To all interested in this thread, and contemplating where to train,
Any future employer who gives you command of an aircraft will expect you to be responsible for taking your own decisions based on accurate facts, and sound judgement. Regrettably, far too many people still base their decision on how to spend many thousands of either hard earned or borrowed £’s on the subjective views of others rather than investigating for themselves.
If you really want to make a good decision you must be prepared to visit all of your preferred FTO’s and ask a lot of questions. Then, try creating a simple matrix using a scoring system.
These are just some of the criteria you might consider :-
Location
Ø Availability and cost of suitable local accommodation
Ø Car parking and other associated costs
Ø Distance and travel costs from home
Base Airport
Ø Number of runways available - always into / out of wind
Ø Frequency of commercial / scheduled traffic and potential for associated delays
Ø Proximity to controlled airspace and other IF training locations
Ø Landing / approach training fees, costs, included or extras
Training Aircraft
Ø Sufficient to ensure continuity
Ø Maintenance arrangements in case of unexpected tech’s
Ø Turbocharged for rapid climb to airways during IF training
Ø De/Anti iced for all year round training (icing at FL060 in summer is not uncommon)
Ø Instrument fits and conformity between fleet.
Documentation, Facilities and Training Material
Ø Training manuals – Lesson plans for ground school
Ø Quality manual, ask to see the feedback forms from previous students
Ø Ground school / Briefing arrangements
Ø Additional study material supplied
Ø Access to synthetic training devices, availability and cost
Ø Briefing rooms / adequacy and sole occupation
Ø Security of facilities owned or rented / borrowed / shared
Instructors and Training methods
Ø Professional Instructors (3000+ hours) or recently qualified and hours building
Ø Instructor daily workload, students per Instructor per day / week
Ø What happens if you, or another student in your group is ill for some days ?
Ø Ratio of airborne hours to briefing / debriefing / ground school.
Ø Number and type of approaches / departures flown during course
Ø Who would be your Instructor, meet him/her (you will be in intimate proximity in a stressful cockpit environment for what seems like a long time – can you respect this person?)
Ø Instructor training record, not just first time passes – were they achieved in minimum hours ?
Costs
Ø Payment arrangements
Ø Contingencies – any hidden costs
Ø Training over-run costs (you might get a partial)
Ø Overall anticipated cost.
The list can go on and on, but it is vital to take the time to do it properly. These pages are full of the gripes and moans of people who decided to spend their (or someone elses) money without thorough and complete investigation. It takes time, and you should arrange to spend at least half a day with the FTO, additionally talking to current and past students “offline” to verify your observations.
It may also be true that those who need to continually need to advertise also have the most difficulty in filling their available training places. There are many excellent establishments who don’t need a large marketing budget, and simply just get on with quietly delivering excellent training to excellent students for reasonable costs.
Apologies for the length of the above, and I’m sure that others will like to add – debate further.
Good training, good flying and make your own luck
cfb