IR at NFC Weston

[pneumatic boot]

I was just wondering if there was anyone out there who has successfully completed the MEIR at The National Flight Centre in Weston.

I heard that the have a new sim and do the majority of their training in this but because of the lack of navaids at the airfield all the flying is done at Waterford 45mins at 400 euro per hour before your lesson starts. Can anyone confirm this and if it is the case is any of your training completed on the trip to Waterford or is it just a waste. Also how many of the 15 hours must be done in Waterford?

How many instructors were available to teach the IR and were they full time?

Did you have any problems getting an examiner, how long after your training was completed were you examined.

How much did you go over, what was your total costs

Finally will I have any issues if all my licenses are CAA and my MEIR add on is IAA issued.

I would really appreciate any information that anybody has regarding the IR at NFC or even suggestions about where else should I consider, finance is limited!!!

Thanks

[pipergirl]

You will not have a problem with adding an IAA rating to your CAA licence.
You can add a rating from any JAA member state to your licence, no problem...but let's say you have a CAA PPL and you want to get your CPL..it has to be done in the UK or in a CAA approved school abroad.

Can't offer you any information regarding the training at Weston...I asked a question regarding training in Ireland a few months ago and got no information out of it!

best of luck with your training:ok:

[willby]

Pipergirl,
Quite a few of recent IR guys from PTC Waterford are doing type rating courses for FR at the moment .....probably why you got no ressponse to your recent query.
Willby

[conor_mc]

Not quite correct pipergirl, it's only the ATPL exams and the CPL that must be done under the same jurisdiction, unless you can get an exemption from the relevant Authority.

[pipergirl]

ooppps my mistake:O

Quite a few of recent IR guys from PTC Waterford are doing type rating courses for FR at the moment .....probably why you got no ressponse to your recent query.

i'm sorry, i just don't really see the relevance of your ressssssponsse...

Oh there are a number of guys doing the type ratings with FR at the moment..bully for them..ooooooh big swing...so that means that there is nobody else out there with any relevant experience to answer my query then? Of course not, because a big bunch of lads from PTC are doing a type rating course in FR.....WOW!

thanks for your constructive input

now, can we just put that b*7%5h17 out of the way and just concentrate on Pneumatic boot's original query and not hijack his thread

[pneumatic boot]

Thanks for the responses folks, if anyone has information about doing their IR in any of the following schools in Ireland it would be greatly appreciated:

Atlantic Flight Taining Cork
PTC Waterford
NFC Weston.

Dont know about you guys but it seems really difficult to get any information from flight schools. They all want to hide their costs to trick you into going there and on arrival you are told about a list of extras. I realise that they quote minimums and don't want to price themselves out of the market but when you are self sponsored student you really need realistic quotes to secure the sufficient monies.

Are customers in any other industry treated as wannabes looking for training, i dont think so. Half of the schools don't even respond to enquiries. Customer Service within FTO's is non existant!

[willby]

Pipergirl,
I dont understand why you felt the need to reply so rudely to my post. You commented that you had sought info on training in Ireland recently and had got no response ( sorry my typo caused you
annoyance last time) . Since I remembered your post and the fact that you had sought info from recent ME/IR students from PTC or Weston I was simply trying to explain why there might have been no recent ME/IR students around to reply to you.
I have no connection to PTC or FR , nor was I implying that there was anything special in the fact that some recent graduates were type rating for FR. It is replies like yours that deter a lot of people from posting and trying to be helpful .
Finally I had no desire to hijack PB's thread.

[pipergirl]

It is replies like yours that deter a lot of people from posting and trying to be helpful .

Funny, I think the same of your reply.

I never get into any arguments on this site as I find it rather annoying and deconstructive.
YOUR response was rude towards me and unhelpful towards the topic as a whole. It could not have been seen as anything other than a plug for the school mentioned and was entirely pointless.

[powdermonkey]

Pneumatic Boot

I spend quite a lot of time out in Weston, and am only just starting mod2 of the ATPL's so have yet to do my hourbuilding..still need 50hrs P1, then have my CPL, ME, IR, night rating and MCC to do, so it's a bit away yet. I have therefore no experience of the IR course in Weston, but I do know that the FNPTII, is set up like the Duchess they operate, and that the cost per hour in the sim is approx. 130Eur. The Duchess in which you will do 15hrs or so is 400Eurs ish per hour and that as Dublin and Bal are both not available to shoot an ILS approach, you will have to go to Waterford. I would imagine that the trip there and back would be under IR conditions so that the time would be spend as part of your 15hrs in a multi/IR conditions. Your flight test will probably take you along the same route, but you never know until the day I suppose. I only know that that's what one of the Ir students at NFC told me...he did not however elaborate on the standard of training there. I do believe that the sim is probably the cheapest in Europe, but it's really the standard of training that is most important. I am sure you have contacted them already, but if not, ring Gill at the NFC and ask to talk to Aengus, he is a retired Aer Lingus Captain and teaches on the sim. PTC do include FNPT2 time in their IR of course but don't know if they have one on site, they must do I presume as I can't imagine them sending you someplace else...? Sorry, but that's the best I can do. One last thing, nobody holds your hand at NFC, you are pretty much on your own and you end up driving the training yourself...unlike other schools that may guide you through a set program.
Hope that helps a little bit?

Contact number for NFC is 003531 6282930

Ps PIPERGIRL
You mentioned a school in Florida in a previous post, did you go there to hour build and was it a good school, nice instructors, well maintained ac etc? If you have any info, I would be pleased to hear it as I would much rather go to a school recommended by a student than simply going by the sales pitch!!!

