Be careful of the gloss and the glitz - and the tinted hair, capped teeth and fake suntans of the front man.
Make sure that any TIF you take has these essential elements:
1. You must fly with an instructor. A certain school in Sydney, already mentioned, has sent prospective students up with just a commercial pilot on the other stick. Not licensed or qualified to give instruction, and the wannabe cannot legally log the time.
2. You must get a full preflight briefing to explain what you are going to see, how to work the controls, what to look for.
3. The flight involves actually learning something.
4. You get a debrief on the flight.
The prebrief and debrief are just as important as the flying, but That School is famous for just slipping the next student into a warm seat with the engine still running from the previous flight. One student I heard of went for a check ride at another place, sat in the seat, and when the instructor said "Well, let's go" the student looked at the instructor and asked him if he was going to start the engine first for him, as he had never got into a cold machine before.
One thing that you will never be told by That School is the troubles they have been in with CASA - they cheated on flying hours and maintenance by pulling circuit breakers on Hobbs meters, and the private owners of cross-hired machines were not paid for the time flown. Finally trapped by one owner who saw his bird flying one day, checked Their paperwork, and saw that no flight time was recorded for that day. He installed a secret meter, found the truth, and reported them to CASA. The Chief Pilot took a walk (somewhat unfairly, the Boss was equally to blame) and That School kept going.
Next stumble was the troubled Examfax system. They were caught out helping students, another CP takes a walk (this CP mysteriously lost his log book 3 times when inspections were due.) But the Boss stayed.
There is no doubt that they are successful at recruiting and processing students, the biggest around, sell a pile of machines, but make sure you get value for what you pay.
Three pilots spring to mind - the first came from There, admitting that he knew nothing, and paid for more lessons to get up to speed. The second came as a student, with trip reports glowing with praise, and after 15 hours he was ready for solo. He was tragic, could barely hover. He couldn't pass ground school. He lodged a large sum of money with us, but we gave it back to him and suggested he try another career. He went back to That Place, had an 85% theory pass within 3 weeks, and a CPL shortly thereafter. Saw him after that putting full fuel and four golfers and four sets of clubs in a 206 and staggering off the airfield for a landing 3000' up the hills.
The third held an instructors rating, but when I asked him if he wanted to do some instructing work he said "But my rating is only a (company deleted) rating - we didn't fly half the trips, and when I got to the nominated number of hours, He stopped my course and signed me up. I don't really know how to instruct."
Sorry, but That School doesn't impress.
