EFT Florida

[GrummanSk]

Hi

I'm doing a bit of research on Flight training in the USA.

I was looking at EFT in Florida and the APP course they offer.

Was just wondering, if anyone on this forum has trained there. what it was like and would they recommend it? why?

I'm currently in the process of looking at different options for Commercial flight training. I am looking at Florida as the weather is suitable, cheap living cost and of course training costs are also lower.

If anyone has any reasons why or why not I shouldn't go this route please do let me know.

Sorry for bringing up this question up again on this forum, I'm sure many of you are sick of it but I'm only doing it to get a more updated answer as Flight schools do change frequently.

[Bearcat F8F]

Haven't flown with EFT myself but got told by a number of people they are pretty good.

In case someone comes along here and tells you some garbage about why you shouldn't go to Florida or the US as a whole for flight training because of costs or whatever their reason may be, just ignore it. I've flown both in the UK and Florida, and will go back to Florida later this summer. It's a brilliant place to learn to fly. Lots of traffic to dodge and lots of busy airports.

Only thing is, I don't really see any point in a "Professional/ Commercial Pilot Course" or whatever it's branded. You could save some good cash by doing all your modules in different places. As an example, EFT wont let you hour-build for any less than $115/ hour. And there's lots of places around the US which will give you a C152 for $69-$84/ hour.

[michaelmedley]

Im off to EFT for APP in October, Heard some great things and spoke to a few of their former students and they couldn't fault the school!

There is a chap doing a diary at the top of this Forum, Also a few other diaries on here that may help
?

[The_green_penguin]

Just don't do it.... Not if you want a flying job in Europe afterwards.

[AlexanderH]

Lol, there are no jobs in Europe anyway so it doesn't matter where you do it.

[GrummanSk]

Thanks for all the replys!

Any reasons why you would say not do it if I want a job in Europe? EFT seem to be the only place that can offer a school where there is good weather accommodation and at a competitive price. I would love to train in europe but with the high prices such as various flight schools offer does not make it possible.

Hope you have brilliant time in EFT Mike and please do let me know how you get on.

[michaelmedley]

Who said i wanted a flying job in Europe? I know 7 former students of EFT all flying within Europe as we speak. But no you must be right.

[The_green_penguin]

Just my opinion of course... But the guys I've come across who trained in the states at the so called JAA accredited schools can't fly for toffee...

Especially when it comes to the IR. Even basic things like flying an attitude or proper trimming...!!!!

[GrummanSk]

IR is done in Europe under JAA license requirements!

[VJW]

Green Penguin, you've simply no idea what you're talking about.

I bet you think guys that go to Oxford to do an integrated course are the bees knees. I recon around 80% of their flight training is done in the States....so what can you say about that?

I did my initial training (where arguably the bad habits begin), followed by hour building etc etc in Florida. About to jump to the left seat of a B738 shortly....training in USA didn't do me any harm other then meeting my wife haha

Yes you can have a bad instructor here and there, but generally the level of pilot, students turn out to be is down to them, no one else is to blame!

[mayanatsume]

Oh yes, there are a lot of jobs in Europe now. Better check it! ;)

[ct8282]

I'm a PPL, did my training at EFT. Loved it and thought the academy was awesome, no complaints at all. When I got back to the UK and joined Flying Time at Shoreham I took 3 lessons with 3 different instructors just to familiarise myself with airspace, UK radio etc, and all 3 said my flying was superb. They ALL said that EFT had done a terrific job in training me.

Here's my fairly in depth review....

http://www.pprune.org/private-flying/452316-just-done-ppl-eft.html

[GrummanSk]

Thanks for all your positive reviews on the school! Sounds like a fantastic place to train in and hopefully I will be able to start there very soon!! :D

[Alzandor]

Hi,

Has anyone got feed back on their groundshool and instructors, do the instructors have actual experience in the subjects they teach? or is it like other school that have fresh graduates teaching?

[michaelmedley]

Alzandor,

Go on their website, it lists all their Instructors and their Experience.

All set to go for the 29th Of Oct, TSA Interview booked, PPL Ground school underway. Soon to get those flights booked.

Anyone else doing the APP?

[kyarer]

EFT and Aviator College are essentially the same school. Both owned by Michael Cohen. My experience with EFT was really bad. They tried to overcharge me and when I challenged them about this they withdrew my Visa and this meant I had to return to the UK to restart the whole process again. Although it was their decision to withdraw my visa, I was charged $4000 because they classed it as me withdrawing from the course.

They are friendly and nice until your money is on their account.

The airfield, accommodation and aircraft are shared between both schools (Aviator and EFT) and even thought the aviator students pay less for both accommodation and the same aircraft, they charge EFT students a lot more for exactly the same thing which doesn't make any sense.

