Professional Pilot Training (includes ground studies)A forum for those on the steep path to that coveted professional licence. Whether studying for the written exams, training for the flight tests or building experience here's where you can hang out.
Sorry to hear you might be delayed, Spike, but glad we'll see you later. If anyone is having real trouble finding accommodation (the list we give out is pretty good) then get in touch and I'll do my best to help. If anyone is travelling particularly far and needs to overnight I might be able to offer a sofa bed.
Just spoken to my landlady from when I was in training, and she is going to try for exclusively pilot/ATC students, so may have some space. Must like children. Drop me a message if you need a room. Obviously same applies to ETA / PAT / EPTA and NATS students.
Dancing with the devil, going with the flow... it's all a game to me.
Join Date: May 2000
Location: England
Posts: 1,690
Nice atmosphere at BCFT. On the flying side Lance keeps a control over procedings like a hippy headmaster with an edge and the instructors are all really great guys. Recommend them.
Wish I'd done all my airbourne training there but cannot comment on the groundschool, but if the flying side is anything to go by you have no worries.
VFE.
PS: Have you seen Trislanders post regarding the September course Careergirl?
Hi all, I'm looking for some feedback on BCFT full time groundschool. I would be grateful for any advice from people that have trained there, ie. quality of instruction, study material etc.. Thanks normb
Hi, I have started at BCFT on the march session. I took the first 7 exams in june, and got them all first pass with a more than decent average. I'm currently doing the 2nd phase. The environement is good. The fact that it is located on the airport is something very important for me, couldn't do my atpl somewhere away from airplanes !!! The instructors are very good. They really know their subject very well. And they are always available to answer question, any time!!! I sometimes feel like I receive 1 to 1 tuition. Very much appreciated indeed!! That is possible because of the fact that we don't have huge class with plenty of students at thes same time. The notes are good, some colour would be nice though. However we have some handouts in colour for some subjects. But I think that those handouts are going to be integrated to the notes soon. I really cannot tell anything bad about it to be honest. And being french, I can assure you that if I had something to bitch about I would!!! There is also a lot of students who come for the flying from various part of europe, so it is an opportunity to meet interesting people! Respect for Speedy Gonzales, some people will understand As for accomodation, I am in Bournemouth, that is ok, but no public transportation, so you need a car or a friend ( thank you Charlie ) Feel free to PM me if you need other information. Cheers, FF17
hi,i flew down to bournemouth to see the set up and did speak to some of the students,maybe thats you.i flew down in the arrow 200r.was impressed with place and the fact that dc10's are on the runway when your having a break so overall ithink i will join on the next course in september.i've already started phase 2 distance learning with bristol which should help but much prefer full time.what does accomodation cost on average and whats there to do at night? apart from study?lol thanks for reply,how many hours do you have by the way
Watch out for the price you pay, there has been a habit at BCFT for the price to drop as soon as you've signed up.(4500 to 2800 in less than a year) People have been attending the same course having paid upto a grand more than the person in the next classroom or even in the next seat.
In my opinion the way it has been handled was pretty dishonest and underhand. The impression is that they are only after your cash (to be fair as most businesses are!). Although any business has the right to change it's prices at any time it is counter productive (not to mention naive and stupid) to piss off prospective customers who are going to spend a great deal more cash on CPL/Multi/IR and MCC in the near future.
As for the school ..... the teaching varies from very good to just plain reading the manual, the location is good just by the runway, the student recreation room is pretty basic, small classses so excellent teacher student ratio ( but crap for nights on the town if they're an unsociable bunch!)
Would I recommend the school?? That really depends upon what is important to you ie teaching, location, weather, price etc etc. If I had the choice again I'd go to Naples in Florida, get a nice tan , lie on the beach and get in some cheap flying whilst I studied!!
I completed my groundschool last year with BCFT but as a distance learning student. The support from the school was excellent, always willing to answer questions on the phone/e-mail and responses were quickly received.
The training notes could maybe be better, they are black & white, but with the expense of colour the course would no doubt cost a little more! At the end of the day, the notes, instructors and my efforts enabled me to pass all 14 exams on the first sittings. If I had to do it all again, I would quite happily go back to BCFT. I will be returning shortly to do an MCC course!
Am currently slogging my way through some ATPL pre-reading and am in the enviable position of choosing a training provider for a full time course. Bournemouth was recently recommended to me and I will be visiting the school in due course. Having done a rather fruitless search for the above, it would appear there is rather a lot on their flight training but the Groundschool inforamtion a little sparse. If anybody could give me a hint on how to find some detailed feedback from past students I'd most grateful. If there is none, then past students could perhaps leave their coments here?
Whilst perhaps not quite the answer you want as I haven’t started there yet I can give you my opinion from when I visited the school. I took a trip to BCFT a few months back, rocked up mid morning and spent my time being shown around by Dena Dove (PA to head of training), I had a chat with a few students and lecturers, and went away with a very good feel for the place. I also visited a few other schools including Cabair, Stapleford and Cov, and after chewing the fat I opted to book myself onto the residential ATPL ground school at BCFT. I didn’t rush into this, and I took a good few months thinking about the sort of place I wanted to go to. I’m fortunate in that I spent 3 years at University and know the sort of place and classroom sizes that I perform best in, and you will hear arguments for both smaller and larger classroom groups from the different ground school providers. There wasn’t one deciding factor for my decision, there was no “eureka” moment or anything like that, I just felt for me it had the best vibe. I can’t tell you anything more at this stage, but I would recommend visiting as many schools as you can to see how you feel about the location, the staff, the culture and the students (although things can and do change). Good luck and I look forward to reading from existing and past students on their recent experiences with BCFT. Camel Toe “Over Macho Grande?”
Last edited by camel toe; 14th Feb 2007 at 09:59.
Reason: formatting
BCFT have a good rep... Actually did my PPL about 9 years ago at Bournemouth flying Club accross the other side of the airport.
Started my ATPL groundschool with them in 2004/2005. No probs with lecturing at all and all very helpful..
Results were good, 13 1sts and 1 2nd attempt (thats what you get for going out for a few drinks the night before though so only myself to blame). wizzed it the 2nd time with no probs
From there i went onto Hour Building, CPL, Multi, Multi IR, MCC & FIC and became an instructor with them for 6 months before getting a job a month ago.
Best advice is pop down and visit Dena... she'll show you around and introduce you to some of the instructors there. Also have a word with the current students.. They'll tell you what they think as well
I have just received the books for part one of the DL course. The notes are poor compared to the BGS notes and the few Oxford books bought on Ebay, for example in the systems book many diagrams are schematics, which are almost impossible to understand because they are in black and white! Some diagrams are from Airliner world and I'm sure some pictures from flt sim! The written style is dis-jointed with questions as a heading prior to the subject,this causes a jump in subject matter as opposed to a smooth transition as one reads the subject. Basically it gets on my nerves, after a while, reading this material. The books do contain a lot of material, as a B1 engineer I was surprised how detailed the systems manuals are, but in comparison to the quality of the BGS and Oxford manuals I would suggest BCFT DL course is over priced by several hundred pounds. Having said this the flight school is receiving nothing but praise, which was the main influencing factors for choosing the DL package. What am I going to do? Perhaps I can get a refund and enrol with Oxford or BGS then flight train with BCFT.
BCFT ATPL course 6th Sept
Oooops, should say teach you electrics. See you in September!
!!!
)
, lie on the beach and get in some cheap flying whilst I studied!!
