I have many reasons to join in the fray and attack Gerald and CFS for my own reasons but won't since I don't agree with Mr Young or his actions. As he points out himself, he was refunded for time not flown and it seems that his main gripe is against Mr. Pugh.When one pays a non-refundable deposit one can expect that it won't be refunded. That's what it means. When any mature persons pays a non-refundable deposit ,one has to accept the risk that goes with it and therefore it is suggested that you do as much investigating as can be done before that.
Mr Young, if it is your normal practise to blindly pay non-refundable deposits, then beware, you will run into trouble. Also I'm not a great lover of agents in any form whatsoever and prefer to deal with a company directly. Any agent unfortunately ends up making promises which someone else has to try and keep. You should have realised that you won't complete your PPL in 3 weeks when you failed to go solo after the first week. You however continued and went solo after over 30 hours. These flying hours will remain valid and you can continue with your PPL in the UK. (UK Flying schools beware. Don't think any of you will be willing to take him on after all this)
Mr Young, if your gripe is with Mr Pugh, then leave CFS out of this thread completely. I don't know you and have never met you but it seems from your posts that you tend to act like a spoiled child that always gets his way and throws a tantrum if he doesn't. My advice, DROP IT AND MOVE ON!
I do know Gerald personally having worked as a Instructor at CFS. I had lots of good times there as well as some bad ones but won't give up the 2 odd years I worked there for anything.There is al lot of good and bad thing that could be said about the operations at CFS in the time that I was there. The main thing that I want to comment on, is that most students were very happy and a lot of the students who completed their CPL's would visit when in town after they had moved on. The bulk of the few unhappy students, and I don't want to generalise, were the ones who came from a small island in the Atlantic "ruled" by a Queen. Frenchy and Gary, I think you'll agree on this one. This was maybe the result of having to deal with an agent instead of talking to GT himself. Mr Pugh, no offence.
With respect Gerald, if you are reading this thread, learn from it and keep your students and instructors happy and talk to them directly and honestly! I now that you want a happy flying school with a good reputation but sometimes you make penny wise pound foolish decisions. I you see a bad apple amongst you students, cut your loses and run. Refund and offer them some-one else's services.
And guys out there, paying for any form of flying course upfront and completely is just plain stupid no matter who the company is your dealing with. It's like buying real-estate on the moon. It's payed for but that doesn't mean you'll get something from it.