Delta Echo Bravo

Well, not for some I'm sure, but for all of the people I know that went there. What a rip off school. Having been an experience pro pilot already I thought it wise to shop around and pick a decent school, well, the head of training at triple 'A' is a fantastic sales man and will give you a fantastic speal about psychology and all the rest of it. Well, thats it. You'll hear that over and over again, and three times the cost later... well, maybe 2.5 times... you're fed up. Well that was my opinion.

The school, in my very humble opinion of course, is poorly run, inefficient and will stare you down when you stand up to their bully tactics. Even the words "you don't have a leg to stand on" were used to tell a student they had no legal recourse after they weren't happy with the service. Well, we do, and it's called word of mouth. Oh, and even once I'd paid my final bill, I still had bills arriving through my door day after day, weeks after training was completed. Ok, yes I did owe them, but why is their accounting system so slow? unnacceptable.

Looking back, I wish I'd chosen BCFT or PAT at bournemouth after all.

trainer too 2

With al respect can't you be more specific as it is easy to claim all kind of things of this nature.

-Why did the cost go up
-Who was the blame for that (sometimes it might be down to you as well... I have seen a lot of people who came for a conversion who had all kind of US licences (even instructors) who were not up to UK standards and found that hard to accept)
-Isn't there another way to deal with this, you have just signed up under this identity and it looks like you have a chip on your shoulder.

In all be more specific please!

Megaton

Stand-by for thread closure! Some schools will take the criticism and defend themselves openly. Some do not. Guess what?

Delta Echo Bravo

The cost went up because when we were being trained in the simulator, it would be frozen, you would be de-briefed while the clock was ticking, then sent back in, having been made to feel like @&$£, performing poorly, and on went the cycle.

Grounschool would be double charged to two students, not common practice despite what the head of training might claim.

The instructors would demoralise you while flying, particularly in high workload situations meaning more approaches... MORE MONEY.

Whatever is said above could be put down to me being unnable to cope, but this is a story I hear over and over from AAA students. I know I can cope because of the job I'm doing now and the job I did previously, both of which as a pilot I should add.

There is another way to deal with this. Re-imburse a percentage of the cost incurred. I was quoted £8,500 for the training I required as a "rough" figure. £22,000 is does certainly not qualify as roughly around £8,500.

I have just signed up under this name. I don't have a chip, just a respect for fellow aviators and potential aviators. I have been using PPRUNE for years, just not under this name. When I did have a chip on my shoulder, I didn't post because I knew I wouldn't be objective.

Happy school hunting my fellow aviators. Remember, it's worth it in the end, especially if you save yourself the grief of £10,000 or more.

trainer too 2

Jus received this PM from a Dumb E B

Just to let you know:
-I am not Mike
-I guessed ok that you had american licences by looking at only oher post you made.

If you were smart enough to have done a profile and posting check on me you would know that

-I am Dutch
-Fly 737s
-Trained at PAT and always recommend them when asked:

As I did not like this school bassing without specifics I jumped on it and am glad that you fit the profile of "I have a lot of hours IF in the states and thus know everthing" profile exactly!

Rest me nothing than to report your posting and congratulating "mike" on getting rid of you after all

Delta Echo Bravo

My IF time is not from the US. I hope it is reported.

I don't know what you mean by 'Mike got rid of me'???

I believe in honesty.

This school was disshonest. I've been to several training establishments around the world. All of which were excellent, except Triple A.

Report Me. Fine. This is the truth, and as for you slandering my ability to look up profiles on PPRUNE, oh well. We live and learn hey.

Bye

Wee Weasley Welshman

Well - AAA have been around for a long time, people here have sung their praises, few have ever complained in this fashion. You are therefore something of a first...

I am 'guessing' that you must have been a problem student as a final bill of £22,000 from and £8,500 quote must have involved a heck of a lot of extra hours. If that were to be happening with any regularity then:

a) I'd have heard about it before now,

b) Nobody much would ever go there.


IF they charge per student for groundschool and thats an open policy available to you prior to going with them then I can't see the problem. Many schools do the same thing so it is common practice.

Whilst no school is perfect I think this anti-AAA rant is unwarranted and unlikely to be true in the way portrayed. Doubtless ex-students with happy tales will later come piling into the discussion.


