To my knowledge, knowing a few of the upper managment people at DAEFA, they are considering many different strategies with the latest developments at Eclipse. Of course leasing from a third party is an option, another would be to scrap Eclipse and go with a different VLJ all together. Before anyone reply's to this saying what other jet's are there. I am sure they are talking with Cessna and companies like that. As for replies from people within the company concerning the developments at the Flight Academy, come on people, read some of these posts. It is almost ignorant to assume that they are keeping silent on here. Isn't it a little funny to see stuff that isn't posted anywhere online or in any of their marketing material quoted on here?? As for the health of the Flight Academy, they seem to be almost over the hump of "start up" and finally starting to accelerate into normal day-to-day operations. There have been multiple students coming in for screening and the pipeline for cadet intake is filling pretty fast. Of course, as with any business it is not as fast as people would have assumed it would be, but give it time. Rome was not built in a day you know.
As for the ciriculum: Yes there is a lot of FAA and JAA theory built into it. That is why they have brought in instructors from all over the world. The theory of instruction there should be based on Scenario and some of the instructors there already have a good deal of experience with it. From other schools that I have seen that implement this type of training, it is based more on the students and less on the instructors themselves. Think of it as a guided approach to learning, putting more of the trial and error side of learning back into it. Obliviously they shouldn't let things go too far, but that is the best way to learn. For more info on scenario based training, look at the FAA-FITS information available at
www.faa.gov or Cirrus themselves use this type of training when it comes to training new owners and Cirrus Standardized Instructor Pilots (CSIP's) and they have a lot of good infor on there site as well. The biggest thing about flying routes, for everyone who say's its a waste of valuable training time, is that you will be flying changing scenarios on every portion. You will have a set number of failures to acheive, a set number of tasks to perform and always, judgment skills are being formed. Working in a two crew environment helps to bridge the gap between Traditional training (Manoeuvers Based) and the Airlines. It's actually a good concept, I just think they may have made a huge mistake trying to do this in Ras Al Khaimah. Some of the new traning ideas coming out on the market, most of them can be found on the EATS (European Aviation Training Symposium) website, will or at least should be the goal of this and many other flight schools. Of course, all of that is left to be seen.
As for the Ground School: All I see on here in almost every thread they anyone has put is that the ground school is useless because you only get GCAA Lics. Well, do you really think a flight school is out to screw you so badly as to make you do something as hard core, and personally as useless as all imagination, if they didn't have something in the works with the JAR authority to allow them to write the tests either off site or even in building?? Come on, that is cruel and unusual punishment if that's the case. Of course, as with anything else in this world, you will always be certified by the authority in which you train. Oxford and Lufthansa send cadets over to the states to build up there flight time so they can do the tests, but they always bring them back here to do the checkrides so why is it such a shock to you guy's that, if you train in the GCAA you get GCAA lics? I'll bet the overall goals of DAEFA is to one day have a training alliance setup with a provider in the JAR World so that when you are ready for the checkride and you have written the tests, you will have the opportunity to go there and do the checkrides. Or at least this is how I would have set things up and will be extremely disappointed if this is not the case over there and then I will have nothing but bad things to say.
I hope this helps a little to you guys, oh, and one more thing. What the hell do you mean "I guess those people don't know about PPruNe?? Of course not, they are students getting into the aviation industry for the first time!!!!! Come on, how long did it take before you or more likely, someone told you about it?? Give them a little credit, they are trying to make the best decisions they can with the information available to them.
Cheers folks and if you have questions, I would say to direct them to DAEFA themselves and try not to speculate. Look at all the information I got out of them just by making a phone call and taking a little initiative to get to some actually in the flight academy that knew what was really going on.