Originally Posted by
43Inches
So why was I upset at the schools losing the lucrative theory courses, well those courses cross subsidized the flying school, they could pay for a lot of things and keep the aircraft hire costs minimal to just cover the planes. Now a flying school pretty much just has to make money on the flying side, good luck with that.... So in reality the student is still paying for those courses, its just added onto the hire rate for the aircraft now making the flying side more expensive, then you also pay the TAFE, Uni and whoever is doing the theory.
Whilst not disagreeing with anything you've said, I'm not sure you're thinking big enough. There's a certain large flying school at YMMB (part funded by MAC even), catering primarily but not exclusively to rich overseas students, that has at least a few good instructors and churns out some very good pilots (amongst the mess no doubt). On the flip side are the schools who might have done better shutting down altogether and cross-hiring their perfectly good aircraft to the folks next door, but chose to persist anyway with predictable results.
We all know the education system (Victoria's primary export now, following the demise of the car industry) is seriously under-funded, but it isn't just the Aviation courses providing their income - other students are getting ripped off too. It's an entire business model in itself.