Firstly, I have no issue per-se with any flying training establishment & I'm sure that there are universities that are turning out a quality product, but this article would have to be the most poorly written, one sided load of rubbish ever produced by FSA; The likes of which is normally the domain of mainstream media.
Would you go to a dentist who had learned the art of pulling teeth by working in the outback or perhaps in Papua New Guinea? Professor
Patrick Murray doesn't think so...
Err...well YES Professor Patrick Murray, I bloody well would. Especially if it means that said dentist has experienced every kind of tooth problem first hand, as opposed to having read about it from the comfort of a first world capital city. And as a pilot who has flown in both I find the implication reprehensible.
The article goes on to make many more assertions about graduates being trained to airline standards, being considered "better pilots", and my favourite, that an aviation degree...
will help particularly when going for command...
.
(Bollocks)
An aviation degree is but one of several paths to a licence. The fact is that you can't be taught experience & virtually every Aviation Degree graduate goes to GA to learn their craft alongside their non degree brethren.
Be very, very wary of anyone involved in ab-initio training making assertions that they will train you to an "airline standard" ie. that you will walk from the flying school straight into the welcoming arms of an airline, or that honing ones craft in the "outback" or PNG is a bad thing or somehow redundant.
joe crazyhorse.