Cape Flying Services. Better knows as CFS. George, South Africa.

[spaceafrica]

Those anyone who has actually gone to this school have any comments?? I have heared allot of good things about this school from very old pilots, but nothing much from recent students?? I looked at the website and it looks preety good and good value for money.

Some one who really has been there??

Thanks

[TooBadSoSad]

Goedkoop is deurkoop!! I did my Comm / IF flight test there many moons ago and it was a total fiasco. Aircraft breaking, no preparation, badly disciplined students - and I hear it is still the same

[dynamite dean]

On the other hand.....


I did my CPL/IR and my ATPL subjects, Grade III and II first time passes in all (and my folks made no contribution to my course so no second chances) and scored a final interview out of Cathay towards the end ; whilst I was with CFS. In short its a school for self motivated people I am that sort of person and worked for me it may not be for all thats life ;however there is another side and you just read it.

there is a lot on this school if you do a search, rather get a 2D view and ring them up and speak to the students or better still get a 3D viewpoint and go and visit if that choice is available.I do strongly recommend before handing life and limb over to ANY flight training provider do yourself a favour and spend a couple of $ and try before you buy - ie PPL first?

Remember a school should only gurantee to do your flight training and nothing else.

If you dont like this sort of enviroment thats also great you just need to goto a sausage machine school:ok:

[south coast]

Go to Progress Flight Academy in Port Elizabeth.

[Jim-J]

Took a drive from CPT to George to check out the set up at CFS in Jan '05 to try find a school to complete PPL and CPL course.

Came across very well manared and polite students who seemed happy.
Very helpfull instructors/staff too.
Then onto the hangar.... 2 aircraft in corner missing parts, major parts (ie. horizontal stabilizer) and under a decent amount of dust.
Had only a further 2 operational aircraft for student use. They were reasonably well priced compared to other establishments - hire and fly rates / instructor rates etc. But without many aircraft available for hire, how long would it take to complete a CPL course?

[George Tower]

I can only talk about George as a location and not CFS. I did my PPL at Wally Waldeck's outfit and have to say that George seems like ajolly good place to train. Being at a regional airport you will have to get a good grasp of the RT basics and the disciplines of flying in controlled airspace BUT unlike say Cape Town you won't be sat on the ground for half and hour watching the prop go around.

And by the way.....Pay as you fly. :ok:

[Jim-J]

Agreed G T - GRJ is a phenominal port to train at. Great ATC, great R/T experience and nice and busy VFR traffic routing up and down the coast. Mossel Bay field close by as well as gen flying area all within a few minutes from George....

[herschel mcleod]

I did my ppl their and was not very happy George is a very very nice place to fly at thou I would pay as I go and do not give more that R5000 at a time because if you want to leave for any reason you will not get a refund weather really sucks and what I fond was if the aircraft was working then the weather was bad and vice versa any where up north would be better

[spaceafrica]

Ok so far i got allot of mixxed messages but they all leaded to the same conclusion.

LOOK ELSEWHERE.

I mean anywone can answhere me how many students at one go thise this school have?? And how many aircrafts are there to support these students flying.

And the other thing is the money. I mean what is this of the money pay upfront thing. I mean why would you have to pay the money all upfront. And what if you dont get the service you payed for. Then what??

Anyway. Commets appreciated.

[wing tip brakes]

STAY AWAY. recently spoke to an instructor. They try get all thee money up front. then if you want to leave NO REFUNDS. forgein student who came for com - twin- IF didn't finish his twin rating because aircraft was not available at the time, was told he would have to pay more because he hadn't completed everything in the allotted time.

apparently, the only good thing about the school is the web site

[EladElap]

I completed my CPL/Multi/IR and Instructors rating at CFS, and have only had good experiences with the school. Aside from the fact that I've been instructing there for over a year, let me tell you why I've been associated with the school for over five years.

I did my ppl when I was 17 years old, fresh out of school... I had a very very good instructor :E :E :E Dynamite, shall we say!! Anyways, after completing my PPL I decided to head off to the UK, to work and earn enough quid to fund my CPL. I returned a little short of the money I required... I blame the discovery of Guinness for that :E! So was forced to work in a hotel in Cape Town for another year to fund the rest. Now after slaving a way in dingy pubs, and restaurant shifts sometimes in excess of 24 hrs (gotta love minimum wage 5.50 quid/hr!) I had enough dough for my Comm. Now it's very different when it's your hard earned cash as opposed to someone elses (like your parents) so although my experience at CFS the first time had been great, I was determined to thoroughly research the other options.

I visited in excess of 10 flying school all over the country, including 43rd, aptrac, progress, and even FTC in george. However, none of the schools seemed to have the personal touches, and fantastic student atmosphere that Cape Flying Services had/has.

As far as aircraft being unserviceable, that is something that any flying school goes through. One of the difficulties anyone will tell you is keeping 30 year old tin airies flying, when it comes to trying to source spares, waiting for them to arrive from the states, etc. This is why the owner has shelled out in excess of a million rand on brand new composite aeries, Jabirus. The fact that the distributor for Jabiru, is three hangars down from us means that an MPI takes six hours, AN ENGINE OVERHAUL takes 10 days!! As I speak now the schools has a fleet of 9 aircraft, and also has the use of an additional three one of which is a P166S Albatross!

The school has 4 crew houses, as it caters for predominantly full time residential CPL students and provides transport to and from the crew houses in a newly aquired luxury bus.

What I'm trying to say here, is not to punt the school but to sya the following. People look for different things in a flying school, and CFS worked for me and is still working for me. If you don't want to just be a number, and want personal instruction, and the opportunity to be part of a "large extended family" of alumni, then it's a good choice.

As far as people leaving on bad terms, I've met people whi have bad things to say about almost every flying school in the country. Unfortunatly the nature of flight training makes it easy to blame the school and instructors when the student hasn't got the abiltily/maturity/drive. The students who leave without completing are students who have messed about and spent too much time in the bar/beach/night clubs, and not enough time in the air or in the books.

If anyone wants to give me a call or sent me an email, drop me a PM. If I didn't enjoy the school as it is, I'd have have left ages ago and be flying somewhere else. :ok::ok:

[negus]

I lost a huge sum of money with this flying school (CFS), my advise to you is: do not UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES pay for the full course up front because he has you by the short and curlies, in fact pay as little up front as possible, and dont be conned by a speech about getting a special price by paying all up front. I had to find money to finish my flying elsewhere and got CPL with inst. rtg. but I never got what I paid for up front from this school. My advice go elsewhere. The school next door usually picks up the pieces of the conned students, and does their best to help them out.