IR where?

[silverknapper]

The time has come to decide on an IR provider. Has anyone any experience or views on the following please:
Tayflite
Leeds
PAT
Westflight
Airways

Starting to brick it a bit now, know too well consequences of a bad choice at this stage!!

Cheers

SK

[Peggy Murphy]

PAT at Bournemouth mate!! Its the best decision you will make at this stage of your career. Mike Wheeler is one of the best...... if not the best instructors in the UK at the moment.The others are excellent also.........but Mike is the man!!!!!!!

[Megaton]

I was quite happy with Atlantic where I did my IR but, if I had it all over again, I would have gone to Airways at Exeter.

[carbonfibre]

PAT without a doubt,

They saved my ass from what would have been a disaster with another provider.

Drew, patient as a saint , had to be with me, mike and Gary provided good advice.

Ops guy saves you some work too, really helpful.

you must not forget the sandwich snaffling Bruno either

Go there you will not regret it.

p.s. Hi Steve, if your reading

Have fun :ok:

[PPRuNe Towers]

The company with the smallest ads and the best word of mouth.

Rob

[mad_jock]

And visit them all and talk to current students.

Lots of things can change in a school within a couple of months.

MJ

[trainer too 2]

Yep, PAT is the best and most stable place. No BS, excellent sim saving you time and thus money and you get the same instructor in the sim as on the a/c and that helps.

:ok:

[smalfin]

just finished IR and CPL with PAT. Can not stress how easy they made the whole process, set up is great, instructors are spot on.... whole thing was very enjoyable... full pass on both first time, only 0.4 hrs over.... choose PAT you will not be sorry!

[Jinkster]

Any comments from the Cabair side of flying - CPL and IR?

Jinkster

[silverknapper]

PAT...interesting.

Up till now had been fairly sure would go to airways - cost being its main advantage over PAT, and also I believe it too has an excellent reputation. Been there but not to PAT, and running out of time (and cash!!).
Anyone experienced with Airways. From what I see here may be worth saving the rest and going PAT.
Many thanks so far guys, sure you all know how nerve wracking this bit is!

SK

[Megaton]

I've not flown with Airways but many of my colleagues at work have done and all rate the place very highly. You'll notice that their advertising is very low-key (almost invisible) and there's a reason for that....their reputation is excellent and have no need to shout about it.

[LoopGuru]

I don't know the names of all the flying schools in the UK, but by Airways, I assume you mean Airways Flight Training at Exeter?

I did both my CPL/ME and IR with them and they are excellent. They don't ask for any money up front either. They got me through my CPL/ME in 3 weeks and my IR in 4 weeks, both first-time passes, and that's with UK weather!

The photographs on the walls are testament to their reputation. They are a fantastic, friendly bunch with YOUR interests at heart and I will never hesitate to recommend them to anyone.

As someone mentioned above, if in doubt, visit the school beforehand and talk to the people currently being trained there.

Regards

LoopGuru

[cfb]

To all interested in this thread, and contemplating where to train,

Any future employer who gives you command of an aircraft will expect you to be responsible for taking your own decisions based on accurate facts, and sound judgement. Regrettably, far too many people still base their decision on how to spend many thousands of either hard earned or borrowed £’s on the subjective views of others rather than investigating for themselves.
If you really want to make a good decision you must be prepared to visit all of your preferred FTO’s and ask a lot of questions. Then, try creating a simple matrix using a scoring system.
These are just some of the criteria you might consider :-

Location
Ø Availability and cost of suitable local accommodation
Ø Car parking and other associated costs
Ø Distance and travel costs from home

Base Airport
Ø Number of runways available - always into / out of wind
Ø Frequency of commercial / scheduled traffic and potential for associated delays
Ø Proximity to controlled airspace and other IF training locations
Ø Landing / approach training fees, costs, included or extras

Training Aircraft
Ø Sufficient to ensure continuity
Ø Maintenance arrangements in case of unexpected tech’s
Ø Turbocharged for rapid climb to airways during IF training
Ø De/Anti iced for all year round training (icing at FL060 in summer is not uncommon)
Ø Instrument fits and conformity between fleet.

Documentation, Facilities and Training Material
Ø Training manuals – Lesson plans for ground school
Ø Quality manual, ask to see the feedback forms from previous students
Ø Ground school / Briefing arrangements
Ø Additional study material supplied
Ø Access to synthetic training devices, availability and cost
Ø Briefing rooms / adequacy and sole occupation
Ø Security of facilities owned or rented / borrowed / shared

Instructors and Training methods
Ø Professional Instructors (3000+ hours) or recently qualified and hours building
Ø Instructor daily workload, students per Instructor per day / week
Ø What happens if you, or another student in your group is ill for some days ?
Ø Ratio of airborne hours to briefing / debriefing / ground school.
Ø Number and type of approaches / departures flown during course
Ø Who would be your Instructor, meet him/her (you will be in intimate proximity in a stressful cockpit environment for what seems like a long time – can you respect this person?)
Ø Instructor training record, not just first time passes – were they achieved in minimum hours ?