Cheers

WWW

Megaton

I think the reason that you rarely hear any criticism is that threads on this topic are always closed fairly quickly by the moderators. I'm surprised that www hasn't come across this sort of discussion before? For instance: Triple A discussion

Peggy Murphy

Dont waste your time trying to help give advice to future students of any school. The moderators seem to know it all and would prefer to see all the new guys and girls done out of thousands of pounds. Maybe the schools are paying them to stop these threads.People will do anything for money these days...............even fly planes.

Delta Echo Bravo

Wee Weasley Welshman, one thing to say is, there have been many anti triple 'A' statements on this discussion board. I've seen many of them with my own eyes and have had the pleasure of knowing some of the genuine and honest people who placed them.

This is nothing new.

Aircart

Hey all, interesting can of worms opened here!!!

How ya doing Ham & DEB? I was going to link that thread from last year but you beat me to it!

I have to agree whole heartedly with DEB and HP, I also had a similar experience, follow HP's link to see my post.

To summarise: did Faa IR, came back to convert, Paid AAA £2500 for 16.6hrs over two weeks on sim, got told I was not up to standard and need to do more hrs! Spoke to past students, told to get out of there and did!
Went to AFT (Exeter) did 2.5hrs proving in there sim, onto the twin in 2 days 12hrs training in the BE-76, then a successful 1st time JAA IR Pass! Nothing really to debrief, examiner said it was a nice smooth flight!!

So they can't use the old defence of "this guy's not ready!" That’s bull!
I did feel there was a constant 'put down' policy. My confidence was shot to sh*t at AAA and I wondered if I had the ability to do instrument flying; Obviously not the case from my comments above!

WWW- AAA have been in business for a long time but the current owner hasn't owned it for all of this time, funnily enough the guy that subsequently trained me for the UK IR use to own AAA!!!
I had a chat about AAA to him and it's current policies, suffice to say we had an interesting chat!
The school also doesn’t have that many students in comparison with the better schools and so you aren’t going to hear much about this place, I did a search and couldn't find much on them except bad posts and the occasional "to good to be true post"

This Rant isn't unwarranted, I know at least 2 guys who spent in the region of £ 15000-£20000 on a CPL with this FTO!!!!!!!!

Oh buy the way on my original post, quotes were changed without my knowledge making my reply look a bit odd!

I would like to here other students views, I know who I would and wouldn't recommend!!!

Laters

AC

Wee Weasley Welshman

Alright. Note that this thread HASN'T been removed. If AAA are letting a lot of people down then you are free to post factual examples here.

We have no agenda to defend or promote any FTO. The advertising from any is frankly tiny and I am in total ignorance of it anyway (we are not lavishly paid at PPRuNe HQ).

I'm more than happy for people to post actual experiences be they good or bad - that was a large part of the value of PPRuNe when I was a Wannabe and I don't want to see that die out of an undue respect for fairness or fear of litigation.

Cheers

WWW

mad_jock

To be honest triple AAA do have a very bad rep in the North of England WWW. Its not the first time I have heard similar stuff as above about the costs. Triple in their name also goes for the price quoted.

They are way to interested in maintaining that best pass rate.

When i did visit the smarm was turned on for all of 10 minutes untils he found out i had passed the IR the prievous week at LFS then he disappeared.

And I don't know if its still true BTF is he charging 60 quid for a A4 binder with crap photocopys of the course syllabus. Which gets looked at once when you get given it and then get dumped after your test.

MJ

And BTW its good to see some of these critical threads left open. There are some sharks out there and wannabies need to know

crispy banana

Friend of mine went there last yr and he said the same thing, basically steer well clear ...

Got an interesting email from him with all the details...PM if anyone wants a look

Myself, I went to PAT and found them excellent!

Wee Weasley Welshman

Threads critical of FTO's do cause us major headaches as threats of litigation often fly.

Make sure what you post is accurate and based on personal experience. This way we can let them stand and there is no comeback despite wailing and gnashing of teeth. I'm interested that people think we have been too quick to close FTO critical threads in the past. Duly noted.

Cheers

WWW

Sean Dillon

I've had the wonderful pleasure of this school and I have to say, i'm responsible for alot of postings on closed threads, maybe I went over the top, but I would not wish on anybody what my son went through with this FTO. I have no chip on my shoulder either, my son has now completed his training with a first time IR pass at another FTO and now holds a Pro. Pilot job.

I felt so serious about this, I sent a letter to the CAA at Gatwick with my complaints to make them aware of the general instructing practices of Triple A.