Beware the lead cowboy fronting this school. If anyone has any questions about my experience or the claims I am making I am happy to post photographic evidence of all my email interactions with EFT and provide a printout of my account reflecting the $4000 they stole off me.

[ford cortina]

Kyarer, are you sure you want to go down this route?

EFT has links to Aviator, but the two are owned by different people.

I think you may need to take a deep breath.

[BigGrecian]

kyarer - I'll defend EFT in the same way I defend OBA.

Would you be happy for them to publish your student records? There's always two sides to every story.

It's also not fair to say they pay less for the same aircraft - your getting a completly different product for a different licence and qualification - it's not comperable.

Also you have to rememeber they're accounting is regulated by department of education at the college so whatever they did to "steal the $4,000" off you was probably well within reason.

Your story just doesn't add up.

[nh2301]

I don't know about stealing money, but I could see it could happen. When I was there the accounting was horrific. I remember one occasion when someone flew an airplane but they had no record of it. They selected a random student, billed him, and when he complained, billed another. I think that they went through six or seven for the same flight before finding one who didn't pay enough attention to his account.

This was, of course, well before the manager of EFT was arrested for stealing tens of thousands from the company.

I also heard several accounts of fraudulent claims from the school relating to Visas. When I switched schools, I had the new school talk to the state department on my behalf to ensure it wouldn't happen to me. Ari Ben usually claimed you had withdrawn or misconduct to make it impossible for you to transfer to another school.

The problem was Ari Ben's corrupt management, who cared only about getting money rather than providing the training paid for. I don't know about ownership of EFT, or it it's possible to deal only with them. If it's more expensive, then it's money well spent to avoid interacting with Ari Ben. Personally, I wish I'd just started elsewhere.

[mcgoo]

Interesting that they have managed to get one of the better reputations of the Florida schools, yet looking at their new website staff page shows someone who's reputation with schools current and past shows somebody that to anybody doing their due diligence might put people off!

[ford cortina]

Nh2301 'The Manager' you speak of was arrested and sentenced a good few years ago. Why should that have any bearing on the present?
When I was there, I had very little dealings with Ari Ben or their management, seeing I was a EFT customer.

I have no knowledge of the incorrect billing you refer to, but then I did keep a eye on what was happening.

I suggest that those suggesting improper conduct should put up, or shut up.

[fa2fi]

When I was there Ari Cohen (the Ari in Ari-Ben Aviator) was working in the office of EFT. So EFT and Aviator were at one point very closely related.

[mcgoo]

Not sure if that was aimed at me or not but as far as 'putting up' search on here for his name!

[michaelmedley]

Wouldn't stop me going to EFT, I've met some former students and seen the quality EFT produce. No school is perfect so we could be here for hours.
I think that a school can only be as good as its students. If you have the drive and the passion you will be a success regardless of who does the bloody accounts.

[mcgoo]

Absolutely, it is a good school, hence the surprise!

[ford cortina]

Mcgoo, it was not aimed at you.
We both know who your talking about. He actually passed me when i took my Cpl
He may well have changed.

[mcgoo]

Excellent!, I had no intention of tarnishing the school, excellent facilities, training and setup!

[nh2301]

The manager stealing money is certainly relevant to a former student claiming that money was stolen from him.

[Shane Cooney]

Hi I did my PPL with EFT last summer and I'd highly recommend them. The standard of instruction is brilliant Ronni was mine. Friendly atmosphere and all round good fun. Although the schools are owned by the same person we never had much contact with the FAA side of the school. We have seperate briefing rooms, instructors and classrooms. Any more info don't hesitate to ask. :ok:

[seymoreskye]

Shane.
How much on average were your spending a week for food/drinks?
Im budgeting about $100 p week.

[MaroonedinFL]

Hi,

I'm a student pilot from middle europe and I'd like to
share my experience that I had with EFT („European Flight Training“) in
Fort Pierce, Florida, in the beginning of the year 2012, because after all i've seen there, I decided to share my experience with other people. I'm the holder
of a PPL-A licence and, like many other pilots that would like to make
their hobby a profession, I only saw the way of modular training as
realistic for me. I completed my ATPL-theory with the CAA in London
and soon afterwards, started to look for a proficient school to teach
me the practical part. I found myself in a situation where I had to
find a suitable FTO in few time, and soon my eyes fell on EFT, where
things seemed to work out really un-complicated. Quickly I enroled
myself into the 3 weeks Single Engine CPL-course. Now, quite
some time afterwards and with enough distance in between, it's still
hard for me to hide all the disappointement and anger that this school
caused to me. I would like to point out one thing before I go ahead
with my report: EFT offers contact to former students on their homepage
to make it possible for you to get a better picture of them. The
downside is: they choose theirself wich student would be allowed to
share it's experience and somebody that has to say negative things
would not appear on this list. If I had known before what I know now, I
would have never choosen that school...

