All posts by Terry Pitts

Terry is a retired school teacher, retired Army Reservist, and retired civilian Department of the Army Civilian working about half the time as a pilot and flight instructor. He has been flying since age 19, adding gliders in 2011. He's been an FAA certificated flight instructor since 2013.
Flying

How to get a Student Pilot Certificate

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Back in the days of yore*, a Student Pilot’s medical also served as the Student Pilot Certificate. It’s been long enough that all those have expired. A Student Pilot Certificate is now a permanent, plastic, credit card-sized document with no expiration date. (Pilots who require a medical will do that separately.)

You and your instructor will both use the FAA’s Integrated Airman Certification and Rating Application (IACRA) website. There you will:

  • Create an account (be sure to safely note your FTN, you will need this later)
  • Initiate a request for a Student Pilot Certificate
  • Coordinate with your instructor to validate his/her portion (Will need your ID & FTN)
  • Go back in and sign

TSA will review and give the FAA the go ahead to issue the Certificate. At that point you can print a Temporary Certificate from the website while patiently waiting for the permanent one to arrive in the mail.

The website is not super intuitive. Here’s a good set of instructions, but you can ignore the university-specific guidance if flying with me!

You and your instructor will visit IACRA again just before your checkride to initiate an application for your first “license to learn” as a Sport Pilot or Private Pilot.

Storm clouds.

*Long ago Pilot Certificates were printed on cardboard and used your Social Security Number as your pilot number. Yikes!

I instruct Light Sport, ASEL, AMEL, and IFR at Spirit Aviation in Thomson, GA (KHQU) and gliders with the Mid-Georgia Soaring Association in Monroe, GA (D73).

Flying, Training

I went to school at Delta’s Aircrew Training Center

I attended the ATP-CTP course at Delta’s Aircrew Training Center recently. Why did I go there and what did I learn?

“Why” is easy – the course is a prerequisite for the knowledge test to become an Airline Transport Pilot – my next aviation goal. So, why “there”? The 40-hour course is offered in several places around the country, all but one of them cheaper than Delta. All would require airfare to get there and a rental car to get around. Delta’s training center is in Atlanta, an easy drive for me. The course fee includes Gleim’s test prep, a voucher for PSI’s testing center, pizza & beer after the last day of academics. It also includes a guaranteed look at your application.

Congress pretty much told the FAA what the content of the course should be. I don’t think the legislation includes the statement “death by PowerPoint” but that’s what much of ATP-CTP is anywhere you take it. The Delta version includes a lot of interesting insight into the company and its hiring practices. The topics on high altitude aerodynamics, historical failures of Crew Resource Management, and so on were all interesting, but what you really want is the 411 on getting hired. Here’s what I learned:

Contrary to popular legend, only 25 percent of Delta’s new hires the last couple decades are military. The other 75 percent is from the traditional route. Of the military hires, the US Air Force makes up the preponderance of the hires. In 2021 the individual with the lowest flight time had not quite 1,800 hours. The highest had 20,000, with the average just over 5,000. Of the non-military hires, the vast majority came from another Part 121 organization, mostly Regionals, though ten came from United. The two biggest non-military categories of hires were “Part 135” and “Other,” but these two were grossly outnumbered by the 15 or so named 121 organizations.

Update summer of 2024. I finally took the ATM Knowledge Test. I prepared using a combination of King Schools, Sheppard Air, and my own notes. I passed. I was happy.