Um, wasn't looking for sympathy chick. Merely stating my personal experience of training in Florida. You only really get a good rate when you pre-pay in Florida. If you pay as you fly, you don't get much of as discount and it's not worth going over there.
SoCal App - sorry I didn't explain. This was two hours of flying, but had been at the school for a week having been messed around, experienced the place/management, heard and seen dodgy things regarding the running of the place etc etc.
I posted on here for advice at the time, saying I was unhappy and asked for advice on what to - having named no names/not identifying the flight school. I asked merely if it is possible to move flight schools once already in Florida. The FTO owner (who checked PPrune throughout the day at the time) frog marched me to a machine, made me log into PPrune, remove my post - telling the PPrune world that I was drunk at the time of posting, emotional, suffering from heat stroke and didn't mean what I said!
The following law suit proved fruitless, as I would have to pay large sums of money - of which I had none as I lost out due to cancelling my course and would have cost a lot more than I stood to gain if successful. The schools know that the chances of someone going through with a law suit are very low, which is why they get away with it. Why risk a few grand when you are already out of pocket and still need money for further training, revalidating your licences, ratings and medicals - and there there is the many thousands you need for the pay-to-fly scheme around. So much for the land of the free!! I'll stick with blighty.
All I'll say is fighting a legal battle with a FTO over is difficult.
Out of interest - can anyone let me know if they have been successful in taking legal action against a flight school in Florida. Over the last couple of years in particular I've seen many unhappy people and spoken to people keen to persue the matter. Could it be that the contracts we are made to sign on arrive (sign, or get out now!) are water tight in favour of the flightschool, or people have had issues brining a claim from abroad.
Whilst you technically have the same rights as a US citizen in the US, brining action when not in the US agaist a US is very difficuly for your average Joe.
Last edited by spicejetter; 5th February 2010 at 21:21.