Mark, excellent post!
You wrote a pretty much exact mirror image of my experience at about 18months ago! Good luck with the CAA, hope it achieves something. Giles is without a doubt a complete a**hole, when I was there, they had an really old apache that they used for the multi..... I was sitting out on the patio, when i noticed faint smoke rising out from the nose of the aircraft.... Went inside and told them, to which they just said that it was probably my imagination (I didn't give a monkeys personally!), a couple of minutes later the smoke intesified, so I ran inside an told them it was on fire! (this changed their reaction a tad) - was bl**dy funny seeing Giles scamper out with a piddly fire extinguisher to put it out!
They sold the aircraft shortly after that incident! (How???)
Excellent building and facilities - just never used - massive waste - will be their loss in the long run. My advice is stay well clear of OFT. People tag on to the idea that it will be a good place to go 'cos of the link with scabair.... Personally I would only recommend one school in Florida worthy of a look - I won't advertise the school, feel free to mail me for further info
