CAE Oxford
 

Heard mumblings over the last few months that CAE are leaving Oxford completely. I know the ground school has gone but rumour is the flight operations are moving to Stockholm, anyone know if this is happening?

Such a shame if this is the case as it was full of a great bunch of people.

They are moving out of their old building under the tower and into their hangar, that is all of the flight training, operations, any ground school left there, and management offices.
Many staff were made redundant in the first few months of 2021 and many more have resigned too so they are pretty light as it is.

CAE really gutted the place, sims and aircraft have moved to Antwerp and Oslo, instructors number in the single digits and with other staff it's barely double digits. It's looking rather bleak for them at Oxford.

What a shame, it was such a good school.

Thanks for the update.

If true, then that really is a shame.
Commercial training at Oxford has been an institution for years but, with all the pretenders now in existence, maybe time for a shake up.
I had the good fortune to work both at OATS in the early seventies and later OAA, in the days when it won the Queen’s Award for Industry.
The flying side workforce was huge with, for example, about 100 instructors, some of whom were very well-known, plus a large fleet of well-maintained Piper aeroplanes.
Nearly all were retired Forces Instructors with individuals from all three Services. We even had permanent CAA examiners available at the school.
Quite a large number of now retired British Airways Captains, as well as of other major airlines, owe their sound training and self-discipline to the staff at OATS.

An aside and as a matter of interest was the arrival of the first jet at Oxford in 1972, a Learjet, OO-LFA, from Luton ; yes, on the short, then sole metalled RW29, just over 700m.
Maybe the jet operation of ‘London’ Oxford Airport is now more important to the airfield owners.

What’s left of the UK aviation industry will soon follow. Very sad.

Sleevewing, I40,

The OAA you describe existed in the past, it hasn't been that organisation for some time.

As it only had DK ATO approval it couldn't do EASA IRs in the UK hence the IR training was moved to Belgium.

I think you may be quite surprised by some of the events and misconduct that have occured in the last 12 months at Oxford.

Not the all to distant past there either, I left around 7 years ago and it was still a brilliant place to work then. It was full of experienced staff with a variety of backgrounds and that's not just limited to the instructors.

I cant believe how quick its gone downhill. Saying that though CAE never really understood how flight schools worked....

Nothing to do with the airport and all to do with CAE. They have been losing money since buying Oxford nearly 10 years ago and have finally decided to pull the plug. They are not interested in quality or heritage, only financials.

Ground training will now be conducted from Type Training Centres around Europe and flight training in USA, Belgium and Norway using a "hotch potch" of inexperienced FAA pilots and contract instructors.on twins. L3 are in an equally bad state. Leading Edge and Skyborne are now the only UK based flight schools worth training with if you are looking for an Integrated ATPL Programme.

Or just go modular and get some proper quality training at a reasonable price. I keep hearing good things about ACS in Scotland.

There was a time when the modular route was frowned upon by potential employers, who wanted to see a fully integrated CAA approved full time ATPL course, at somewhere such as OATS.

Did my ATPL there. A very well run school at the time - I've still got all my OATS course files and notes. Thoroughly enjoyed my 18 months there. A couple of instructors forgot that you were the customer and were paying their wages. Those tried to behave as if they were still in the forces and we were all squaddies, or the airborne equivalent, to be shouted at.

We were told to discuss all aircraft defects when signing back in before completing the tech logs. I forgot this one day and innocently put a nearly bald tyre in the tech log. Lots of harrumphing and stoney expressions on the instructor's faces, but they couldn't actually bollock me - the tyre was nearly bald - and I noticed that it was changed later that day !

I had 15 minutes of paid-for twin flying left over after passing my course, and they said they would credit me this back. Well, actually, I would like to fly it off and do a circuit solo in a twin, says I. Oh christ they said........errm.....all right then, if you really must. I was only allowed to do it with my instructor watching in the tower !!

A great bunch of professional people and characters, both ground-school and airborne. A huge shame to see this facility brought to its knees by selfish idiots who just want profits above all else - quality goes out of the window. What is wrong with some people?

I don't think the modular route was ever frowned on by employers - too many of their senior pilots were modular students. What happened was that CAE and CTC spent a lot of money TELLING PEOPLE that the modular route was frowned on so they paid over the odds on their overpriced courses. Modular pilots have always demonstrated commitment far beyond their sunglassed brethren in integrated schools and stats from Ryanair, for example, show absolutely no difference in employability or professional standards between the two routes.

So are you saying that CAE have stopped operating completely at Oxford?

More or less. They have a couple of aircraft and a simulator, that's it. The entire training centre has gone and virtually all of the employees. Most of the aircraft have been transferred to Belgium. All that remains is the hangar for aircraft maintenance and a few flight instructors supporting the last couple of Seneca V's. End of an establishment that started ab-initio training way back in the early 1960's. A terrible shame.

Well CAE like to use the name around the world eg: Oxford Saudi, so it will keep a token school open at Oxford for the name. However if there isn't much left of the place you wonder how long the Oxford name is reallygoing to be worth anything.

Any connection to the Oxford school in Arizona? Quite a few Oxford training flights here. It's quite irritating to call a tower with "Archer XXX" and to be answered with "Oxford XXX" just because I have a matching accent. Properly enunciated "Archer" sounds nothing like "Oxford" except that it has the same number of syllables.

Hi Exdac,
Yes it is the the fair weather training base for CAE Oxford or more accurately the CAE European schools now.
It use to be the case that the SEP phase and the multi CPL was done at Pheonix, then the cadets returned to Oxford for the ME IR.
Now After Brexit and as CAE only had EASA DK approval, EASA IRs only couldn't be done in the UK, so the ME IR training was moved out to CAE Brussels and CAE Oslo.

In 2019 they did start doing SEP training in the C182s at Oxford. But as I understand now all the SEP stuff will be done out in Phoenix again. So its SEP Pheonix, Multi CPL Oxford and then ME IR at Brussles. I don't know if CAE Oxford have started to do any UK PArt FCL stuff at all, which can still be done under the EASA approval until the end of 2022. However I wonder if CAE Oxford would actually get through an audit for an UK ATO approval.

Thanks, portsharbourflyer.
With ref. to your ⌗6 observation, (13th Sept), the OAA experience was when I was asked back to do some support UPRT and aerobatics instruction in 2003. This was required training for some Algerian Air Force pilots and a couple from a N.African airline. We were using a couple of Zlin 242Ls for the job as well as, occasionally, a Bulldog. I was only needed for 4 months.

The Zlin was still there for UPRT until the end of 2020. But more recently all the UPRT was subed out to CRM at White Waltham.

Surprised the Zlin hadn't had it's day earlier ! However , phf, the sub'ing out of the UPRT to CRM is an inspired choice, isn't it ?
They aren't too far away, have a good fleet of Slingsby T67s and a selection of some of the best instructors in the business.
All CRM's UPRT instructors are a choice of hardened professionals from the both the Services or from very experienced aerobatic and display backgrounds. What better ?
A big plus is that the MD is a professionally licenced pilot too, with a great national aerobatic background himself. Who better to recognise, organise and run the UPRT training that for years was missing during the rise of the "glass" cockpit. Some of us were warning of this necessity back in the late eighties !

Very good point, Sleeve. The legendary D P Davies of Handling the Big Jet Fame made a recommendation that airline pilots should have routine access to aerobatic trainers to keep up handling competency. That was back in the 60s!