[Examiner]

Settle down boys and girls! You want to be professional pilots? Act appropriately.

There are many points in favour of IR training in Ireland. The airspace is generally less crowded and flight delays are less than in the UK. On the other side, some peoiple still regard a UK-issued IR as the bench mark.

Waterford has all its own facilities such as ILS and NDB on the field and you would be tested there, where you were familiar with the set up. There is no FNPT so it's all done on the aeroplane, with the obvious disadvantges of weather delays and the inability to exactly replicate scenarios or freeze the action for a discussion.

Weston does have an FNPT but on the other hand training can not commence at the field. However, you do not have to pay for a 40 minute dead leg as training can commence once the aeroplane is outside the zone, so you lose 10 minutes per flight. Having said that, you do need to go to Waterford for procedures, but then most IR trips have a navigation sector so that is not unreasonable. What usually happens is that a couple of students and an instructor go down to Waterford and stay there for a few days.

Cork is very busy with commercial traffic and does not provide a user-friendly training environment although there is something to be said for exposere to crowded skies.

The Irish-issued JAA IR used to be looked down on but the test standard has now been raised and the test is now pretty much the same as in the UK.

You will not save any money by going to Ireland.

Send PM if you need more.

[powdermonkey]

Hi Examiner

You obviously have some experience of Waterford, but why do they advertise time in the sim then? I am going to fly down there in a couple of weeks and check out the whole thing, as there may be some advantages to operating out of a regional airport for the whole shooting match. Accomadation may add to the price, but we will see. The advantage seems to be that you can also fly to Kerry, Cork and Shannon and experience some more realistic environments, and the trips won't be as long as having to fly from Weston each time. They also have a single engine complex for the cpl, which will reduce the cost of the test and the 25hrs training. In EIWT, you can only do your complex hours in the Duchess or a 206 Float plane! Not exactly an advantage under test stress conditions!!! They are making noises about getting a single engine complex so we will see, but if they don't they may well end up bleeding out some students to PTC...like me. Anyway, here I am hijacking the thread, lets get back to IR info...sorry.

[Examiner]

CPL on single engine requires 20 hours simple single engine and 5 hours complex single. You then need to do a separate MEP rating of 6 hours. Cost that against 20 hours simple single engine plus 8 hours multi to get a combined CPL/MEP. All this assumes you get through in minimum hours.

[powdermonkey]

Cheers, Examiner.
Will keep that in mind, may save some money. Just felt that doing your nav in a single engine might give you a bit more time to think than in twin, where everything happens faster.
Will work it all out, thanks for the suggestion.

[pneumatic boot]

Pipergirl, Powder Monkey and Examiner thanks again for all you input.

As mentioned myself and three other Irish students are looking to start our IR in early December. We have contacted a number of schools in England & Ireland.

The feedback that we have received so far is that the English schools are better equiped and organised and that the Irish schools still are not quite up to speed. Having said that based on minimums we have been quoted approx. 12000 stg for the IR in England. This does not include cost of living, flight etc. After factoring all of this in and based on previous experience we have budgeted for 16000/17000 stg.

When we looked at NFC, PTC & Atlantic Cork the sim ranges from 100 - 130 euro and 400 euro for the dual hire of a twin. Based on minimums and including all other fees this comes out at approx 16000/17000 euro. With current exchange rates we would save approx 11000 euro.

Thanks for clearing that up about being able to start the lesson once you leave the zone in weston and it makes sense about heading to waterford for a couple of days. I was under the impression that i would be wasting between 1-1.2 hours each flight at 400 euro an hour.

Final question i have heard that booking an examiner in Ireland can take some time can anyone tell me if this is the case?

Thanks again for all your help!

[Examiner]

You should get a test within two weeks or less under normal circumstances

[flighttime2.0]

Pipergirl,

With an attitude like yours its no wonder nobody bothers replying to you posts. I have always had great response to any question I have asked on pprune, willby was just simply trying to help with an opinion.

You need to settle down a little, aviation in Ireland is amazingly small, carrying on like that will get you nowhere. Guess your going to be real mature and try have a pop at me now.!!!!! flighttime

[pipergirl]

flighttime2.0

With an attitude like yours its no wonder nobody bothers replying to you posts.

I do not want to have an argument with you or anyone else on this site. I just felt that the response from Willby was a plug for a school and I said what I wanted to say.
To be fair, I do not have an issue with you, and don't feel it is fair for you to attempt to start an argument out of nothing really, when the initial spat was between myself and willby.

I was just rather surprised that a query about ME/IR training in Ireland got such a poor response especially when there are quite a high number of from Irish guys/gals on this site.
I always get a good and helpful/informative response from people here, apart from that particular query, which, as I said, surprised me.

[little-paddy]

I will then just go ahead and Plug PTC in Waterford seen as everyone else is being accused of plugging discreetly.

I have only one experience of Weston and it was a guy I knew personally that ended up getting shafted due to the trip to Waterford each lesson. It is a pointless journey. He had 55 hours and had to stop. He never got his IR. He was luckily only doing it for fun but got so disillusioned at the end that he said sod it.

I did mt MEIR in PTC and it worked flawlessly. They are a good bunch there .........even though I have heard some horror stuff RE Planes going tech recently and you sitting on the ground. I for one had no problems like that. Be that luck or judgement I dunno.

Give them a call is all I can say. They are a good, professional school in my huimble opinion.

L-P

PS Good luck wherever you go. The MEIR is a sh*te course. Financial pressure is the worst because the twin is such an expensive girl to be playing with!!!