swinburne uni/oxford aviation academy pilot training course
 

I everyone,
This is my first post here. I am commencing pilot training through Swinburne uni/General Flying Services/Oxford aviation academy next year in melbourne. And for all you wannabe pilots withough 90grand lying around, incase you werent aware, the swinburne course costs 88000aud but 83000 of this can be offsetted through the governments fee help scheme. So you only pay 8000 upfront and it gets you up to a atpl standard with further choices of instructor, multicrew or turbine endorsements. Including of course a bachelor degree in aviation at the end of the course.
Does anyone have any experience with the swinburne course? And i have also been wondering how been trained under oxford aviation academy will increase my job prospects, because it is a pretty prestegious organisation. I have heared many graduates only wait 6 months before they are employed by airlines.

Well yea, if your in the UK you would expect to be in a jet within 6 months regardless of the course. If you are staying in OZ, it will turn into about 6 years :{

yeah, but there is nothing like a working visa :ok:

correct me if i am worng but don't u have to pay 20% of the course fee if its an undergraduate program

No. If you're in the UK you'd have little chance of a job, let alone a jet job within 6 months. Take a look around.

you have to eventually pay all of it back through your future wages, but as for an upfront payment, no.

do you know of anyone who has been to the cadet programs .. would like feedback on the program

Hey mate,

I am currently doing the double degree and ill give you my opinion on the course so far. If you have flying experience else where or started your ppl, get it completed or you will go back to start and be charged 26K(so you would have wasted your money), then you will proceed to be stripped of every dollar possible by Oxford for the rest of your training, they are very slack and you will luckily fly once a week or fortnight, I started with a PPL and did zero flying for 12 months until everyone caught up whilst then having to pay 1.2K for a little g1000 generalisation/test nav at $400 an hour to receive prior recognition because my licence from CASA obviously means nothing. Which is an absolute joke of a rate for a 172S, the course is unorganised and most subjects are not enjoyable at all. You will get a total of 4-6 4 hour theory classes for each CPL subject and be expected to pass and self study from onwards after being taught by some pretty average graduates. Any other school would spend 1-2 Weeks full time 5 days a week on each subject.

Overall i rate the course(flying part) as a complete joke, it is now getting worse with the Jetstar cadetship as they will receive priority over bookings, and there was already not enough instructors and they add another 70 students. This school may look prestigious but it is not. It will not help you in the long run in my opinion given that you do not get to land on any unsealed strips because they are scared you will damage the aeroplane, you will also be charged extra fees(landing fuel etc) and loads of cash for books etc, in which some were not used and should be included in the hire rate like every other school at Moorabbin to a degree. You also complete your training at the slowest possible rate and do the minimum hours required to be able to have a CPL, doing it elsewhere will get it done faster, and you will get more experience and learn more instead of avoiding somethings because that saves costs(ie essendon airport, flyaways, aircraft maintenance). It will also put you ahead of everyone else because you will able to get a job earlier than everyone in the course. Which in turn means faster turn around time before an airline job if that is what you want and you wont have to compete against 70+ kids all with the exact same hours etc for a possible job in GA. You will also have the bonus of being able to fly analogue cockpit instead of taking off and turning the autopilot on ASAP, and letting the plane do the essential skills you would need.

After i use my 26K for this semester and the first stage of the CPL licence, i am out of there, oxford that is, you can still complete the degree and not do any flying, you will have to do the theory at oxford though. Oxford are a complete rip off, I am returning to my previous school where there is a 90% chance i will have my CPL by the end of the year even before December and 100% before the end of January if cash is available. Otherwise i would probably be looking at next year march maybe later. Oxford do not care about you, you become a number to them, in which they lose track of very easily. Where as things were completely different at my previous school. Where i will still fly glass and analogue because airlines do like training on a glass cockpit.

Oxford nearly pushed me into just giving up on becoming a pilot after the absolute crap i have gone through and hurdles i have to jump through. I know this is a joke of a flying school because it took 12 months for some students to complete there PPL last year, and I know a few people who i went through with at school or did my PPL with who already have there MECIR and CPL now, one just started at the end of april and just about to sit his CPL. If you have the cash it would be very wise to go elsewhere and maybe if you want a degree to fall back on do a business degree with Swinburne or do the double degree with Aviation but don't do the flying.

If i had my chance again, I would have done a business or commerce degree or something that interests me, and paid for it to be done privately, whilst this may not be possible for many people, i know a couple of guys who get there parents to back loans or they work for a year before uni earning some money and becoming eligible for a private loan, a few headed to WA to work in the mines and now have enough to pay for their CPL upfront with extra options if they want, I also would have probably completed my CPL now and maybe my instructor rating and have a job. But....


