Leeds Uni Contract

[notabove1500]

Hallo,

There is rumour that Leeds Uni contract on sale again,not happy at Sherburn,haven't done much flying in summer.How true is this?

NA1500

[sapperkenno]

All I know, is morale seemed pretty crap amongst the stude's when I saw them. Sitting there all miserable, playing on their iphones/laptops, despite the Russian's performing Unlimited Aero's outside, and a variety of interesting 'planes out front to look at. :ugh: Sitting in the cafe (not discussing anything aviation related) was of much more interest to them, and that was with a nice sunny day outside.

Yet these are the ones who will likely go on to become ATPL holders, and have a career in Aviation. Great to see their love of aviation showing through. :rolleyes: Makes me :yuk: sometimes. Where do they find these people?

Hopefully I just caught them on a bad day, and they do actually have an interest, and desire to be a pilot. I certainly didn't get the impression that these were students on a highly prized, much sought after aviation degree. :confused:

[AJWTCX]

When it comes to the people who arrange most of the flying etc for Leeds university (at the university, not Sherburn) Id be more inclined to ask where their loyalties lie in regards to aviation rather than the students. I would say most the staff have their heads so far up their own ar$es, many of them wouldnt have a clue what an aircraft even looks like...

When even with a week to go until the flight training was begiining the contract was still up in the air, yet the takeover of CFS (and the money troubles that CFS had) were known to many months and months in advance, yet the university did nothing it just shows you what the qualities the staff posess.

[gregaperkin]

NA1500 (whoever you are). With regard to your first post...

So many hours have been flown by the university students this summer that it is reasonable to expect every new student will have their PPL by the end of October. Most of them completed their qualifying cross country flight by the end of their initial 3-week block and the students themselves seem to have great things to say about their experience with Advanced Flight Training.

I addition to that, there are many second (to third) year students who started their instruction with CFS (good instruction it was too) over a year ago and have had to come to Advanced to finish off. Many have already passed their skills tests since they started, and again all will be complete by the end of October. I do feel sorry for these students, it is not ideal for them to have to change schools and aircraft, but the students themselves seem happy with the progress they have made since the change.

Greg Perkin
Instructor - Advanced Flight Training

[LFS]

To be fair Sherburn is probably the most ideal place to run the course from the point of view of proximity to leeds and ability to handle the volume. LBA was always the initial intended location prior to Jet2 starting up but is just not feasible for the volume or cost.

The course has actually been run from Sherburn before in its very first year, but the local pilots did get quite frustrated with the incredibly busy circuit all week long. Although might be more acceptable if it is using the Sherburn aircraft now bringing more money in for the club rather than additional aircraft.

[Han 1st Solo]

Ah LFS the good old days back in the summer of 2003! Sure beats flying an Embraer 195 about...........er well, maybe not, definately a Dash though lol!:}

[UniFlyBoy]

Considering there are less than 30 students now on this course, they could just about be trained anywhere, not like in my year with 60+ to train and over 100 students at various stage of training across 3 years. Now that took some doing and LFS and CFS did a great job. I have heard the course has gone downhill as regards what is taught at Leeds, with the aviation content decreasing all the time, the best lectures and lecturers dropped and replaced by non-avaition people and courses like Health and Safety for chemical engineers introduced (why?). No wonder is not as popular as it once was. We used to get lectures from large jet pilots and other professionals. Sherburn will have a hard act to follow the CFS lecturer for PPL theory and other courses they used to teach. Pity, as I have said before on this forum, the early years of this course were fantastic and the people in charge then were really switched on and helped me a lot. Good luck to the current students. Where ever you train, it will for most be one of the best times of your lives so make the most of it. Cheers.

[combineharvester]

30 Students is a realistic figure to try and get through per year. there were 22 in my year (inaugural intake 2002 - taught by Han 1st Solo) I went back and instructed 2006 (Under Han as CFI!) with about 80 students. That was at Sandtoft where we had the run of the airfield/circuit and local training area.
As for the university taught side of the course, when I studied there was a lot of trial and error with the modules selected to be eligible for a BSc. We were fotunate in that a few of the aviation specific modules were taught by local ex-instrcutor airline pilots or the like. As i'm now a few years removed from university I would say there is a benefit to learning subject material outside the remit of aviation. Purely so you don't become a one string violin further down the line.

[UniFlyBoy]

Hi, does anybody have an update on how Sherburn are doing with the Leeds contract? I dropped in the other day and there did not seem to be much going on despite perfect flying.

[TopazBlue]

My daughter wants to do her flight training at Sherburn. She wants to start this when she is 16, then hopefully gain her PPL by the time she is 17.

We took her last week for a trial flight, and the instructer was really good, and she liked him, he let her do more on a trial flight than other 14 year olds do(his words not mine!). The atmosphere seemed calm and relaxed, no delay for take off as no commercial traffic, and the cost per lesson is significantly cheaper than another flight school in Leeds, with no extra cost of landing fees to pay for.

Bought her some books really cheaply from Ebay, she has started to read book one by making notes and absorbing the information, hopefully this will stand her in good stead when we take her for lessons.

Anyone recommend she does the degree at Uni with the flight training included, or to do the flight training in her own leisure before Uni, and do the management course, any advice would be appreciated.

[binsleepen]

Hi TB

I taught at AFT this summer and the quality of training is good, but I would say that wouldn't I :O. The benefit of doing the aviation degree at Leeds is that the University subsidise the cost of the PPL so it is cheaper than doing it independantly. By doing the PPL as part of a group of 8-10 you can learn from others mistakes and experiences and there is some healthy competition. The ability to do the course in 4 weeks also means that little time is needed to revise previous lessons, as is sometimes the case when the training is done over a longer period.

PM me if you have any other questions.

[fue6eh]

Given the cuts that will impact on all university degree programmes I can see Leeds are going to find it increasingly hard to justify using taxpayers money to subsidise flying for a few priviliged students whilst at the same time closing other courses and departments and having to increase student fees. The good times are coming to an end.