Progress during flight training isn’t always linear. You might struggle with an exercise that someone else finds easy, then find another part of the course relatively straightforward.

A poor flight doesn’t make you a poor pilot.

What matters is what you do afterwards.

Listen to the debrief, work out what went wrong, prepare properly and go again.

Some of the flights you learn the most from are the ones you wouldn’t particularly like to repeat.

Don’t Constantly Compare Yourself With Other Students

This is particularly easy to do on an integrated course because you’re usually training alongside a group of other cadets.

Someone will probably go solo before you.

Someone will get a higher ATPL exam average.

Someone will seemingly breeze through an exercise you’ve spent three flights trying to master.

Ignore it.

People learn different skills at different rates. Someone who initially struggles with visual flying may subsequently be excellent at instrument flying. Someone who finds ground school relatively easy may find the practical elements more difficult.

Needing an extra training flight isn’t the end of your career.

Concentrate on your own progress and achieving the required standard.

Use Your Instructors

If you don’t understand something, ask.

Students sometimes avoid asking questions because they’re worried they’ll look stupid in front of an instructor or their classmates.

Don’t.

It’s much better to clarify something during a briefing than to get into the aircraft and demonstrate that you didn’t understand it in the first place.

Your instructors have also watched many students go through exactly the same training programme.

They’ll know the common mistakes. They’ll know which exercises students tend to struggle with and they’ll probably have some useful suggestions if you’re finding something difficult.

Make use of their experience.

Learn to Take Criticism

You’re going to receive a lot of feedback during flight training and not all of it will be positive.

That’s part of the process.

An instructor’s job is to identify where you aren’t meeting the required standard and help you fix it.

Try not to immediately become defensive or produce an explanation for every mistake.

Listen to the debrief.

Ask questions if you don’t understand the feedback and then work out what you’re going to do differently on the next flight.

This doesn’t stop when you get your first airline job either. Professional pilots undergo recurrent training and checking throughout their careers, so becoming comfortable with constructive criticism is a useful skill to develop early.

If You’re Struggling, Say Something Early

There is a temptation during an intensive course to keep quiet when you’re struggling because you don’t want to appear weaker than the other students.

This rarely helps.

If you’re falling behind academically, struggling repeatedly with a particular flying exercise or simply finding the workload difficult to manage, speak to your instructor or training manager.

Do it early.

Small training problems are generally much easier to fix before they become big ones.

Asking for help isn’t an admission that you can’t do it. Your training organisation would much rather know there is a problem while there’s still plenty of opportunity to address it.

Learn to Stay Ahead of the Aircraft

One of the biggest differences you’ll notice as your flying improves is how much further ahead you’re thinking.

Early in training, it can feel as though you’re constantly reacting to the aircraft.

You’ve just finished one task when you suddenly realise you should already have started the next one.

With experience, you start thinking further ahead:

What’s happening now?

What’s happening next?

What do I need to do before I get there?

This becomes particularly important during instrument flying and eventually multi-crew training, where poor planning can quickly result in a very high workload.

The objective is to make the aircraft arrive somewhere after you’ve prepared for it, rather than arriving and then deciding what to do.

Start Developing Good CRM Habits

Crew Resource Management (CRM) becomes increasingly important as you progress towards multi-crew and airline operations.

But you can start developing the right habits much earlier.

Communicate clearly. Listen. Maintain situational awareness. Manage your workload and prioritise properly.

If something doesn’t look right, say something.

When you eventually progress onto an MCC or APS MCC, don’t mentally switch off just because the other pilot is flying. Monitoring the flight, maintaining situational awareness and supporting the Pilot Flying are all important skills.

The aim isn’t simply to learn how to operate an aircraft. You’re ultimately training to operate as part of a professional flight crew.

Look After Yourself

There will be periods during an integrated course where you are extremely busy.

Trying to combine flying, ground school, revision and preparation can make it tempting to study late into the night and survive on caffeine.

There comes a point where this becomes counterproductive.

Being exhausted isn’t going to improve your flying or your ability to retain information.

Get enough sleep, eat properly, exercise and occasionally do something that has absolutely nothing to do with aviation.

You don’t need to think about aeroplanes every waking hour to become a good pilot.

Don’t Chase Perfection

You should aim for a high standard, but don’t expect every flight to be perfect.

It won’t be.

Weather changes. ATC changes things. Other traffic gets in the way. You’ll make mistakes.

The important skill is recognising when something has gone wrong, correcting it and moving on.

Don’t allow one poor approach, radio call or manoeuvre at the beginning of a flight to ruin everything that follows.

Learn from it and reset.

That ability becomes increasingly valuable as you progress into professional flying.

Enjoy It

This one is easily forgotten.

Commercial flight training can become so focused on the next progress test, exam, skills test or training milestone that you forget what you’re actually doing.

You’re learning to fly aeroplanes.

For most people starting an integrated course, it’s something they’ve wanted to do for years.

There will be frustrating days. There will be weather cancellations, difficult exams and flights where nothing seems to go right.

There will also be your first solo, your first navigation flight, your first instrument approach, your first multi-engine flight and eventually the point where you realise you’ve actually become a commercial pilot.

Try to enjoy those moments.

How to Do Well on an Integrated Flight Training Course

There isn’t a secret formula for succeeding at flight school.

The students who tend to do well aren’t necessarily those with the most natural flying ability or those who arrived with the most previous experience.

Consistency matters.

Turn up prepared. Work hard. Stay ahead of the syllabus. Listen to your instructors. Ask questions when you don’t understand something and don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it.

You’ll make mistakes along the way. That’s what training is for.

Learn from them, keep improving and start developing the professional habits you’ll need throughout the rest of your flying career.

By the time you finish your integrated course, the aim isn’t simply to have passed the required exams and skills tests.

It’s to be ready to take the next step towards becoming an airline pilot.