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.

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.

FAA Oral Exam preparation

I’m using this with permission of Reddit’s TxAggieMike. I owe him a beer if I end up in Denton, TX. Mike’s advice below is great, so I’m presenting it credited but unedited…

Oral Exam preparation

1. Take the ACS and make a colored highlight in the corner of each page that deals with the oral examination questions.

2. For the first pass, on each page/task, go line by line trying to identify where in the FAR’s or the various FAA handbooks you can find the answer. Make a note of that (such as FAR §61.113 for the question about private pilot privileges and limitations)

3. After that first pass, do another one, this time creating an outline of simple “Spark Notes” or “Cliff Notes” that provide the additional details to answer the question posed by that line.

End result #1, you have now created your own study guide similar to this photo.

This is a study guide you can count on!

End result #2, you now are much better equipped to be able to find the answer should you suffer brain vapor lock and cannot dig the answer out of long term memory.

End result #3… hopefully this process will make you much better prepared for the exam as a whole because you put some good work into your preparation.