Naples Air Center Bad choice for Distance Learning
Distance Learning Advice to New Students - Bristol GS vs. others
Hi,
I am an FAA licensed ATPL and Instructor. I work as a freight pilot flying Twin Otters and am a former owner of a California based flight school which was very successful. I am starting this thread to share my experience and advise those interested in JAA distance learning courses.
Currently, I am in the process of converting my licenses to a JAA ATPL (F). Like many others, the cost of training was my foremost consideration. Approaching the training with this consideration has, however, resulted in costing me more time and money. (approximately an additional 1500 GBP)
Choosing a quality ATPL Distance Learning school should be an aspiring commercial pilot's first consideration for the following reasons.
The JAA standards of theoretical learning are much higher than those of the FAA. The 14 tested subjects of the ATPL are highly extensive and time consuming to study. Ground instruction for the FAA written subjects can be accomplished in a time frame of less than 90 hours; whereas, the JAA requires 720 total hours. The possible number of FAA questions for the Private, Instrument, Commercial and ATPL range between 2500-3500. Those for the JAA 14 written exams are over 16000 exceeding the FAA by approximately 80%.
Any newly established JAA groundschool (6-8 years old) will not have enough years of experience in which to standardize and catch flaws in their own written material. The written material for each subject is developed at the classroom level and not at the distance learning level. A subject's material may consist of nothing more than instructor notes without written, detailed explanation. These types of materials are handled best by instructors during oral explanation in a classroom environment. Explanations of formula's are needed for thorough student comprehension - obviously.
As an example:
Distance = 60 x COSIN Latitude x Number of degrees in Longitudinal change
A distance learning book, on this General Navigation question, should provide a layman explanation of each part of the formula.
In my experience, I had participated in Naples Air Center's JAA Distance Learning program. The program sent me classroom notes as materials on each of the 14 JAA subjects, and I spent countless hours trying to understand formulas such as these. Because the books were so ill-written, I was forced to purchase additional reference material. So I purchased a CD from Bristol Groundschool in the amount of 350GBP. It was an organized CD that helped me to understand things clearly. The CD included all of Bristol GS self written texts.
At Naples Air Center, the head of ground training understood his school's material was not well written and switched to Jeppesen.
Jeppesen material is very detailed; however, it contains too much information that is not necessary to learn and will not be, otherwise, tested on the JAA exam. Each Jeppesen text ranges between 350-500 pages. These texts are excellent because they are full of information and detailed explanation. For the distance learning student however, the Jeppesen texts contain too much information making the student easily overwhelmed and confused about what information is necessary to be retained for the exam. As classroom material, the Jeppesen texts are a valuable tool to both the instructor and student on an interpersonal basis in a classroom environment. For the distance learning student, the abundance of material is daunting.
In conclusion, I have been impressed with Bristol Groundschool as a Distance Learning provider. I will be leaving the stateside school and continuing my JAA studies with Bristol as well as using the Jeppesen texts as guides of supplementary reference. Bristol Groundschool offers a free sample CD and I suggest it. It provides examples of end-of-chapter quizzes with questions straight from the JAA exam as well as sample 3D animations for easier comprehension.
Do not skim on costs. It will bite you in the end. It bit me.
Good luck. Feel free to write anytime.