Student Pilots Need more say

[Delta Echo Bravo]

Having written several threads about a school I attended and was un-happy about, I find it incredibly frustrating that current and past students of schools have no say.

I believe there should be a public or private industry watch dog keeping an eye on the flight training industry. Comments please, and if you agree, what form do you think it should take?

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Some might argue that schools need more protection from disagreable ex-students on anonymous internet forums...

I urge Wannabes to pay attention to the schools that do get thumbs up over the years. Then visit and speak to current students. There are good, bad and middle of the road schools around. The good ones attract praise which is easily distinguished as genuine.

The bad ones may attract criticism but its hard to know if its fair or genuine.

Look for plaudits - be wary of one man negative campaigners would be my advice.

Cheers

WWW

[Delta Echo Bravo]

I agree, but having been in a rather dissagreable situation, I and other training colleugues have found it difficult to have our voice heard on anonymous internet forums.

My experience has been such that whenever a negative posting has been placed by an ex-student, the school threatens litigation. This has not been true in every case, but it has in many.

Students don't have a lot of say and I think this is incredibly sad.

I have had nothing but excellent experiences with several training organisations, but one sour grape has tainted my view of the training industry, and has also responded with accusations of CAA examiners writing to them discussing my demeanor and this school flagging me up to the CAA.

If a school is truely confident in their product, why do they have to do this. Why can't they stand up and face the music?If they are truely that good, why do they have to slander disgruntled ex-students?

Some parts of the training industry need a massive shake up. It needs it's eyes opened to how a service business runs.

It's not rocket science. It's customer service.

The school I attended seems to play one side off against the other. On one hand it plays against the CAA to the student, and on the other it seems to play against the student to the CAA.

I urge Wannabes to pay attention to the schools that do get thumbs up over the years. Then visit and speak to current students. There are good, bad and middle of the road schools around. The good ones attract praise which is easily distinguished as genuine.

I completely agree, but also be wary. You never know who is answering your questions on PPRuNE, it might just be the school!!! :ooh:

[My names Turkish]

I am a huge fan of PPRuNE and have read it almost everyday since i discovered it 2 years ago. Its by far the best run chatboard of any site out there on any type of topic with such an incredibly broad range of topics.

WWW says: be wary of one man negative campaigners would be my advice.

I might add that People should also be carefull of one man positive camaigns. I have seen once or twice where people who have done a four week PPL in a school, then comment on that school, EVERY time it comes up, and argue against someone who has been there for a year and has seen the full picture.

I am a believer that all people, are essentially good at heart, and that the reason they do this is a willingness to encourage, share and above all help other wannabees. From reading their posts that is what the likes of Scroggs and WWW are trying to achieve.

On the other hand then you have the schools who are sitting Ducks for Criticism from disgruntled ex-employees and ex-students. People criticize them for robust responses and occasionaly for using alleged other usernames. Having had a long reflection as a person who criticized them too, I would ask you, what you would do in their situation? I would want to Protect my business too.

What I would plead with Users to do though, is stop the squabbling. It detracts from the usefulness of the site as good threads descend into petty, foolish arguments, and a lot of people then take the site content less seriously, which is a waste of a valuable resource. It is also driving extremly valuable people away. A person that springs to mind is Keith.Williams. A person who gave huge amounts of valuable advice in great detail to students doing their ATPL exams. There were flames, disagreements, personal attacks and almost no posts. Who benefits from that?

The message I am trying to send to users f this forum is this: NEVER base your choice of schools on anything you read here. There are people, who you know nothing about, or the quality of their experiences or qualifications, giving advice. Pick up the Telephone, you will learn quickly which are interested in you and you can ask the pointed questions.

[Sensible]

The message I am trying to send to users f this forum is this: NEVER base your choice of schools on anything you read here. There are people, who you know nothing about, or the quality of their experiences or qualifications, giving advice. Well, I would beg to disagree. It becomes clear over a period which schools one should avoid. By using the search facility here it is easy to spot the training establishments that receive a consistently good press and those that receive a consistently bad press. No school is going to be able to please 100% of its students and staff 100% of the time it is clear that there are one man campaigns running on the forums but these are both pro and anti particular schools. The ½ intelligent should still see a clear picture emerging as to which are the good, the bad and the plain ugly schools.

So far as the squabbling goes, that in my view makes for general entertainment for the forum readers. I realize that this might be to the general dismay of the schools concerned but hey, they are businesspeople and should realize the value of the good publicity which they receive and take notice of the bad publicity and where it is true, take those adverse comments on board and strive for perfection.

[Julian]

I would go with sensible on this one. If yuo have read this board for a while you get to know which schools have the reputations, good or bad, and which try to do something about any problems they may encounter. A bit like buiying a car from a dealership, you never really find out how good a school is until something goes wrong and then look to how they resolves it.

You will also get to know which people on the board have their own agenda and beware the positive (or negative!) posters who have only the 1 post and thats the one you are reading, they are probably someone else under disguise trying to back up their argument!!!

Julian.

[FlyingForFun]

I understand what Sensible and Julian are saying. With experience (knowing who is who, and learning to recognise the signs of someone with an agenda), it is possible to pick out the genuine information from the rubbish on these forums most of the time.

But what you should never do is base your decision purely on advise from these boards. Always visit the school if possible, and if that's not possible then talk to them, before signing up. Remember that we are all different, and a school which suits one person may not necessarilly suit you (and vice versa).

I have never had a bad word to say about any training organisation I have been a customer of. I don't believe that this is necessarilly because I'm lucky - I believe that it is, largely, because I've made informed choices. With the exception of my PPL school (which I signed up to well before I discovered PPRuNe), everyone of those choices has been backed up by PPRuNe. In some cases, I was made aware of a school by a personal recommendation from a PPRuNer, and then visited the school before signing up. In others, I narrowed the choice down to a shortlist, but then the general opinion of many posts over a long period helped me choose one school over another on my shortlist. But I have never signed up based on a recommendation without checking the school out personally first.

FFF
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