The day I got there I was informed by their most senior instructor to watch my back, and not be forced by the management into flyingq in bad weather etc.
Yep I got that talk to. Its good practice. Making sure that the eager new employee doesn't bend to commercial pressures.
To be frank, the instructors are treated like dirt behind the scene, they are overworked which means after 5-6 hours of flying that day, your not going to get much out of them, they are wrecked!
Yep the owner is not a very cuddly character to work for. But he paid me on time and bought me a pint at Christmas. IS there any such thing as an overworked PPL instructor? In my day (yester) I wanted every hour out of the day for my logbook and every £10 for my social fund...
The flying that you log and pay for is based on hobs, not brakes-brakes. O'h and if you wan't a laugh, the PA28 has the hobs wired to the master switch i'm told, meaning you are paying whilst you do your walk round, internal checks etc. Not good at all, and to be frank not acceptable.
What a load of tosh. The PA28 never was, isn't and never will be wired through the Main Switch. I've flown it and will be again in the next few weeks. All Hobbs work off master electrical PLUS oil pressure. Brakes on/off is mildly better than Hobbs as you get the after start and shutdown drills for free. However, if you note that at Welshpool your taxi is all of 30 metres or at worst 30m and a backtrack followed by a rapid take off on an uncontrolled runway used only by the sole flying school/club (breath) you would understand that at Welshpool you lose less time on the ground than at any other school in the UK. Your Hobbs objection is completley ridiculous.
You will not get briefings most of the time, the most you will get throughout the course is a lecture on Navigation for 2-3 hours. I was told the once "If a student has a problem you get them to pay £30/hour to brief them, don't waste time, get up there and fly".
You only ever get one formal paid for bried. As you say, on Nav. Everything else is - read T Thom chapters x,y,z then you might get the OHP brief, at the minimum you'll get a board brief before flight. If any instructors do less than this then THEY and not the school is to blame. True instructors are left to manage the professional side of their trade as they see fit. The pi55 poor ones will do rubbish 2 minute briefs and get airborne again and the good ones will do the least they think necessary when the weather is good and punters are queued up. Most instructors will do a lot more on slacker days. If you are an instructor and you flew without pre-briefing then you must be a pi55 poor instructor. Each student has a 1.5hr slot per flying hour sortie. 20 mins pre brief, 10 mins post, 1hr airborne. That was the system, is the system and will remain the system.
The standard that students reach in my opinion is quite poor, and reflects what you pay for, so ask your self, what standard do you want to be ?
And in my opinion quite good. Strong on crosswind landings on small runways. Good on VRF nav. Poorer on RT poor airspace knowledge. Much of the standard of the student is dependent on that of the instructor... at small school such as Welshpool where there is NO standardisation things are variable. For consistent quality go to CABAIR where they have standard groundbriefs and a standards flight supervising the instructors. Their PPL course price is somewhere just under £7000 I believe.
O'h also I agree with the above comment, don't pay for the course up front, and don't assume they will even be there in the long-term future, big things are on the anvil !
Yeah yeah. Pool Aviation was there a decade ago, have made money every year, have grown year on year and I know the Boss enjoys his own Beech Baron, 4 holidays a year, a big car and a nice house... And as of last week - in the middle of a downturn at the worst point of the year - Welshpool have 5 full time students plus part timers and are employing 3 instructors. More than many.
WFS will accept money up front for the £2995 price or its about £200 more if you pay as you go. Put £1500 on 2 credit cards and get the discount would be my advice.
Cheers,
WWW
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