Cabair Bournemouth

[d-ball]

Hi folks,
can anyone shed some light on cabair b'mouth.Took a tour of the school few months back and it seemed ok.Looked through some threads on the forum and it seems couple of years back students were disatisfied with the quality of their notes.Are the currents notes adequate?Would appreciate info from those who are currently there or have gone through.I gather the instructors do their best,but how about the materials? Has the consolidation with cabair cranfield had any effect on the instruction?

regards

[Long haul bus driver]

d-ball

The quality of the notes is still quite poor. The instructors are excellent and the pass rate is quite high.
I can recommend EPTA for the residential course.
I not sure if the distance learning notes are the same or not. If you’re interested in distance learning I’ve heard good things about Bristol.

If you decide to train at Cabair don’t pay £300 for the poor quality notes


Long haul bus driver

[budding pilot]

If you are contemplating going to EPTA then I would definitely opt out of the books. They are a complete waste of money in my opinion. The instructors view is that since the course is so cheap (with the grant) then you can fork out for a full set of the Oxford books with the savings.

To give you a feel for the notes they are all in black and white with many of the diagrams illegible. Some for example are just black squares taking up half a page. They lack much of the detail needed to pass the exams and in my opinion are poorly worded and often hard to follow. Earlier courses battled to bring the state of the notes to the attention of the owner who countered that the CAA had approved the course so what’s the problem. The school seems to overlook the fact that since they are getting an EU grant plus what you pay them that this adds up to a considerable amount yet you don’t get anything approaching the quality of course material that other schools offer. There are no cd’s, no computer simulations of FMC’s to familiarise yourself with, no websites to log onto etc. They will also tell you that Cranfield are updating the notes and that they will be ready soon. Well over six months has passed for us guys and nothing is in yet so I wonder whether they will send us nice shiny new sets in the mail for those of use that are just finished.

Most of the notes you will never use anyway probably due to the fact that the instructors are fed up with trying to use them. The CGI tends to hand out his own sets of notes at the beginning of his lectures. These are again black and white and he hasn’t yet learnt to either operate the spell check or type in lower case so it is hard going. Headings and keys on diagrams are also missing so it is a matter of speed writing to take down what he is saying whilst ensuring that you will be able to understand what the diagrams and notes are trying to tell you. Some will be incorrect as well so be prepared for amendments. Oh how nice it would have been to go to a lecture where you can just sit there and listen safe in the knowledge that you can refer to your notes later at home to fill in any of the missing gaps. Alas this is not the case and prepare to do a lot of writing and highlighting. The other lecturers use a mixture of PPSC notes (where two of the lecturers used to work before it went bust) and Oxfords. I don’t think copyright laws function in the south of England for some reason but I can definitely recommend the Oxford HPL notes for sure! Unfortunately you wont have a set of the PPSC notes and slides that are used in many of the subjects with the key diagrams put up on the overhead projector but don’t worry the instructors will tell you its not important and the crappy diagram in your notes will suffice instead of the all singing all dancing version up on the screen. If pushed they do tend to cave in and photocopy the odd slide here and there although its gets quite painful teasing it out of them. I am not sure if they have some sort of photocopying budget to stick to or why there is a bit of a reluctance. I would just copy the entire PPSC notes since the place is bust anyway but there you go.

So all in all if you go for the notes then you will soon be leaving them at home or in the back of your car. I think I can find better paper weights than the notes although they might be good for starting a fire but a little pricey at £300.

I would also sum up the overall method of teaching as average. Since graduating years ago I have been on many work related courses which have on the whole been professionally run. EPTA will give you a week in advance a one page planner listing the lecture times for the following week and that is all you will get. I would have expected at a minimum something that details by subject what the learning objectives are for each class, what will be covered with cross references to chapter headings in the relevant notes. That way you can read up before class and hopefully learn more. And then finish up with a mini progress test at the end of each chapter to test that you have understood the salient points. This could be done in your own time and marked for you when the lecturers aren’t teaching. I guess I have answered my own question given the comments I made about the notes and perhaps this is why this isn’t done but really for the money you are spending it is a bit of a joke that this doesn’t exist. The other schools all do this with Bristol for example breaking up their course into individual frames.

Unfortunately the instructors are a mixed bunch to. I can’t fault the CGI for knowing his stuff and his books are well worth the money but the guy is not a teacher. He is typical of one of your highly intelligent university lecturers who operates on a different level to us mere mortals. His main fault is the pace at which he goes at, his assumption that we should all understand complex and foreign topics at the drop of a hat, coupled with my earlier criticisms of the notes necessitating you wasting valuable time annotating them. This results in you missing many of the things he is covering or absorbing what he is actually saying rather than just writing it down. In addition, one other lecturers struggles with the more technical subjects which doesn’t help matters. It actually gets quite embarrassing in class when the poor bloke is asked a tough question and he can’t answer it. The other ground instructor is a lovely bloke and you cant fail but to enjoy his anecdotes and learn from his experiences. He has a very easy going and laid back teaching style that makes even the more difficult topics simple to understand. From what I can gather the other ground instructor is now teaching on the sim which is a real shame as he knew his stuff inside out and also had the benefit of flying commercially so could impart real life experiences.

If I had my time again I would go distance learning instead as I am not sure if I have learnt anything extra from being on a residential course with EPTA. At the end of the day hard work and knowing how the system works is what will get you through. You also get to keep on working either full or part time and generate some cash flow. Bear in mind also that EPTA is a small school and therefore it only has people sitting each of the 14 exams (split into 3 modules run over a six month period) on a relatively irregular basis so it doesn’t keep up at all with feedback like the bigger schools do. As a result much of their feedback is either dated or gleaned from scouring pprune or the Bristol forums. Schools such as Bristol and Oxford have a sophisticated system of getting feedback from students straight after exams whilst the questions are fresh in their minds. They also have students doing the exams each month so get a much better feel for any changes in approach that the CAA might be adopting. There is after all no point in slogging out your guts knowing everything you possibly can only to fall at the last hurdle cos some twit at the CAA decides to call something by a different name and throw you in the exams.

If you do end up at EPTA then I would strongly suggest you purchase the Oxford manuals, their question bank and met CD’s and sign up to the Bristol question bank website. Also get friendly with anyone in class that just might happen to have a copy of the Spanish and Italian question databases!!

Good luck in whatever you choose.

PS: It probably seems that I banged on about Bristol and Oxford. I do realise there are other quality schools out there which would no doubt be worth considering, its just that I have many friends that have been to both so I wanted to avoid any sweeping statements against the other schools which I know little about.

[d-ball]

hi budding pilot,
thanks for that comprehensive insight.

regards