One of the inherent problems with EFT is the organisation of your
training. As any interested person may already know, the SE-CPL course
consists of 25h of dual training, wich is a legal minima and it's
probably quite often the case that pilots need 2 or 3 hours more.
However, EFT does not go by your hours, but by your flights. The 25h,
wich are a reasonable air-time minima to get you in shape for your
checkride, are sub-divided into 18 flights. These do not take into
account any ground or taxi-time, wich, especially for a pilot
unfamiliar with Fort Pierce, the planes and the local procedures, could
easily make out 0.5 or 0.6h each flight! For that reason, a flight that
should not take longer than 1.0h or 1.2h on the paper, regulary lasts
for 1.5h or 1.8h. Given the charges for each lesson, this easily sums
up into 2500 to 3000$ in addition at the end of your course – just like
this! Besides, the charge rates will go up for each minute that you
have to spend above the claimed minima (even if you spend no time on
the ground and do all the lessons perfectly, they will find reasons why
you should repeat lessons – believe me). In my eyes, everything is
shaped to rip people off. I personally completed the course in
almost the minimum time with just 1 flight to be repeated and I found
those extra 3000$ on my bill.

Of course, nothing in life is ever only black or white. One of the good
things with EFT is that they have a reasonable fleet (about 7 Cessna
172 and 7 PA-28 and about the same amount of Duchesses), wich they
keep in a good technical condition. The only thing about their planes
that bothered me is that there was only one Piper Arrow as complex
single for the advanced CPL-course, wich had it's best days definitely
behind it. One careless landing or worn out oil-line could have easily
spoiled my stay there. Besides, the accommodation is quite acceptable
(every place gets boring after several weeks or months if cou can't get
out, of course) and there are indeed a few nice instructors with EFT
(tough not all – try to get Martin, if you are already there). The
school buildings are far from unfashionable and there is even a big
library and a pool available to all students.

However, after I completed the course and withstood all the many
difficulties
and little problems, my class and me were waiting for our checkride.
To make a long story short, the examiner failed
the entire class on their checkrides, with reasons so ridiculous and
unfair that we probably all will have problems to explain our fails to
future employes.

Since that time, for a mystic reason, nobody from that school passed
the checkride on the first attempt with him – ever! According to a
staff from European Flight Training, this already went on since 2 years
without the school ever trying to interfere with this. Many people from my class complained about
this practise and tried to get EFT to request another examiner, but
they only earned ignorance and scorn from the managers. Somebody
formulated a (in my eyes) very cautious writing to request a change of
examiner to the Head of Training, Trevor Brackston, with the grounds of
time - weekends only, wich soon ate
into our money-reserves, of course), Trevor even didn't answer him, but
quit looking at us. When we then inquired Matthew Adams about this, he got
furious and threw people out of his office! Yes, thats right – this is
the way you get treat at EFT once you get into problems and request
help! People were always friendly before, but as soon as you signal to
them you start to get out of money, they will not care about you in any
way (to sort something out here, I am perfectly aware that the examiner is assigned by CAA to you and not by the school, however, there was an incidence a few weeks before wich caused a student to change the examiner under similar circumstances with the help of the school, so obviously, there is a way– you just need to want it, though). Somebody else who dragged up the Flight Examiners Handbook and found a graph indicating that no student may fly with the same examiner after a failed checkride again gotrejected by Trevor, too, who tried to solve the situation by just twisting the words of the handbook against him.

Is it normal for a whole class to fail in a row? We got the
impression they rather wanted to play along with the examiner. In the
meantime, a few others were totally out of money and left Florida again without their licences.

The net result with EFT for me was:

Expected duration and costs of the course (estimated by EFT): 3 weeks
and 7305$ + CAA fee (about 1000$)

Total duration and costs: 7 weeks, about 16000$ spent (incl. 19 flights
in my course, 4 more weeks of accommodation & food, CAA fee, shifted
flights back)

And it could have easily ended without my licence here.

I'm aware that my report about this school may seem one-sided and
subjective and maybe you understand why I don't want to reveal to manydetails of my person. However, after all the disappointement and thebad experience I had, I feel this is the most honest report I can give
you about this place. I have visited a few bad FTO's in my career so
far and I didn't expect everything to happen perfectly this time
(instead, I tried to arrive with reserves in my planning and pushed my
progress every day), but after all, I found this school exceptionally
money-orientated and unfair.