Costs
Ø Payment arrangements
Ø Contingencies – any hidden costs
Ø Training over-run costs (you might get a partial)
Ø Overall anticipated cost.

The list can go on and on, but it is vital to take the time to do it properly. These pages are full of the gripes and moans of people who decided to spend their (or someone elses) money without thorough and complete investigation. It takes time, and you should arrange to spend at least half a day with the FTO, additionally talking to current and past students “offline” to verify your observations.
It may also be true that those who need to continually need to advertise also have the most difficulty in filling their available training places. There are many excellent establishments who don’t need a large marketing budget, and simply just get on with quietly delivering excellent training to excellent students for reasonable costs.

Apologies for the length of the above, and I’m sure that others will like to add – debate further.

Good training, good flying and make your own luck

cfb

[jau]

hey guys, what does PAT stand for?

[trainer too 2]

PAT stands for Professional Air Training. They are basically an outfit in renovated WW2 buildings at Bournemouth airport who do nothing else than CPL/IR's and are good at it in my humble opinion. http://www.professionalairtraining.co.uk/ The fact that BOH is a CAA examiners centre is also very handy as you train the right routes but also have access to last minute examiner availability.

In addition to CFB his excellent checklist you do have to enter a post for lost lunches at PAT. The FTO dog Bruno (if he is still there!) is legendary well trained in stealing your lunch box :p

[carbonfibre]

Trainer too 2,

Yup Bruno is still snaffling peoples lunch's, i have recently completed there and he had some guys sandwichs out of his flight case while he was being briefed

Funny though :ok:

[lookoutbelow]

I like LoopGuru have nothing but praise for Airways at Exeter. I finished my IR at the back end of April with a first time pass and they were excellent. Took just iover 6 weeks and the weather was against me the whole way!

The instructors are all experienced military/airline guys with thousands of hrs, aircraft are all in good condition, no problems with availability and it is a friendly and relaxed place to learn. Also, very importantly, the price they quote is the price you will pay. You get the hrs for the course (50 or 55), all landings, all approaches, VAT, Test Hire, Plates, Equipment, Car parking, Tea, Coffee, everything! the only addition is of course the dreaded CAA fee and Accom!

Like LoopGuru, I wasn't expected to settle the bill untill after I had passed the IR test which was good for my cash flow!

Excellent job guys, keep it up.....

Lookoutbelow

[silverknapper]

Just one more about Airways please guys.

I had heard that a large proportion of their students are ex military chaps. If you don't mind me asking lookout and loopguru, were you?
Many Many thanks to all who have replied. It really is a great help.

SK

PS Any views on Bonus aviation?

[Capt. Vilo]

Sitting my 2nd modual of atpl's next week and am looking to book my IR to start in November/December.
Im just wondering where to go and am after some advise,
My options at the moment are ......

1, Bristol Flight Center
2, Aeros
3, Airways
4, PAT

I dont want this to turn into a "slagging" match but all comments will be greatly recieved.... Thanx all:D

[trainer too 2]

Just read rather than ask please, this question has been asked a 1000 time. If go to the top of the screen you will find a search function: use it! :8

Could you edit your post afterwards and tell us a good joke instead? :)

ps Sorry to many sectors :*

[Robthestudent]

Ditto the previous contributors comments. The forum can and is used for a bit of argy bargy.

I went to PAT and found the environment very conducive into the learning and acquiring my cpl/ir.(Ist timepass)

The quality of school is with the instructors who are very knowledgeable and in my case patient and the owners who have an open door policy.

The school during the time I was there always had a heathy student instructor ratio (2/1) which gave ample time for briefing sessions either side of flight or sim session. I experienced no problems with aircraft serviceabilty my only regret been that I missed out on using the new FNPT2 which is an excellent training platform.

All in all I would have no problems recommending PAT but as I have said before in a previous thread the buck stops with the student . The course is hard ( or at least I found it hard) and you will only get out what you put in.

In any case good luck

Rob

[Snigs]

Might I also suggest Westflight at Glos. It is a training course that is aimed at producing a professional FO, not just a professional pilot.

BTW FYI FWIW, I don't work for them, but I do work at Glos.