Hi all,
I have received many messages asking me about my experiences at EFT and thought it was about time that I wrote a piece on the school rather than answer each person directly. I will be as fair as I can in my explanation.
I think before I start it is important to separate the Aviator and EFT schools to a certain degree. Although I was an EFT student, I did my FAA training through Aviator so to speak. My issues are primarily with Aviator and not EFT but they are linked in such a way that one effects the other from time to time.
My plan from the start was to do my MEP rating, FAA ME IR, around 50 hours hour building and the JAA ME CPL.
I arrived from the far east in October 2011 and hoped to be finished in 3-4 moths at best. I had previously completed my JAA PPL in 2010 in around 5-6 weeks and was impressed with the school (EFT that is). There were just the right amount of students to instuctors and the training was done professionally and smoothly.
I was introduced to a really decent instructor to do my MEP rating and started a few days after arriving. Unfortunately, the MEP rating took a lot longer than I had initially thought and took me around 3-4 weeks to complete. This was not helped by the maintenance issues with the aircraft.
Aviator operates a large amount of Duchess aircraft for the ME teaching and these aircraft are in and out of the maintenance hangers more times than I've had hot dinners. There is always something constantly breaking or being damaged on these aircraft. They are roughly around 30 years old and this is to be expected of course, however, they are being flown for 10 hours plus per day. The issue and the fact that irritated me so badly was that there are simply too many students, not enough instructors and not enough serviceable aircraft at the school. I remember even hearing the senior pilot mentioning how they should not be flying that amount of hours per day at their age.
When it came to doing my FAA ME IR this constantly compounded the issues even further and my flights were cancelled on more occasions than I can remember due to the aircraft maintenance issues. This got worse and worse to the point where one day not a single Duchess aircraft was flying because they had all been squawked for repairs. On that particular day I discussed this issue with my instructor and he suggested that I, as a paying customer, should go straight to the owner of the school and complain. I hesitated at first but then after a while we decided to both go and politely mention the issue to the owner and see how the situation could be resolved.
After a short conversation explaining the situation his reaction was to close the school for the day so that maintenance could continue repairs on the aircraft. Not the reaction we had been expecting and it then meant further delays to training.
The next day, however, I learned that my instructor had been sacked and the reason for this being our complaint to the owner of the school. This left a very sour taste in my mouth and I further raised this issue with EFT to see if the situation could be resolved and to perhaps see if my instructor could be reinstated in some way. Unfortunately, he was not reinstated and I was given a new instructor.
To cut a long story short, I managed to get get all my training completed in 6 months. I suppose it could have been completed faster, however, the lack of aircraft and maintenance issues extended my stay. To be fair, I had my own problems with admin issues with the FAA and the Christmas period.
I think my small rant is not so much directed at EFT but rather at Aviator and unfortunately, I have to say this damages the reputation of the school as they use Aviators services. Aviator is simply very badly managed and too overburdened with students and old aircraft. There were many days when I waited for a stage check and this was primarily down to the aircraft breaking constantly.
I cannot say a bad word about the training at EFT. When it came to doing my CPL I managed to get it completed in just over 3 weeks. Matthew was an excellent instructor and really helped me through the course. He was very good at keeping me motivated. The same goes for Ian as well. Both of them top blokes.
So to answer all your questions about EFT I can only say you will not be dissapointed with the level of training but you may be disappointed with the aircraft situation. It was farcical at times to say the least.
Hope this explains things relatively clearly. EFT is a great school but their next door neighbour drags them down.