The whole training-system is shaped to
aquire your money and the responsibles at the school show you
surprisingly honest how less they care about you once you have a
problem – you will pay a lot and people forget this very quickly. To
give you another episode, several people of my class encountered
problems because they used the wrong performance-graphs for their
preflight-preparations.

After almost 2 months, nobody in the school
ever noticed this, although theoretically, the staff in dispatch should
have their eyes on this. It was a stupid mistake, but you also could
see it as an indication how much EFT cares about their students. Many
people I met complained about being left alone, in many aspects. I
passed my checkride some time later with another examiner (and without
having any substantial amount of training in between). I can not
recommend this school to my fellow students or to anyone else. As long
as you are just looking for a place that somehow gets the job done,
regardless of time or money, EFT may eventually be a school like many
others. For the rest, I think its safe if I take voice for the others and say that few people had a good time in the end. If you are dependent on an FTO that supplies you with a
purposeful and inexpensive training, there is only one thing I can
advise you: AVOID, AVOID, AVOID!

[seymoreskye]

Marooned :

Do you feel YOU could of done anything to of prevented all this or was it all EFTs fault?

Sounds like it was just PPL you went out there for, did you do any work before you went out there to get ready for the PPL (theory exams?)

Seems a very angry post but maybe you could tell us exactly what it was YOU failed on?

By the way dropping names is not a great idea as you may find that those instructors/staff do circulate on here and it may not help you out in the long run.

[AlexanderH]

Hi all,

I have received many messages asking me about my experiences at EFT and thought it was about time that I wrote a piece on the school rather than answer each person directly. I will be as fair as I can in my explanation.

I think before I start it is important to separate the Aviator and EFT schools to a certain degree. Although I was an EFT student, I did my FAA training through Aviator so to speak. My issues are primarily with Aviator and not EFT but they are linked in such a way that one effects the other from time to time.
My plan from the start was to do my MEP rating, FAA ME IR, around 50 hours hour building and the JAA ME CPL.

I arrived from the far east in October 2011 and hoped to be finished in 3-4 moths at best. I had previously completed my JAA PPL in 2010 in around 5-6 weeks and was impressed with the school (EFT that is). There were just the right amount of students to instuctors and the training was done professionally and smoothly.

I was introduced to a really decent instructor to do my MEP rating and started a few days after arriving. Unfortunately, the MEP rating took a lot longer than I had initially thought and took me around 3-4 weeks to complete. This was not helped by the maintenance issues with the aircraft.

Aviator operates a large amount of Duchess aircraft for the ME teaching and these aircraft are in and out of the maintenance hangers more times than I've had hot dinners. There is always something constantly breaking or being damaged on these aircraft. They are roughly around 30 years old and this is to be expected of course, however, they are being flown for 10 hours plus per day. The issue and the fact that irritated me so badly was that there are simply too many students, not enough instructors and not enough serviceable aircraft at the school. I remember even hearing the senior pilot mentioning how they should not be flying that amount of hours per day at their age.

When it came to doing my FAA ME IR this constantly compounded the issues even further and my flights were cancelled on more occasions than I can remember due to the aircraft maintenance issues. This got worse and worse to the point where one day not a single Duchess aircraft was flying because they had all been squawked for repairs. On that particular day I discussed this issue with my instructor and he suggested that I, as a paying customer, should go straight to the owner of the school and complain. I hesitated at first but then after a while we decided to both go and politely mention the issue to the owner and see how the situation could be resolved.
After a short conversation explaining the situation his reaction was to close the school for the day so that maintenance could continue repairs on the aircraft. Not the reaction we had been expecting and it then meant further delays to training.

The next day, however, I learned that my instructor had been sacked and the reason for this being our complaint to the owner of the school. This left a very sour taste in my mouth and I further raised this issue with EFT to see if the situation could be resolved and to perhaps see if my instructor could be reinstated in some way. Unfortunately, he was not reinstated and I was given a new instructor.

To cut a long story short, I managed to get get all my training completed in 6 months. I suppose it could have been completed faster, however, the lack of aircraft and maintenance issues extended my stay. To be fair, I had my own problems with admin issues with the FAA and the Christmas period.

I think my small rant is not so much directed at EFT but rather at Aviator and unfortunately, I have to say this damages the reputation of the school as they use Aviators services. Aviator is simply very badly managed and too overburdened with students and old aircraft. There were many days when I waited for a stage check and this was primarily down to the aircraft breaking constantly.

I cannot say a bad word about the training at EFT. When it came to doing my CPL I managed to get it completed in just over 3 weeks. Matthew was an excellent instructor and really helped me through the course. He was very good at keeping me motivated. The same goes for Ian as well. Both of them top blokes.
So to answer all your questions about EFT I can only say you will not be dissapointed with the level of training but you may be disappointed with the aircraft situation. It was farcical at times to say the least.

