Pilot training school in BC

[bbl]

hello

i'm new here.

i'm planning to start my pilot training in BC in 2014.
i had done my research on all the pilot training schools for the entire BC.

i ended it up with the following 3 schools:

Coastal Pacific Aviation (abotsford) (price $56,000)
Pacific Flying Club (delta) (price $ 46,000 without tax)
Professional Flight Center (delta) (price 46,000 with tax and fuel surcharge)

these are the 3 best one i found with longer history, and looks like more professional than others.

Questions:
- are these the best school i had find in BC?
(i live in Richmond, so i want closer to my home if possible.)
- which one had the best price with best training and flight hours.
- do i missed any other best school in BC which not far from Richmond?

please help to advise.
thanks so much.

[matthewlai]

I also live in Richmond and operate out of Boundary Bay (though I did my training elsewhere), and would definitely recommend it as the training airport. It's reasonably busy so you'll get practice dealing with busy ATC, but not so crazy that there are long delays... most of the time.

Pacific Flying Club has very good reputation. Instructors are good from what I heard, and people generally have a good time there. Downside is they are one of the most expensive places at ZBB, which is strange considering they are non-profit. Airplanes are a little older, but well maintained from what I heard. I wouldn't worry about safety with their airplanes. Unfortunately I never flew with them so I can't tell you more than what I heard.

Professional Flight Center is also a big school, but I don't know much about it. I do know someone that's training there though, and he likes it. It's a commercial operation, so it will feel different from PFC (PFC actually feels like a club).

I currently fly with Sea Land Air, and I would recommend them as well. It's a much smaller place (only 5 airplanes), but I much prefer their airplanes over Cessnas. They operate a fleet of DA20s and 1 DA40. Very modern airplane, awesome view from the cockpit, and also pretty simple (except for the DA40, which is probably a little too complicated for PPL training). I only rent from them most of the time, but I've done some recurrency training and mountain flying training with them also, and the instructors are pretty good. For me it's mostly the airplanes, though. Really nice, modern, and well maintained airplanes for pretty low prices compared to other places (especially PFC).

[matthewlai]

BTW, most places at ZBB charge a "fuel surcharge" which usually comes to about 25% of rental price. I believe that's a dishonest practice. Why "fuel surcharge" if fuel is included in rental? why not just increase rental rate? But that's just the way things are here.

Sea Land Air is the only place I know that doesn't charge fuel surcharge, so be sure to add 25% to other places' rental prices to compare. I'm not sure if their quoted numbers include fuel surcharge, which is definitely significant.

[Big Pistons Forever]

The Victoria Flying Club has been training pilots for over 60 years. It has just updated its fleet of aircraft to 172 SP models and its rates (all in) are significantly lower than the Vancouver schools.

The number of flyable days is also considerably higher in Victoria as compared to Vancouver, especially in the winter.

[bbl]

hi Matthew
thanks so much for your reply.
the most expensive is the Coastal Pacific Aviation over PRO and PFC.
thanks for the info for the PFC, i hasn't been there, so i really don't know it really like a flying club instead of a school. actually when i narrow down to this 3 schools, i had already take off many recreational like school.
and the reply i got from PFC is not very good too, hard to get reply or more complete information over the emails.
actually PRO give the best price, their price is already tax and fuel surcharge.
i think i will go for PRO. i will come back in CNY, then i will check the schools in person before my final confirm.
i will check the price and course info in the SEA LAND AIR. i think i had check before, but due to the fleet size too small, i take it out of my list.
the fuel surcharge is very bad, it does the same for all air tickets for so many years.

are you a airline pilot now? do you mind to share how you did it and how long it takes you to get a decent income after school?

[bbl]

hello
thanks for your reply.
yes i know, i had check Victoria Flying Club.
i want to stay in Richmond with my parents, so i will to stay with nearest schools

[matthewlai]

Definitely visit the schools, talk to the instructors and the students. You can also ask to see the airplanes (I did that before choosing a place to rent from), but if you haven't flown much, you may not know what to look for and what's normal.

Many people actually prefer the "club" feel of PFC. Instructors seem to actually care more about students, etc, and there's a more friendly atmosphere and more interactions between students. I would have picked PFC probably if not because of the price. Being more "club-like" also doesn't mean they are not professional. They have an agreement with BCIT and train all the BCIT pilots. Training quality is definitely not any lower just because they are a club.

Sea Land Air has a small fleet and scheduling does become problematic in the summer (busy times), especially if a plane or 2 are in maintenance. That said, I find that I can usually get anything I want if I book 2 weeks in advance. That's something you wouldn't need to worry about with a school with bigger fleets.

SLA is more commercial and business-like, which I don't like, but that's personal preference. Their airplanes are very nice, though. The Diamond DA-20 (their standard training airplane) is much nicer than Cessna 152s in just about every way - better visibility, slightly faster, awesome climb rate, extremely high glide ratio in case of engine failure, very benign stall/spin characteristics, and are much newer (nicer interior, etc, doesn't matter too much for training, but passengers really like it). And it's about the same price as 20 years older C152s (last C152 was produced in 1985, so the newest C152s are 28 years old now).

