Training Advice...
 

Hello All,

I'm looking for some advice/opinions on commercial flight training in Canada.
A Little background on myself:
​​​​​​40yrs old, Irish citizen, only a couple hours flying experience, twice reached the final stage of BA's Speedbird Pilot Academy recruitment process...I plan to give it one more shot this year (3x applications is the max. allowed).
If I come up short again then I could potentially head to Canada with my partner (Canadian Citizen), earlier than initially planned, with the idea of training there for my CPL (hopefully fATPL) at some point. It will still take some scrapping together of funds but after a very brief search it looks like the cost to train over there could be a lot cheaper than the UK/Europe.

If anybody could give me some advice/information on costs and timescales, recommendations for flight schools, any funding available, job opportunites, licence conversions etc. I would really appreciate it.

(I'm aware the first step is to make sure I can obtain a Class 1 Medical.)

Thanks in advance.

In the east, Moncton Flight College: https://mfctraining.com/

In Ontario you can inquire at:

Brampton Flight Center: https://www.bramptonflightcentre.com/
Close to Toronto, they own their own airport, and have a very new fleet. Accommodation more costly in that area.

Durham Flight college: https://durhamflightcentre.com/
East of Toronto in Oshawa, busy controlled airport

Seneca: https://www.senecapolytechnic.ca/school/aviation.html
Further from Toronto in Peterborough, busy uncontrolled airport, new fleet

Spectrum: https://www.sealandflight.com/
West of Toronto, smaller and more personal.

There are others in Ontario. Ontario summer weather generally pretty good, lots of places to fly, and you can get some good busy airspace flying around Toronto

In Manitoba, Harv's Air: https://www.harvsair.com/
Less busy airport, lots of room to fly, only busy airspace if you go looking for it

In British Columbia, Sealand Flight: https://www.sealandflight.com/
Several training bases, great people, magnificent mountain scenery, and they have an electric airplane in the fleet.

Victoria Flying Club: https://www.flyvfc.com/
Very established flying school, pretty area to fly, accommodation expensive

There are certainly other schools in Canada. Some are owned by outside Canada companies. The aforementioned are Canadian owned and operated, and may be a starting point for your inquiries

What's your timeline like? Are you planning to do it full time?

I suggest calling ahead to the flight school you choose, look at their website or talk to them about pricing, students and instructor ratio and how often you'd get to fly, etc.

In Ontario, first thing is to pick a school or two and get on their wait list. Around the Waterloo/Brantford/Stratford area, they are booked. 4-8 months wait list. I'm almost sure schools to the east where there is more population are also booked months ahead. Definitely call ahead and get on the wait list. The more west you go, the less wait time. Eg. Windsor has no wait time.

Medical in Canada, I got my initial medical done ~mid December, still no response. They told me it'll be a minimum of at least 2-3 months. Get that done early.

Great list. you can also check www.aero-mentor.ca for Canadian focused flight training guidance.

So keep in mind, you are not a Canadian citizen. Assuming you are married, and therefore don't have to prove common law, IRCC processing time for spousal sponsorship is around 2 to 2.5 years, and up to 3 months for student permit, but you will need to study full time to qualify for that.
You can check TC to see if there is any CAME in your country. I know they had one in mine and so I got my initial done before even starting.

Hi all,
sorry for the radio silence after my initial post.

Thanks for all the advice. I'm just back from Montreal, after visiting Cargair whilst there. Seems to be around the $80k mark for taking the modular route with them. I'm keen to look at other places on the list provided so will get on and do that, one that wasnt mentioned there is a school in Medicine Hat, Alberta, called Super T Aviation. Does anyone know of this place? Any experiences?

Also, the 2.5yr wait for spousal sponsorship sounds like a very big hurdle...I've heard it can still be possible to be there whilst the residency is being processed? Maybe having to duck out every 6 months? (This is something I'm going to look into properly myself, but if anyone has any experience/views on this I'd be interested to hear them)