Hopefully going to Stapleford soon

[TheFirstDohrnPilot]

Hi everyone!

I might be going to Stapleford Flight Centre to do my PPL in April... I will probably be going there before hand though, for a look around with my dad (who is funding this endeavor! haha)

Will anyone here be there in April? And if anyone has been there at that time of year... what's it like? Busy? Decent-ish weather?

Cheers!

[A and C]

You have picked one of the better places to learn to fly, Stapleford is sometimes quite busy and the airspace around the north of London is usually very busy so keep a very good lookout and enjoy !

[pudoc]

Good school, you won't go wrong.

Circuits can be insanely busy on a weekend. If Alan Sugar is flying, land asap...your instructor will tell you the same thing.

If you can manage a Stapleford circuit you can manage any circuit!

[TractorBoy]

You have picked one of the better places to learn to fly, Stapleford is sometimes quite busy and the airspace around the north of London is usually very busy so keep a very good lookout and enjoy !

Hmmm.....

I learnt at Stapleford about 8 years ago and if I had my time again, I woud have gone somewhere else.

The aircraft are old, tatty and the equipment on board is more often than not faulty - radios don't work, broken VORs, RPM gauges misread etc. On top of that, some of the receptionists are rather surly - I made the mistake of putting a defect in the aircraft tech log and got shouted at - "You should have written it on a post-it note and stuck that to the log. We can't use that aircraft until its looked at now!". Unbeliveable.

Why are you going to Stapleford? Geography? Try Andrewsfield - that's where I would go if given the time again.

If you can manage a Stapleford circuit you can manage any circuit!

Stapleford circuits are ludicrous. They're so wide a 737 could probably manage them.

[pudoc]

The only reason I would go to Stapleford is for the great instructors. The PPL aircraft are tatty as :mad:, but then the positive on this is that you learn the basics very well, no relying on GPS. Receptionists are like marmite, either you'll get on well and have a laugh or you'll tear your hair out over them. I never really had an issue but I know they annoyed a lot of people.

[TractorBoy]

The only reason I would go to Stapleford is for the great instructors

They do have some excellent instructors, but the ones I like teach aeros and tailwheel (Tony Glover, Keith Pogmore) and don't deal with PPLs.

Then again, so does Andrewsfield (eg Carol Cooper is excellent). Plus Andrewsfield is about 20-30 quid an hour cheaper for a 152...

[Jim59]

If you can manage a Stapleford circuit you can manage any circuit!

I think you need to get around a bit pudoc and visit a few more private strips and other unlicensed fields. Flying at Stapleford will not prepare you for all of them by a long way. I won't name any because it could start a chain of, "Mine's more difficult than yours." posts. (That could be interesting though!)

[jimi236]

I learnt at Stapleford about 8 years ago and if I had my time again, I woud have gone somewhere else.


TractorBoy have you changed your mind over the last 6 years, because this was your advise about Stapleford in 2007 to somebody who was asking.....

I learnt at Stapleford over 6 months about 2 years ago. I found them both friendly and helpful. PS And yes - If I had my time again, I would still learn there. I'm thinking of doing my IMC next year, and Stapleford is my school of choice !!!

[pudoc]

I think you need to get around a bit pudoc and visit a few more private strips and other unlicensed fields. Flying at Stapleford will not prepare you for all of them by a long way. I won't name any because it could start a chain of, "Mine's more difficult than yours." posts. (That could be interesting though!)

I admit it's wide and rectangular, but you've got to think of the fact it's common to have a Seneca, DA42, about 5 C152s and a King Air all at once with idiots barging through the ATZ without making radio contact. It makes for some interesting circuits.

My opinion is if you can manage keeping a decent circuit with all those aircraft doing such a range of different speeds, then following strangely shaped, noise-abated circuits at other airfields will become pretty easy. I've flown to places with interesting circuits and haven't had an issue.

[Libertine Winno]

I'm also looking at potentially starting my PPL in the summer at Stapleford, so may see some of you there!

[TractorBoy]

TractorBoy have you changed your mind over the last 6 years, because this was your advise about Stapleford in 2007 to somebody who was asking.....


Yes I have.

For about 2 years Stapleford was my only reference point for aviation as after I learnt I didn't really do much for a while due to lack of money / bad weather etc.

As time went on I got increasingly fed up with flying - problems with booking an aircraft for only an hour at a time, having to reject aircraft due to faults, getting increasingly agitated with people behind the counter etc. When I was learning I was effectively insulated from all the problems I found later on as the instructor basically dealt with the admin side of things and I didn't really appreciate the problems there I'd encounter once I passed.

After looking around other airfields I found a totally different scene and approach to things and I began to realise just how bad things had been at Stapleford. There are so many better and more relaxed places to fly from. And I didn't go back to do my IMC there in the end either.

I also posted a negative comment about Andrewfield back then as well, which I now have totally reversed my opinion on.

I relocated to the dark side of the M25 and now fly with an excellent group there. If I hadn't, I'd have given up ages ago

[A and C]

In thirty years I have seen company's come and go some good and some well shall we say not so good.

