ATPL in california

[Daniel_109]

Just wondering can anyone recommend a flight school in california that does ATPLs. I have friends in orange county so thats where i would be staying, i would be prepared to travel to the flight schooL.
Thanks in advance
Daniel!

[scameron77]

Mate, I'm about to start an internship program in January 2005 at Angel City Flyers in Long Beach, LA. Bonus is that the airport is a pretty busy, low-fare airport similar to Stansted.

You might want to give them a phone or at least check out the website, I've found the owner and CFI Seosamh (Pronounced Jo-sef) very affable in all my dealings so far, the old addage the customer is always right exists here.

I'm doing my ATPL exams with Bristol Groundschool as they repeatedly get top marks on here.

Regards,

Stephen

[smith]

Try www.ukft.com (http://www.ukft.com) they do all JAA stuff. The only thing is you have to do your ATPL's with another provider eg Bristol, Coventry whatever and quite close to orange county too. You can do your ATPL's as distance learning while there.

[ramshorn]

Hi
The instructor at Angel city flyers is an Irishman called joseph summers in case you want to contact them. I think he is also part owner of the company or he at least runs their US operation at Long Beach,as they also have a base in Oxfordshire,UK.

[daw]

Smith - since when have UKFT offered JAR training?

Think you will find that all they offer FAA ratings. Don't be sucked in by the term "JAR compliant" on their website. I will save you the time from reading the JAR FCL's but there is no such thing. You are either an approved FTO for JAR training as per the CAA website or you ain't. Plain and simple.

Nothing wrong with going and doing an ICAO PPL in the US/Aus/NZ/SA/etc. Just be careful that it is a JAR course if that is what you are paying your money for.

[smith]

Daw

They must have stopped. They used to offer JAR and Jar compliant (which is basically a FAA ppl with the CAA law and RT exams thrown in). I actually went to do my JAR PPL at UKFT so they DID at one point, that is since when.

However they always tried to twist everyones arm into the JAR compliant PPL.

[daw]

Yeah I think I recall it was a few years ago when I was starting my PPL that they were a UK registered CAA/JAR FTO. Even got to chat to their UK salesman who put on the hard sell etc.

The problem with these sorts of setups is that you can generally get a FAA PPL much cheaper than what they will try and sell it to you for with its so called JAR branding. The law and RT papers and practical test are handy but any flying school will relieve you of £20 per paper to sit them, plus of course the practical test.

They should focus more on marketing to people that it is an ICAO PPL that they are offering with the CAA add-ons that trying to be smart and selling it in a way to potentially mislead.

[Lightning_Boy]

UKFT is just a middle man, all training is done through Rainbow Air. JAR Complient A.K.A FAA licence. Been there, done that,got the (FAA) licence to prove it!!

[BillieBob]

There is no school in California that is approved to provide JAA training beyond the PPL (and UKFT is not even approved for the JAA PPL). You have to ask yourself if it's a good idea to trust a bucketload of money to an organisation that can't be up-front about its credentials.

The only school in California that currently holds any approval to provide JAA training is AAA in San Diego.

[Pilot747]

I was in the states in July. there was a guy training for his CFI, CFII, MEI with angel city flyers he was trained by Seosamh he completed the lot in just under a month. So if your wondering about Angel City Flyers they are a pretty good school to go to. The guy knows what he is doing he's a top bloke. UKFT is pretty much the middles man but the guy does know hi **** although he is hard to come by

[vinil]

Neither of the companies own any airplanes and uses Rainbow Air's aircraft and facilities. I did my PPL with UKFT and they explained very clearly to me that JAR Compliant PPL is a FAA PPL with aviation law and RT licence. They also offer the full JAA PPL option add on for FREE..

I liked the package that they offered as it included everythig without any suprises. I personally think it will be tough to find a price of $5000 for a PPL whether its JAA or a FAA PPL.

This is a useful link from CAA's website:

http://www.caa.co.uk/srg/licensing/faq.asp?faqid=208

[Lightning_Boy]

The guy took $500 off me then passed me on to rainbow. Spoke to him when I saw him 4 weeks later and asked when i would be doing my RT and law exams, he said as soon as i passed my PPL checkride, he then went on holiday and never saw him again, or my $500.
So obviously I cant recommend him enough :*

[vinil]

I would contact him if I were you to get the money back.

[scameron77]

To be honest the lack of their own aircraft was something that I questioned too before I accepted the offer of a place on the internship program at ACF.

But the more I thought of it the more it made sense to cross-hire aircraft form another company. No coslty overheads such as hangers/parking, no maintainence costs, no need for any extra specialised employees, etc.

I'm still a novice I'll be the first to accept, but not really sure there are many advantages of owning your own aircraft other than you can have priority over them. However if a contract is signed and they are booked out well in advance by the hiring operator then there are no real problems I can see.