Another major issue is the maintenance on the planes, we are probably paying the most expensive rate at Moorabbin for the planes we fly, and Oxford owns a maintenance company at Moorabbin(sort of). They jumped prices up as soon as fee-help was made possible, because they know the people who cannot afford it, cannot go elsewhere. So they would have very high profit margins, anyway the maintenance on the planes is disgraceful, been a few kids leaving planes in NSW due to alternator failure on the ground luckily, or simple things being U/S in the maintenance release and taking them ages to fix. They pretty much own a maintenance company but obviously refuse to do a good job. Most likely because they need mostly every plane the have got because they have too many students and want the plane back ASAP.

Oh and don't screw up a flight, because you have to pay out of your pocket otherwise due to pretty much zero leeway or cop another 1.8K to fee-help for an extra practicum.

The training they give is useless too, most schools would do your IFR on a multi-engine except oxford give you a single engine IFR rating which is just useless in my opinion and you have to pay or cop another 8K i think for optional Multi after your CPL. Where as the price the charge for a 182 which you do your IFR in is equivalent to a Seminole elsewhere.

PM me if you want any information man. I know i had my hopes high before this course and would defend it to anyone who said a bad word about it. But now it is just spiraling downwards.

And don't get me started on the Qantas cadet ship option or the Jetstar cadet ship.

I agree with about 90% of what charles321 said.

The course made me very de-motivated very fast. I started the course in 06 (no fee help) and noticed costs rise yearly in Jan/Feb. I think the first hike in 07 that I witnessed was due to "rising fuel prices". After they fell - prices stayed the same, and then eventually went up.

I completed about 175hrs with my CPL (no S/E IFR crap that the new syllabus has) but it only cost me about 55k... nowhere near to the 80 mark some other people are calling.

Never got to fly into YMEN. Only got to land in Colac for a dirt strip - oh and once out of sheer luck on a dirt strip somewhere out near Bendigo.

$1,100 per year in "admin fees". apparently this is to cover costs of them photocopying notes for us (when I asked it was the only answer I got on several occasions over the years). We still got charged the 900$ or so per year for the subjects onto our HECS (as the theory is a swinburne subject). That's $3,300 all up in 3 years.... if any past students have had any issues/success with getting this money back - PLEASE priv message me.

What was said above is mostly right. Classes were in hindsight mediocre. They were good the first year or two but got worse as time went on. It really depended on the instructor you landed - and I cant compare to other schools as I have not really spent much time in any. Some instructors were slack and left us self-studying while some were superb.

Training wise - I landed good instructors who drilled me and really tried to bring the best out in my flying. And my close friends who graduated with me agree the flying training in the actual a/c was fine - maybe we all had good instructors. But it did become a numbers game through no fault of the instructors - filled out with bookings and very very little time to sit down with you and consult you on what you need to improve on. They were all over the place.

Didn't really get to experience any sort of mx related stuff or things that would have benefited me more in GA. Something I was lucky enough to experience quite early on with a GA operator in the bush when I hit the road.

The atmosphere wasn't friendly. It felt more like a business (and yeah, it is but cmon) rather than a training school. After being briefly in other schools in MB - and even though my experiences there were brief - I noticed a clear difference in the atmosphere and how more personal the training is and the relation between isntructor and student and the effort the school puts in to helping you out and making sure you enjoy the journey.

Swinnie students got shafted in bookings behind cadets. At one point in 08 I came very close to doing my training elsewhere and I hear a lot of students do do their PPL in other schools. They might try tell you that you cant - but you can. If you want the degree I believe you only need your CPL test done with OAA as it apparently counts as a subject thats needed for your paper (no credit subject)??.

If you wanted something done or booked in - you had to do all the chasing up. in 2006 when I started it was fine but then it went downhill fast. I had to keep calling and chasing up instructors etc and push them to book me in for flights that I wanted. From 0 hours to my PPL - I was thrown between about 4 instructors (first 2 left for airlines half way through - cant blame them). post PPL - night rating - back and forth between 4 or 5 guys. CPL I was lucky to stick with 1 guy although bookings were tight. Though that's probably to be expected when your training takes close to 4 years to complete (double degree).

It's just not as structured as you might think. It really comes down to the instructors you land - ie why some hate it and some dont mind - although some students hate instructors I've flown with and vice versa. The ones I flew with were good and I believe they did what they could to teach me what they could. No real complaints there. My blame lays in whoever is running the joint.

If I was leaving yr12 now... 95% sure I would not be going back to GFS/Oxford.


rant over:uhoh:

i come for modualr training...I got 4-5 jobs in the past.Jut got another job offer last week.

you don't need to go to these expensive schools.Belive me, at the end, the license is the same.

these schools spend 20% in advertismnt thatYOU pay, then you pay salaries the big manager who drive expensive cars, and have nice houses...YOU pay for that.

crazydud2000, you state your location as UK but this thread is about Australia. Do you know enough of the Australian licence/pilot market to make such a comment?