Hope this explains things relatively clearly. EFT is a great school but their next door neighbour drags them down.

[ColonialFlyer]

The post above is fair about operations down at Aviator College. I would like to add more about EFT. As it was mentioned above. EFT is a joint venture. It is a FTO that uses the aircrafts and facilities of Aviation College, which is a very smart business move. However, their prices are way higher than their FAA counterpart. For instance for an hour in the BE-76 and C-172 Dual with Aviator is 280 and 180, whist with EFT that will be 450 and 250, thank you very much :}. If you ask them why, they will tell you it's because it's JAA training. Fair play, but advertising package price is way lower than this rate, so the big bucks come in when you start to overfly the syllabus, in which very does to a certain extend.

Moreover, a warning to the APP (Airline Pilot Programme) prospective students. Think long and hard before you sign up. The package price is very attractive, $50k I believe, but beware that there are set dates for everything, such as PPL theory and ATPL (which is done by another company, Gulf Coast). If these dates/deadline are busted, your fault or god's act, you will have to pay for a large fine $4000-5000. It will come out of your installments that you have paid already, whether you like it or not. As for the PPL ground, you are not going to get any help from them, it's all self study, a lot of my friends didn't make the exams schedules and got kicked off the APP and that costs them thousands of $

In conclusion, EFT is fair school when you are doing well, the flight training is average. But when you are not doing well, you need to have a deep wallet!

Their price are in line with some of the FTO in Europe such as Iceland. If I can turn back time I will do my entire training in Europe. (Hour building in the US is a good experience though)

Good flying :ok:

[BigGrecian]

MaroonedinFL you seem to have confused complaining about EFT with complaining about CAA examiners and flight test bookings. You can contact the CAA at Personal Licences and Training (http://www.caa.co.uk/pld)

. Somebody formulated a (in my eyes) very cautious writing to request a change of
examiner to the Head of Training, Trevor Brackston, with the grounds of
time - weekends only, wich soon ate into our money-reserves, of course),


You can't blame EFT for the examiner issue - your rights are extremtly clearly laid out to you and you should have taken that up with the CAA directly. The CAA are responsible for testing not schools. EFT doesn't request or can't request another examiner - there is a policy set down for flight test bookings and the school will act as the middle man by sending off your 170 and payment form but the examiner and their timetable is the responsibility of the CAA. Did you call and request a change of examiner? The CAA have a written policy of 10 working days to complete a skills test in Florida with an examiner - sounds like you were well within that. So quite honestly there is no complaint to be had here.

Somebody else who dragged up the Flight Examiners Handbook and found a graph indicating that no student may fly with the same examiner after a failed checkride

They told you it wasn't true because it isn't! It doesn't say that in the examiners handbook! It is normal and UK CAA (not school's) policy that the first retake is taken with the same examiner unless you have taken out your Regulation 6 right to appeal with the CAA. The regulation 6 is between you and the CAA and the school is not normally party to the process, unless a witness to events. In this scenario you get the fairest chance of a fair hearing. The trouble with Reg 6s is that they take time in the UK - I'm sure it'd be longer for the USA.

MaroonedinFL - If you genuinely feel like the examiner did you wrong, complain - until then you just come off as a disgruntled student who failed because they weren't good enough.

[I'll Be Realistic]

Why is it these days that students 'demand' results. All I hear on here is "I've paid you for the course price, give me my licence. It is not my fault that I am substandard / not willing to put the work in / do my own research on schools, requirements etc."

As Airbus recently pointed out - the standard or airmanship is going down hill. I believe that the applicants are of a lower standard, probably due to who can pay rather than who is capable. The CAA set the standard for flight tests. And they also set the examiner.

0.5 - 0.6 additional for a taxi out, run up, and taxi in? One of two things happening there. Either you drove to another airport to take off, or you were so unfamiliar with the checklist by not chair flying that you had to move very slowly through each item on the checklist. Or perhaps this is over exagerated?

I'm sure that when all is said and done you are glad you didn't pick Cabair or PTC :rolleyes:

[ColonialFlyer]

Quote:
. For instance for an hour in the BE-76 and C-172 Dual with Aviator is 280 and 180, whist with EFT that will be 450 and 250, thank you very much . If you ask them why, they will tell you it's because it's JAA training.
Everyone admitted above that EFT was good, Aviator was the problem - you get what you pay for that's why EFT is more expensive - it's also EASA which is expensive to regulate. If you haven't understood that by the time you took your CPL that's rather worrying!

