Originally Posted by
Sunfish
My experience Clare was the exact opposite. The running of the flying school took precedence over the interests of the members to the point where I found it difficult to book and hire a certain aircraft for some touring because it would muck up some foreign students training schedule. The aircraft hadn’t even been booked. They just wanted it available in a few weeks time when they had finished some classroom IFR or cross country nav. I left the club because there was no value whatsoever in staying. Everything was geared to churning out foreign students and members were regarded as a nuisance.
By “value” I don’t just mean cheap aircraft hire. I mean access to experienced instructors and training that could advance my very limited knowledge of airmanship. There was none to be had. The experienced, capable older folk (male and female) had either left of their own accord or been pushed out in favour of cheap instructors pushing out a very low quality commercial foreign product as fast as possible.
Yes I hear of that too, gone too far the other way! Certainly nothing clubby about training huge amounts of foreign students, apart from the favourable tax status. Funny when I was managing aircraft for a club that had 5, they were cross hired out for a few months contract Monday-Friday ...to another "club" training huge amounts of foreign students! The committee had seen the dollar signs and agreed to it, but the everyday weekday flying members were furious. You can never keep everyone happy!