One aspect of this thread was talking about allowing foreign flight instructors work permits in the US. There's nothing complicated or special about setting up a flight school. Maybe governmental regulations in the home countries make it extra hard, but that's a local issue. If the need is so great in these countries, why don't their governments keep the training money in their own country and encourage flight schools to open up there.
Getting light airplanes and maintaining them isn't hard. Setting up a classroom and syllabus isn't expensive or difficult. For primary training, you don't need expensive or difficult-to-maintain simulators.
It seems to me that an Indian or Malaysian, or even Aussie company could set up a great flight school with not much investment and make a good profit by attracting south Asian students and teach in their native language, and be able to charge less than the relatively high cost of living and learning in the US.
I know a lot of Brit students like to train in Florida, but I think that's because flight training in the UK is pretty darn expensive, the weather is less likely to cause delays in training, and Florida is a plane ride away. Also with the extreme weakness of the dollar, the US is cheap for Europeans.
ROADTRIP,
Since you are here on the PPRuNe I am assuming that you are a pilot. I am also assuming that you have never traveled to this side of the world.
It is not as easy as it sounds to setup a flight school here in the Eastern States. First of all, we will have to import planes (guess where most of the training aircrafts are made). Secondly, we need airfields to fly those planes. Do you know that there are more airfields in the state of FL than entire India. Now an infrastructure like this cannot be setup over night. Yes, the government is working on it but it will take years. Third, the fuel is a lot more expensive here than in State, Oz or even South Africa. Another problem that we face here is what you are facing in USA. Why would someone want to work as a FI when he/she can fly a brand new shiny aircraft (where they do not have to yell "clear prop" and chances are that they can walk under the wing and need ladder to climb in the aircraft. This kind of flying any day beats flying C152, at least for work).
Not all the students come to USA to live there and stay there. There are easier ways to come to States than trying to get an M1 visa for flight training (visa counselors still remember 9-11).
Yes, you are right, there a lot of Brits training in FL. But there are also people from India, China, Japan, Scandinavian countries and southern EU States training in FL. There is a very good reason why FL is called the flight training capital of the world.
These students when they come to States, not only they spend money in the flight school, they also spend money in local business'. We saw the impact of no flight training after 9-11. Lots of local business' were hurting because the foreigners had stopped coming to States. You think Disney can survive if only Americans were going there?
Anyway, I do miss the days when we could fly over the Hudson and work on the lady.
Happy Flying
