Anglo American Aviation

[Whiskey Kilo Wanderer]

A few things that may be of interest came up while at Anglo American Aviation in San Diego.

A well-known San Diego based Examiner (FAA) commented that his failure rate was up to above 20% for people taking check rides. He put this down to the lack of high hours Instructors. According to this guy, the airlines were taking people with 500 hours, Multi/IR/Comm and a good personality, removing the 500 to 1,500 hours Instructors from the system.

I found the single engine commercial (FAA) more difficult than anticipated and ran out of time. This may have been due in part to having 500 hours on a Rans S6, which has few instruments and lots of GPS’s. It surprised me how quickly the basic ‘clock and compass’ skills decay if you fly around on GPS all the time. It may be worth bearing in mind if you are hours building on a cheap PFA Permit type aircraft.

I had a good time at Anglo-American, although I didn’t complete the course I had intended. I’ll probably go back in autumn to do some more flying there. If anyone has any questions my e-mail is [email protected]

Good luck with your flying.

[GPS Approach]

WKW,

Was the failure rate the examiner stated referring specifically to Anglo students or all of the students that he has examined recently.

I find it difficult to believe that it was for Anglo students as I have only just got back from Anglo, having spent the last six months there and the majority of Anglo students were doing JAA PPL's examined by Anglo's in-house examiner. To my knowledge there were three different FAA examiners giving check-rides to the other students that were doing FAA ratings, so I'm not sure where he gets his figures from if he was talking about Anglo.

With regards to Instructors, again was this comment directed at Anglo or did the examiner mean the industry in general, if he was talking about Anglo then he certainly didn't have his facts straight, as currently all but one of Anglo's instructors have over 1000 hours flying experience.

Regards,

GPS Approach

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Aargh, that was the taxiway we landed on!

[Whiskey Kilo Wanderer]

Hi GPS App,

The comment was in general in the San Diego area as far as I was aware. I believe Anglo's pass rate is better than average and they have some longer serving Instructors.

I certainly have no complaints from my time there and will be going back.

Safe flying.