It's very much a mirror of everyone elses story - we paid approx £20k for a CPL/Multi, my son was in tears twice, confidence was rock bottom (which of course would mean more hours!!) he was even asked by one of the instructors if he wanted to carry on training implying he wasn't cabable - is this any way to instruct someone at a professional level? All the time removing well earned money from him (and me!). Like anybody in this world, I hate being ripped off - and the value for money from this FTO is virtually zero.

Having seen the other side of the coin with a different FTO (Professional Air Training) who were highly professional, motivated the students superbly, incredibly good value for money and more importantly, my son enjoyed it from day one to the day he passed his test.

In short,
AVOID, AVOID, AVOID.....

Ikkle!

I went to AAA with a plan to complete my CPL/Multi/IR with them. I so so so wish i'd completed my entire flying training at Bournemouth, instead I only had the great pleasure of completing my IR there.

I would be approx £10k better off and not have gone through, what seems to be a common trait, of low confidence and great stress, both financially and mentally.

Here's a few things from there website that are contradictory to what I experienced:

This was used against me. I remained in full time employment, hardly likely to give up work in-view of the market place! I flew on my days off, not ideal but realistic,- this was very much used to extend my training at great expense. Hence a £20,000 CPL/Multi - outrageous!

Also the psychological rubbish of AAA's version of a pilot profile which I was taught time and time again was completely unrealistic and so out of touch. During my PPL training, I was taught the crab-angle crosswind land method, the most common I think and I was very happy with it. My AAA instructor insisted I did the wing down method because "that's what the airlines will want you to do" - I thought this rather odd and when I asked an A320 captain, the reply was "Yep! The passengers just love coming down the approach with a wing down!! - who taught you that cr*p?"

Friendly NO! - Thorough, YES - about 25 extra hours minimum thorough. To quote one of the instructors who told me "We have our reputation to think about" It was all about maintaining the pass rate.

Ok - I'm crying now!!!!

.
Do it, Do it, Do it!!! Oh please do it!!!.

As this was my first experience of professional flying training, I assumed this teaching style was the norm. I didn't know any better. Please, please, any wannabies at the stage of choosing a flying school do so with extreme caution, not based on pass rates - speak to past students - ignore the sales speak - and make sure your comfortable with the environment.

RVR800

My experience of the IR since JAR

Expensive
Time-Consuming
Difficult
Many jobs in the UK going to none UK nationals
People are economical about the real cost
The maintenance of an IR is high
The ICAO airlines are binning it for direct entry cadets in 2005
The GA man-machine interface in different than Glass cockpit
The single crew mentality has to be unlearnt in the airlines
Many people give up the IR
Only a handful of people get PPL IRs many elect to go FAA IR
It costs 6 pounds a minute and stress is disproportionaltely high
If your old, not wealthy, have kids, have a full time job forget it
The CAA partially fail you very nicely though
The Uk airlines are becoming low cost .. reciprocate - you go low cost
You could go abroad ................................... less than 6K for an JAA-IR

http://www.f-air.cz/www_anglicke/index.htm

In short its a disaster...

Delta Echo Bravo

It's finally good to see us ex-wannabes looking out for the interests of our future colleuges. Any body looking for an FTO, please do tread carefully and take notice of the advice us that have been there have given you.

I'm not saying don't go to a particular school, but my advice is "ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS talk to at least three recently past students of YOUR choice and not the schools who trained there." Do this so you know that what you're getting from the school is what you want.

I'm sure that Triple 'A' has provided satisfaction to some customers, but certainly not to me.

I was very dishartened. It took me a long time to get my personal and professional confidence back, and I already had significant professional experience. Having said that, for all those out there who have had a rough ride with a bad FTO, it is possible to pull through. I'm now sat at an internet cafe in a busy airport waiting for my next flight on a glorious sunny day, loving my job. It'd be just that little sweeter if I was ten grand better off.

See what people have written and learn from our mistakes, PLEASE!!!!!!

Happy flying friends.

scroggs

We do not close down threads because they are critical of FTOs, but we do object to derogatory posts made by people who have not attended the schools they are criticising. If the experience you relate is not your own, you may be guilty of slander or even libel. While I don't really give a damn if you end up in court facing such a charge, unless I can identify you it could be me facing the legal wrath of a libelled school. Anyone here want to take the rap for me?

Thought not.

So, if you want to make posts criticising FTOs, make sure it is your own experience you are talking about, not 'a mate's', and be prepared to identify yourself if your allegations are particularly controversial. If you are not prepared to identify yourself (in private, to the mods), then don't be surprised if your post is removed.

Scroggs