I do not mean to praise OAA in anyway, I started at GFS and witnessed the transfer... there is a light at the end of the tunnel. If you are dedicated you will find your way and eventually to a job. Many of my fellow graduates are now in jobs after coming out during the financial crisis.

The key is persistence and determination. I finished with greater than 20 instructors who I flew with during my time there and all I did was persevere and find any booking I could, it taught me to be flexible and accepting of different methods of flying and was able to pick the best methods from each instructor. I am now instructing myself and thank god was able to do the instructor rating with FEE help.

The cost is too much to be considered fair... and if you have the work ethic you can get your CPL without FEE help, you just have to work. Mind you my parents contributed no more than 10% of my training costs and I footed the bill for the rest, if it is what you want to do you need to sacrifice parts of your life and trust me it makes you a much better person when you work for it now and you will appreciate every opportunity you get. Im 22 and worked like a dog for too long, now im sitting pretty on that extra low GA wage but I could not be happier, I am on my career path and moving forward.

There are good people at OAA and if that is your choice just make sure you are informed as much as possible about all the other options out there. Flying skills can not be blamed on whether or not you can fly with a G1000 or analogue cockpit... I made that transition quiet easily. And you do get analogue experience in a decathalon, if your that pressed go hire a plane at your local aeroclub and play with the 6 pack. As far as I know an AH is an AH and a HSI a DG... don't visual pilots use attitudes for reference anyway? :ok:

at charles,
everyone has faced issues similar with OAA, however seriously.... quit ur b!tching. No one said this would be an easy course. If u cant stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
*apologies for sounding rude*

Completely agree with onezeroonethree and charles321

Clearly you have no clue mate, I didn't make any comments to say the course is hard, and clearly im in the wrong because if everyone faces the same issues its okay then?
So when there is a lack maintenance on all the planes its okay then....


I have much respect for what was GFS but now since the school has been taken over by OAA it has been completely ruined imo. I was organised and set to do this course when it was still GFS, i had high hopes and I had the loan organised with my parents and was going to happily pay out of my pocket, I heard nothing but good things about the previous kids who went through GFS, i even had instructors who did all their training there, they had a great setup and great staff. Still most of the staff are, but the opportunity for FEE-Help has led them to take advantage of every kid that wanted to become a pilot but couldn't afford it. The costs are absurd, and now there is simply way too many kids for them to handle.

Yeah Glass is good but i believe kids should be taught to actually fly the plane not flick a switch and let the GPS do the work.

I have been at OAA for some time now, so my clue is as valid as yours.

> If you dont like GPS... press the big shiny red button and its gone.
>If you dont like wind vector, turn it off.
>If you like analogue then change flight schools, or better yet... go to another flight school every now and then like tyabb and fly their cessnas.
>You also say you didnt like having to pay to be 'familiarized' with the G1000. If you can find any flight school which is willing to let some random take a $400'000 plane solo with no familiarization, then I'd like to see that.

You're not the only one who has to deal with cr@p either. Everyone does. So harden up muffin.

I'm off to do some solo.

A lot of OAT students actually do the flying part of their training next door to OAT at MFS as that saves them about $100 every hour and that equates to a lot of savings throughtout the entire course. Besides MFS appears to receive good reviews in these forums.

Don't want to start a Cessna vs Piper debate but you can see MFS adding brand new factory aeroplanes to their fleet every season, balking the traditional Aussie trend of much older aircraft.

ReverseFlight/Like_That is correct. If you have a problem Charles, FIX it. Dont b!tch about it.

I hear MFS has some new pipers with Avidyne system too. Looks pretty sexy.

@charles i hav no idea what maintenance issues ur going on about. Yes planes hav broken down but i have never have had a flight cancelled due to an aircraft being u/s. ah the joys of going to big a flight school


my biggest problem though is ur comments on fee-help. Not all of us are blessed with rich parents to give us loans to go become pilots. Fee-help allows people who have the will and the work effect to become pilots and oxford is accomindating to that.

And last time i checked OAA was meant to prepare you for the airlines, most of which use GPS, get with the times man

Don't worry I'm quite happy pressing the big red button as soon as I get my moneys worth from fee help, just move to the otherside of mb and I pay $30 less an hour for a 182t(compared to a 172) that was oxfords. I understand the familiarization costs but do you think $3000 is fair? until i had to argue about it but still cost me about $1500 out of pocket and another $400 from fee-help this was also after i had completed night circuits and two night navs. Even though I flew 172R for my PPL. Fee-help also prevents us flying elsewhere like mfs for example because it's one block of cash that is charged so you do every hour of flying at oxford. You can't use that money elsewhere.