I've been at OBA and found it a good school provided you are self-disciplined and assertive. It worked for me; did not work so well for others inclined to partying with their roomies in their lively house.
Spot on. You definitely need to be self-disciplined to complete your PPL at EASA in Ormond Beach. Sadly, I saw too many of the friends I made there leave from our house to go back home 'empty handed'. It is definitely NOT a holiday - I got my PPL/night there in July/August 2011
I had a little less than three months between finishing university and starting my full-time job at home in Malta. I spent one month (right after finishing my uni final exams) reading and studying all the PPL books. I had ordered the school's package and received everything at home. So basically I went to Florida all geared up for the written exams (even took the books with me on the 9+hr flight to the US!). I passed all of them on first go - easy exams if you study properly! Then I had about 5 weeks there which was more than enough to get it done as at the end of the course I had a two days left to enjoy Florida as much as I could! And overall I was grounded for about 4 to 5 days due to weather and aircraft problems. I only had about 12 hours flying after two weeks there and I was getting worried - but once you get your first solo done everything starts moving much faster!
My experience there was not all positive though. I can mention a few things which I did not like at all - mainly the fact that their advertised '27 aircraft' are actually only about 9 which are in flying condition. To make matters worse I had opted to go for the PPL with the Cessna 150, mainly because I now fly the C152 and C172 at home in Malta. My first instructed lesson was on a C150 (N704FE) which barely got off the ground with two persons on board and full fuel, not to mention the terrible heat and humidity there in August - overall a horrible aircraft, and very dangerous - and that was their ONLY C150 available for me! That got me very worried, especially as I had to share the aircraft with three hour builders but thankfully I was the only one doing the PPL course on the Cessna at the time. Ironically, the other school at Ormond Beach (Sunrise Aviation) had a whole fleet of beautiful Cessnas
About half way through my course however a C150A got out of maintenance (N9890J) - and thank god for that - a much better aircraft which solved many problems for me.. I really enjoyed flying that plane - and it was out just in time for my cross country navs.
The over-priced (and rather filthy) accomodation is another point which others mention. First of all students are responsible for keeping the house clean. But when u get students who wouldn't bother cleaning, the filth tends to build up... at least while i was there the housekeeping lady gave the house a good clean up! Also only four weeks are included in the PPL package so I had to pay an extra $300 for my 5th week - that was the only unexpected / hidden cost that I encountered (to be fair however, they did tell me about it when I got there). Other than that, there were no other hidden costs for me - but only because I did my research properly before and read all the fine print! And the EASA houses are a short 5min bike ride from the airport - if you manage to get hold of a bike that is!
Its also worth mentioning that I was lucky to have a great instructor - not the case with all the students there. Having a good instructor will definitely help you get through it in a month.
Overall - I totally enjoyed my time in Florida but I consider myself lucky that things worked out my way. I would only recommend EASA to people who are really dedicated and have a good aviation background or basic knowledge to help get them started... and please don't go for their Cessnas!
PS: I still use my fuel tester today - so that $6.50 was worth it