There are things that I could criticise most of the flying clubs for but I would prefer to focus on the positive side, SFC have a record for honest business practices and produce well trained pilots, they have done this over a considerable time span, so they have to be doing something right !

To the best of my knowlage no one has lost money at SFC, that is more than we can say for Cabair, Cabair MK 2, Bonus, Firecrest, and a string of others that I can't recall at the moment but other no doubt can, some of who took full payments for flying courses knowing full well that they where about to go bankrupt.

There are others who I would recommend but see no reason for putting someone off when they say that they are starting training at SFC because the records suggest they will get value for money as a lot of others who have gone before.

At this point I should say that I have no connection with SFC apart from being a keen observer of the light aviation business over a number of years.

[Contact Approach]

Land asap when Sugar's flying? Why is this?

CA

[JW411]

"If Alan Sugar is flying, land asap.......your instructor will tell you the same thing."

This made me smile; not long after my son got his PPL and I was thinking about sending him to Stapleford to do his CPL, we decided to fly up there one day in the family PA-28.

Stapleford were using Runway 04 and my son made a copybook overhead join and called downwind. About halfway down the downwind leg came a radio call along the lines of:

"Oh God. I've just realised that there is another aircraft ahead of me so I suppose I shall have to extend my downwind leg."

My 17 year-old son looked at me in some consternation. I assured him that he was doing nothing wrong. I told him to carry on and to ignore the person behind him who was obviously the local a*se* ho*le.

We duly landed nicely on 04 and when we had got down to taxi speed I told my son to pull off on to the grass to the left so that "shag nasty" could get on with his ill-tempered day.

Seconds later, a Cirrus shot past our starboard wingtip and promptly swung to the left and plonked itself in front of us on the taxiway.

All was revealed;

I asked my son how it felt to have apparently cut Alan Sugar out of "his" circuit.

My son's response was priceless.

"Who the hell is Alan Sugar?"

Who indeed.

As a postscript, my son went on to do his CPL/IR at Stapleford and it all went very well. He passed everything (including his IR) first time and he is now in his third year as a 737 captain.

[Contact Approach]

Nice story.
Does the airspace close when he flies or something?

CA

[pudoc]

Does the airspace close when he flies or something?


It should! Purely for the safety of others!!

I have many stories about ol' Sugar lumps but the more you hear the more you'll want to strangle him!

[Contact Approach]

It's a discretionary precaution; is that correct?

[TheFirstDohrnPilot]

Haha, pretty cool story, how long ago was this? Does Sugar fly there often?

Keep the posts coming! (try to keep them reasonably related to the original topic, though... haha)

[baz76]

I am hoping that I am not hijacking the thread. It appears to me that the flying schools are usually have a fleet of 40-50 year old planes that you would not want to look at, let alone training in them.

Are there any decent schools in UK using newer, better planes or they are all in same miserable condition

[A and C]

Quote:-
I am hoping that I am not hijacking the thread. It appears to me that the flying schools are usually have a fleet of 40-50 year old planes that you would not want to look at, let alone training in them.

Are there any decent schools in UK using newer, better planes or they are all in same miserable condition


Perhaps aircraft such as the C152 are still the best for basic training despite the age, I see no reason that this should change for some time as most students would be hard pushed to keep up with an aircraft that was much faster, it exhibits all the flying requirements to demonstrate good flying technique and above all is robust and reliable.

The reason that some of them are in poor condition is that the market demands the very cheapest price and so only the essential maintenance gets done.

Some of the better training establishments charge a quid or two more and have 15,000 hour Cessna 152's that are in first rate condition.

I expect to see the C152 flying long after some of the new light aircraft have done their third recycling as beer cans.

[Steevo25]

Unfortunately, a lot of flying schools that invest in new. up-to-date planes don't stay around long enough to recoup their costs.

Taking Stapleford as an example. This is where I got my PPL last year. Yes, the aircraft are old and many are quite tatty. But in all the time I was there, I never got a cancellation due to an aircraft failure. Any little faults we did find were rectified immediately and checking the paperwork, all servicing was always up-to-date.

When you think about the costs nowdays, even the prices they were charging for training did not leave much in the way of profit. I was paying appromimately £130 per hour for training with a discount. Out of that, we were using around £50-£60 worth of fuel per hour then out of what was left the instructor had to be paid and all the ground services such as keeping the airfield running, emergency services, admin staff. Then what is left out of that has to contribute towards servicing and repairs on the aircraft, red tape costs. Then only after that is the profit.

I found Stapleford a great place to train and would thoroughly recommend them. If they invested in newer aircrafts, I doubt they could maintain those training costs. With the changes that EASA are putting in I am sure a lot of pilots training for pleasure are going to disappear from the scene with more exams in less sittings and training costs rising. I can see that a lot more training schools are going to go out of business before it gets any better.

Speaking to the instructor that trained me, he has only done a very limited number of hours over the past 3 weeks due to the weather so it really isn't a good time for any training school.