I just looked at their APP - it's pay as you go....although if you can't complete a PPL in 8 weeks then in my opinion fair enough - I wouldn't have wanted to subsidise other people's training to join the ATPL class because they couldn't done in 8 weeks yet I got done in 4. That's student socialism. This is a capitalist world - you need more training it costs you and if you miss your course space that's fair enough in my eyes - every school I went to had the same policy on that front.

Quote:
But when you are not doing well, you need to have a deep wallet!
That should be a sticky - it's universal to all schools! Great post.

My personal experience of flight training is that I got sick of other students complaining that they paid more for training when they didn't do very well. I was also sick that I knew that to keep things fair I was effectivily subsisding some of their training in the course cost as the school knew that some would drop out, when they were either lazy or just had a crappy PPL and expected the world to righted on their CPL - cheap PPL and cheap hour building doesn't get fixed in 25 hours! However this in indicitiave of society nowadays - no one will take responsibilty for themselves!

BigGrecian (http://www.pprune.org/members/93900-biggrecian):
First of all, thank you for your sarcasm. With your relentless effort of defending EFT, I strongly suspect you are Mattew Adams. I can't careless however, as I am merely stating facts.

I really don't have problem with US JAA school to charge more (even significantly more) if the pricing is upfront, but it is not the case as stated in my original post. EFT attracts people in with low package price and "make up" with the earnings with the more expensive overfly hours, which is not even my highlights here. In my opinion, EFT makes money out of the underachieving APP students and charge them a few thousands dollars. I agree on some young lads there are fcuking about and deserve to be fined as they do not put in enough work, however, there are also student who are trying their damnedest to make it work, but EFT's support is non existent. You can't just write someone off without trying because it's easier and more profitable to do so, which is what EFT has been doing for the past few years.

Before any of you come back with comments/speculations such as "This guy is an underachiever APP student himself and disheartened". For the record, I only did a PPL with EFT and I finished within the syllabus hours as I had some hours beforehand, so I didn't get ripped off and I'm happy. But I feel obligated to warn my fellow pilot/wannabe of the risks of training with EFT.

To be fair, EFT is probably one of the best JAA FTO in the US, but again I would n't go to any of them, they are all after you money (unethically, because they can get away with it). I would rather train in Europe.

Hope my 2 cents is worth as much to you.

[Matthew Adams]

Although I have been reading this thread with interest the only thing I've got to add is that the comments regarding the examiner availability are true - you should have taken that up with the CAA. The CAA written policy is clearly posted on the notice board with contact information for all to view. However I do apologise as it does appear that this information was not passed on to you by your instructor and feel free to contact me regarding the issue.

I'd also add that when a student was disenrolled from the APP they receive their funds back as they complete each element of their training. However, the APP for the last couple of courses is pay as you go, per hour.

I'll let everyone else get to their arguments. :)

[HDhillon]

Exactly "I'll be realistic" it doesn't make any sense what so ever, going to a FTO to do some zero to hero expecting that when you get there, your going to get licences without the hard work or pre knowledge... You need to work hard in life to get to where you want to go, fair enough it was an examiner issue, but for example to drop outs from the APP program, or got dis enrolled, your not going to get anywhere if you don't put the hours of dedication into this.

Work hard, and at the end of the day you can't blame anybody else apart from yourself, if you don't get results maybe you wanted to achieve. And yes I do understand unexpected implications can occur, such as examining issues for example.

Every FTO is good and bad in their own way, but it's up to the student to do well and if they don't, I don't understand why you'll try and come to PPRUNE and ventilate your frustration and failings about the FTO on PPRUNE... Seem's like so many people do it. Fair enough, but you realise that you see less positive reviews on FTO's as successful people are out there in the sky, living there dreams, whereas people who may not have done well are destroying FTO's reputations...

[ColonialFlyer]

HDhillon;

If you have read my post properly. This is hardly just a rant about the FTO by the guys who has failed. There are many issues. But what gets me are the ethical ones

[HDhillon]

@ColonialFlyer,

lol obviously there is going to be deadlines, it's an intergrated course. -__- are you seriously ranting/complaining about deadlines and getting charged for it? What do you expect, no offence but they probably didn't as much effort as which was required... YOU GOT TO WORK HARD AND DO YOUR OWN STUDY! I don't understand why people assume, like "oh a FTO in USA, it will be amazing, I'll go out all night blah blah blah".

If you don't put in dedication, determination, the perseverance and the hard work into this career or the passion, why would you deserve to become a pilot? If you don't want it as bad?

Again apologies, but yeah ColonialFlyer I do understand your concerns, but if you don't put the effort in. What do you expect? Obviously you would come onto PPruNe and talk about your negative experiences, which is fair enough, but if that's all down to the examiner and people I understand, but what I don't understand is, that the "oh I just lost my money, I didn't work hard enough, now I'm going to abuse the FTO and blame the school, so no-one goes to it".