For me, I'm willing to have to book 2 weeks in advance for the nicer airplanes, but if your priority is to get the licenses as fast as possible, PFC or PRO are probably better.

I am not an airline pilot. Just a private pilot flying friends and family around on weekends for fun. My day job is something totally unrelated to aviation (electronics engineering).

[bbl]

hi Matthew
ic, but the door man in PFC doesn't willing to answer me clearly and clarify all the dull in their quotation. but instead, she only ask me to go down to ask the instructor directly.
how i can go down now??? i still in HK, i had told the lady at the very beginning already. i need to narrow it down before my arrive in cny. so i don't need to waste time to check every school.

i will go all CPA, PRO and PFC in cny. let see.
my current job is also completely no relate to aviation.
i just want to move on with something that is more interesting for me to work for.

[matthewlai]

There's only so much that can be said over the phone/email. Before starting training it is definitely required to go talk to an instructor face to face anyways.

Talking to the flight schools in person won't be wasting time. It will only take an hour or 2, and if your goal is to get an ATPL, you'll be spending many thousand hours at the airport. Those 1 or 2 hours will probably be the best spent hours of the thousands of hours.

[dianed]

schools at zbb

There is also another school at the east hangar called international flight centre, they have only one or two C 172 but are very dedicated to get their pilots up and running for the big Asian airlines at 300 hours but you need to be HK or Chinese citizen otherwise it is 1000 hrs

[ashu00720]

blue bird flight academy, chilliwack

hey budyy
i am also planning to join for cpl. i have already enrolled in blue bird flight academy, chilliwack airport.Though i should discuss about this one with you. have you heard about this school. I am a indian student and there training is in accordance with my country so that's why i am preffering it.
thanks!

[matthewlai]

Never heard of Blue Bird, but if you Google you'll see it has a pretty bad reputation AVCANADA ? View topic - Bluebird Flight Academy

There are also 2-3 "good" blog reviews you can find that are very clearly fake (look at the comments).

I would proceed with caution, but if you paid already, I guess you don't have much choice.

I don't want to say more since I don't have personal experience with the school.

Unfortunately I don't know any other school at Chilliwack. I have flown there a few times, though, and it's a nice airport. Definitely not as busy as Vancouver.

[matthewlai]

Actually, you can see all aviation incidents (called CADORS) filed with Blue Bird's aircrafts here - CADORS: Summary Results

That is A LOT of incidents.

I only looked through the few and there were quite a few serious ones - electrical problems, smoke in cockpit, engine failure, crash landing (collapsed landing gear and prop strikes), radio failure. Looks like they have maintenance problems.

There were also a few takeoffs without clearance, flying through airspace without clearance (with an instructor on board, too), ignoring ATC requests, and other regulatory things.

I would definitely watch out.

[RT787]

I fly to YCW often and blue bird always causes problems there. Taxing onto the runway when someone's on short final, not looking for traffic on taxiways and runways, entering Class C in abbotsford with no clearance at all, improper if any at all radio usage.

That place scares me.

[Shnzee]

I would not recommend blue bird. Be careful with what you choose. I have done a lot of research on blue bird and it wasn't positive in any area at all.

[bbl]

Yes, i understand, i will go for sure.
i specially like the PRO, i think they gave me the correct information i needed in the 1st place, and also with the best price to compare to the other two school.

[bbl]

thanks so much for your info.
i had check on this school before, but i think it is just a small flight school, and small name, so i just don't bother to go further.
i will ask them the total package price info.
i saw they had some news in their website in Chinese.

i'm Chinese and with HKID. I'm coming back from Hk soon.
it is a great school if they can refer me job in the future.

[bbl]

it is better to go a more sizeable school than a small one. i guess it teaches better.

[matthewlai]

it is better to go a more sizeable school than a small one. i guess it teaches better.

What makes you think that?

There are big schools that are good, big schools that are terrible, small schools that are good, and small schools that are terrible.

I wouldn't worry about school size at all, as long as it's not so small that you have trouble getting airplanes.

Again, visit all the schools and talk to all the instructors before making a decision. Size doesn't mean anything.

[bbl]

i know, but normally. larger school is better.
but it still need to investigate in person for sure.
i have check that "international flight centre", i guess that's a joke.
the head instruction told me the price is about $65,000, still not firm.
and i had check thier news, damn, looks like full of advertisement. i don't like it.


sorry, i have to tell you i have contacted Sea land air.
the guys, Dominic and Jin, both stubborn.
i only ask for the final total price for the whole professional pilot program with ppl, cpl, multi engine, multi ifr, etc....
they said they can't give me the exact price.
i did make a few emails to them to explain, but they insist they can't give exact price.
i know final price is depend on how long i can get the license, but at least they give me the minimal cost.