WMU

[Sean Dell]

Hi guys

I've been offered an interview with WMU, but know very little about them and what terms and conditions are like. Would any instructors at WMU (or students) like to comment - particularly on visa arrangements and whether the Mrs will be OK out there?

Cheers

SD

[inyoni]

From what I've heard the Great Lakes area is superb in summer and hell in winter and when I saw the advert in FI I made some enquiries of my own (I prefer something warmer and with more daylight in winter). Battle Creek is not much of a place to all accounts, but I've heard that that Kalamazoo is not bad which should keep the wife happy. Apart from that only other areas to watch is the status of training under JAR. Tho' with Lufthansa, Sabena, Swiss Air, Lauda Air and many other I'm sure doing the training themselves or with service providers like Flight Safety with FAA instructors, it shouldn't make much difference. Whilst other countries make up their own interpretations of training outside EU under JAR, I can see our CAA/JAR branch applying rules much more strictly. You will need to make sure you get a FAA CFI before you start, there are a lot of people out here illegally instructing with FAA PPL validations of their UK CAA CPL's. But relax the exams and tests are a walk over compared with ours.
Whilst we all get exited about 'Flagging Out' the biggest 'flagging out' of our jobs is occurring in commercial pilot training - I'm sure that it won't be long before BAE in Spain starts making waves about this as soon as they are fully up and running with spare capacity. However, I have some doubt to the standard of training the FAA guys can provide as they have no interest in a future in Instructing as it is so poorly paid and the regionals are taking them with 500 hours now. Also they don't like working on our programmes as they get zero IR and Multi time which they would get plenty of at any other Part 141 training organization so be prepared to work with FAA instructors with this in mind (the flight training required is only 5 hours for the FAA CFI!).
On visa's I suspect WMU will get you a two year visa without too much trouble
Hope this is of some use, but the down side considered, a two year stint out there will get you good hours and the ability to move closer to home either in the airlines or in instructing at one of the European based companies.
Good luck!

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Quite right on the issue of ´flagging out´ of EU jobs in the flight training industry. About time that was stopped.

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