Please don't take this to offense, but it is what I believe and I respect your opinon.

[Lokki]

Some of you may of started to read my diary while I was at EFT, that was suspiciously cut short by a mod.

Everything -maroonedinfl is 100% accurate. It all came to light a few days after I started a diary. It pains me to admit it but, it was heart breaking so see what was really going on after all the trouble you go through to get there..

[AlexanderH]

Lokki, I remember reading your short lived blog. Were you able to get your training done?

[seymoreskye]

did you carry on your diary elsewhere? Unfortunate that the MODs stopped other people learning from you experience.

Can you give us a short brief of your experience? (dont put DEAR DIARY - you will get shot :mad:)

I think we all know who SF is, thought he was a instructor and not examiner? or am i wrong? :confused: Dont think the negativity he receives on here is fair so maybe it shouldn't matter who his examiner was?????

[Lokki]

I did but back in the UK.

Sorry I didn't continue with the Diary after that, felt a bit disappointed at the time.

Had bigger worries while I was there that took the fun out of things..

[MaroonedinFL]

Hi,

I was enroled for my CPL, not a PPL. I guess I prepared myself like everybody does, for example I tried to fly as close to CPL standards as possible before leaving for FL and went through all the books before. And yes, I also found it "borderlined" to mention names, but on the other hand, what happened there was highly unfair and I felt it was my duty of some sort to inform people about what happened, even tough I was a bit afraid myself. Many students are self-made people and +10h and a failed checkride does mean much more than it may seem at first sight (yes I know, aviation is expensive - but what do you think people expect from modular training?)

We have been a class of 5 and up to my knowledge, most people failed for almost everything, from taxi to departure, even for stuff like radio. If it was only me, I may think different about it, but given it happened to virtually everybody and we all proofed our skills in the 170 before, it really seemed more about playing games. I agree the school is not responsible about wich examiner gets assigned to students, however if there is somebody around that obviously likes to fail people, I would expect a more protective behaviour. At least this is how I would do it if I had a school, however I don't know that kind of business from the inside, so no idea about that. If I would scan my first checkride-form and post it here, you probably wouldn't believe me (in fact, I do get a lot of laughs when I tell other pilots about that form...:O )

I think I mentioned the name of the examiner, it's initials were not SF, but A(M)C. I believe I know whom you mean, but I guess he does not test for EFT, rather the schools around.

[Lokki]

I agree EFT or any other school for that matter has a certain degree of responsibility towards their students. If the CAA are delaying sending an examiner (as claimed by EFT) then they should put some pressure on the CAA to move things forward and not pass the buck to the student who as travelled hundreds of miles to be out there.

As it happens there was another examiner available 7 days a week and lived in close proximity yet he was never called out? Couldn't eft be bothered to take that matter up with the CAA?

[BigGrecian]

The CAA written policy is 10 working days, and they don't budge unless the examiner states they're unavailable. It is unfortunate but that's the policy. It helps ensure standards by meaning people just pick the examiner they want. Remember their job is regulation not to keep "customers" happy

MaroonedinFL - If you genuinely feel like the examiner did you wrong, complain - until then you just come off as a disgruntled student who failed because he wasn't good enough. Hence the replies your getting. (Including mine - which was a little harsh for which I apologise.) Fly safe.

[MaroonedinFL]

Hi,

excuse me, but in my eyes, that argument "You failed because you didn't try hard enough and now you're whining around" is pretty short-sighted. How do you know we didn't train hard enough? Most got their training done in +/- 3 weeks (tough not the minimal hours) and we all passed the 170-form before, in wich you have to proof you fly to CPL-standards to another intsructor. Thats a good point in my eyes to proof our fails were not only for our own lack of trying or our quality of flying. I accomplished my ATPL-theory with over 90% on average and now I'm to stupid to taxi the airplane? Tough I had never complaints about that in my training before? 5 people in a row? With an examiner who accidentally got fired by the school before? Please, add some common sense to this question and then think about it again. I believe I made some mistakes, however none that were not normal for a student in a CPL-test situation. I agree about the things with the policy, but as a school, they could have done a lot more for their students. Of course, they do have their "golden boys" who never have problems with issues like this, and who can get the examiner changed on request (wich happened before - believe it or not).

Thanks for apologizing, cheers!

[Lokki]

BG

You probably are correct regarding timescales for the examiner and it being a CAA matter.

However when you quote 21 days as a reference for completion for a CPL as on EFT website, (okay you may add a week extra for Wx, aircraft tech etc) you expect that when your booked in for a course and fly over the Atlantic that all has been taken care of, inc examiner availability. If this is not the case EFT should be advising students not to make the trip until any delays with examiners or anything else for that matter have been dealt with.

If there's students waiting five weeks plus for an examiner surely someone within the management should of alerted on-coming students to delay until the previous have left?

Before anyone makes any remarks please give a thought to what I've just wrote and ask yourself if you don't honestly believe that it's true.

[Johnny Bekkestad]

So Maroon,
What did you fail for? You have yet to told us.
You indicated it had to do something with taxying?
I know many reasons, and valid that people fail for,
Not getting the weather, not picking up airport diagram and looking at it before you move the plane.
That last one is probably the biggest reason people fail on taxi, they are so used to C-A-A1-10R they know it by heart, but the checkride is on commercial level etc. Some people taxi to fast, some use wrong lights etc...
So why in your mind did you not deserve to fail? Don't tell me that it was because he failed everyone else. He had to fail you on a specific reason.

[seymoreskye]

AND....... if it was something specific on Taxi, did you all fail on that same thing?

Whatever you did fail on; can you HONESTLY say you 100% 'no doubt at all' that you should of"passed" it???

I feel like there is not 100% of the full story going on here, its that old saying;

"No smoke without fire" :confused:

[cefey]

Im thinking about going back to FL to complete my JAA conversion and EFT is one of my options.

One thing I react on, is "whole class failing". I find it quite unlikely. Schools and instructors want people to pass first time. If instructors/school have a high fail percentage, FAA gonna start asking questions.
If they want to milk people for money, they will fail you on your EOC-ride, not on your check-ride.
Same goes for examiners. FAA will start asking questions if he have like 70% fail-rate VS 10% avg in US (made up number!).

No offence, but I dont believe that this guy was failing everyone for 2 years and he is still examiner there and school dont want to talk to him... That just sounds unrealistic to me.


As for "bad management only wanting money" - every school, at least in US, is like that. Out of my experience. Only thing to do here is prepare your self well in advance, figure out every detail in contract, discuss every payment.
Then work and study hard and you should have nice and smooth ride.

And last, but not least. It is amuses me to read, people complaining about having little money and "therefore I picked that school", and then complaining about "old airplanes"...
You pay little - you get crap. Its like that everywhere.
Wanna cheap flight? Go for Ryanair.
Wanna service? 1st class at BA.
Wanna cheap school? Except old airplanes.
Wanna new, shiny airplanes? Prepare to pay x2 or even x10 the price.


I had friend doing ME and ME-hour building at aviator and they left very happy. They got what they was promised. Maintanence was quick and smooth and they finish everythin just in time, as planed.
Therfore I keep EFT as one of my options.

[lasseb]

I went there in 2009 to get an FI rating. I agree this was many years ago, but I can see some of the persons are still there.
I finished on time and money without any problems. I actually went home owing the school about 1.500 dollars for my last 2-3 flights. They send me an email about it and of course I paid it. Case closed.
I find it very hard to believe that Mathew has acted up as previously described. From my knowledge of Mathew you seriously need to act like an idiot before he even raises an eyebrow.
I ended up doing my check-ride with the apparently notorious examinor (initials SF). It was an 8 hour exam, but I passed without any problems. Even though my flying was not top notch that day.
Accommodation was fine, and the school paid for hotel the first 3 days, because the rooms was not ready.
No complaints here...But again, this was 2009....

[Lokki]

Nothing to do with the above post but I'm not finding UK CAA approvals on the CAA website for EFT?

http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/srg_lts_Approved%20Schools%20List_Doc31v107June%2012.pdf

[BigGrecian]

All overseas FTOs are now regulated by EASA directly from Europe, so aren't UK CAA schools anymore.
School's with principle places of business (i.e Oxford) are still UK regulated even though they do most of their flying in the USA.

This thread is way off topic and is more about testing and attitudes to training, and almost needs some of the posts merging into examiner issues as that is the bulk of the thread. (Moderators?)

[seymoreskye]

EASA - European Aviation Safety Agency (http://www.easa.eu.int/)


All overseas FTOs are now all direct through EASA

[Lokki]

I apologise, I stand corrected.

BG it's not about the examiner, it's about EFT and it's management.

[LR199]

Hi grummansk,
I am starting the APP course in Feb 2013, my experience so far with EFT has been excellent. I have visited the school and spoken with current and past pupils, which was very helpful! I don't know if you have noticed but the IR is FAA so you'd need to convert it (if you want/need to) and the course doesn't include the MCC either.
If anyone has started there recently or has any good tips/advise please post, thank you

[michaelmedley]

Out there now. I am loving it, the school is excellent and training top notch.