Flying School Owner makes AFR rich list
instructors are there to build their own hours and milk the students money,
if you want to learn t fly go somewhere that doesn't have yellow planes and are desperate to get your money,
for a Cpl licence at soar cost nearly $90k plus paying out of pocket aswell if you go to another school its only $50k
1 star if you didn't already guess.
In regards to other reviews on Google, quite a few are people who either haven't studied there or haven't even started studying there or are clearly in their employment and they still only manage 2.8 Stars at Bankstown and 3.9 in Melbourne.
More reviews such as this one
I left on ethical grounds. My moral compass pointed to the door. Watching these poor students get baited in only to get robbed. I could not look at students out of shame. Pay was OK but I don't want to be known as being involved in robbing students who don't know better. available here https://www.glassdoor.com.au/Reviews...s-E2602783.htm
I left on ethical grounds. My moral compass pointed to the door. Watching these poor students get baited in only to get robbed. I could not look at students out of shame. Pay was OK but I don't want to be known as being involved in robbing students who don't know better. available here https://www.glassdoor.com.au/Reviews...s-E2602783.htm
Last edited by Clare Prop; 14th Nov 2019 at 00:34. Reason: Formatting! Even when I cut and paste, it puts this stuff in
To Soar's current/former students: Can anyone shed light into Soar's surprisingly high Google review ratings? I mean, going by what I read here, I would have expected anywhere between 1 and 2 stars but going through a few that gave 5 stars has me wondering who these people really are. Instructors themselves keeping busy on IMC days? Some reviews really depict a grim picture consistent with your stories above. I'm sorry, this one is too good not to share with you all:
Here's one from "a week ago" (highlighting mine):
... seriously!?
And here's one by someone who's been brainwashed:
Amending rather than cancelling SARTIME 50 miles out is probably what you'd expect a school to teach, methinks. I also think that the kid just showed very publicly that he had no understanding at all of what SARTIME is for, again not particularly commending for a school sending someone on a solo nav.
Here's one from "a week ago" (highlighting mine):
... seriously!?
And here's one by someone who's been brainwashed:
Amending rather than cancelling SARTIME 50 miles out is probably what you'd expect a school to teach, methinks. I also think that the kid just showed very publicly that he had no understanding at all of what SARTIME is for, again not particularly commending for a school sending someone on a solo nav.
I hope SOAR gets utterly taken apart in court.
Best of luck.
Best of luck.
Have any unhappy students complained to Consumer Affairs (Vic) or Fair Trading (NSW)? Then you have a complaint at state as well as federal level.
https://www.consumer.vic.gov.au/prod...eptive-conduct
https://www.consumer.vic.gov.au/prod...eptive-conduct
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Some of these new companies are redefining the term "starting at the bottom".
I recall many moons ago when RMIT created the "Aviation Degree" and met a bunch of them at Benalla flying gliders. This was around the time when HECS fees were introduced and university chancellors were finding more inventive and lucrative ways of funding themselves. The small market of educating foreign students turned into a huge market of milking them. It was inevitable that as the big players developed this market then new players would emerge to pick up the crumbs, so it's unsurprising we now have these kinds of exploitative education institutions delivering some of the most incredibly stupid and useless degrees.
Unfortunately I never had rich parents to pay for my training, and I was not alone. Financial constraints were the primary reason for development delays and that reality was normally accepted in the aviation industry unless you went military, but even there exists a story of a young adult collecting supermarket shopping trolleys for funding his initial flight training and ended up flying F-18s. It was normal for an ab-initio to take over a year to get the basic flying ticket due to a money deficit rather than skill.
I started off on Warriors and Cessnas - these were the bottom of the pile for most of us, occasionally we'd have a crack at something more interesting through club contacts which was novel. Back then we all knew our planes, our engines, our steam gauges, and our aviation history, we also knew what crap we didn't want to be seen flying in.
Unfortunately the victims of SOAR are your typical victims of commercial exploitation that can occur in any industry - health, finance, property, retirement, etc, etc.
The golden rule is to always do your homework.
I recall many moons ago when RMIT created the "Aviation Degree" and met a bunch of them at Benalla flying gliders. This was around the time when HECS fees were introduced and university chancellors were finding more inventive and lucrative ways of funding themselves. The small market of educating foreign students turned into a huge market of milking them. It was inevitable that as the big players developed this market then new players would emerge to pick up the crumbs, so it's unsurprising we now have these kinds of exploitative education institutions delivering some of the most incredibly stupid and useless degrees.
Unfortunately I never had rich parents to pay for my training, and I was not alone. Financial constraints were the primary reason for development delays and that reality was normally accepted in the aviation industry unless you went military, but even there exists a story of a young adult collecting supermarket shopping trolleys for funding his initial flight training and ended up flying F-18s. It was normal for an ab-initio to take over a year to get the basic flying ticket due to a money deficit rather than skill.
I started off on Warriors and Cessnas - these were the bottom of the pile for most of us, occasionally we'd have a crack at something more interesting through club contacts which was novel. Back then we all knew our planes, our engines, our steam gauges, and our aviation history, we also knew what crap we didn't want to be seen flying in.
Unfortunately the victims of SOAR are your typical victims of commercial exploitation that can occur in any industry - health, finance, property, retirement, etc, etc.
The golden rule is to always do your homework.
How do you do homework as an ab initio potential student? No contacts in the industry as well as a general culture of fear?
Take for example, the ****e sounding organisations that advertise right now on prunes masthead.
Take for example, the ****e sounding organisations that advertise right now on prunes masthead.
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Nothing is given for $0 at that school, so I’d say in my opinion, an excess is taken from all the other students to anoint one or two, who will then go on to write the good reviews.
It’s few and far between for those ‘success’ stories, but promoted at the expense of the truth.
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I'm one of the few that have managed to graduate with a CPL from soar this year.
Most of the complaints you read are true, I was fortunate enough to have one instructor with a few years of real world multi-turbine experience under their belt for my final 6 months who didn't let me make a single mistake.
It's disheartening to hear the industry reaction to Soar graduates. I love aviation and read everything I can about it, and am currently working full time to save up for MEIFR, but am not looking forward to doors shutting in my face when the inevitable question of 'so where did you train' comes up from potential employers.
Most of the complaints you read are true, I was fortunate enough to have one instructor with a few years of real world multi-turbine experience under their belt for my final 6 months who didn't let me make a single mistake.
It's disheartening to hear the industry reaction to Soar graduates. I love aviation and read everything I can about it, and am currently working full time to save up for MEIFR, but am not looking forward to doors shutting in my face when the inevitable question of 'so where did you train' comes up from potential employers.
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How do you do homework as an ab initio potential student?
Well, that is a life lesson. I learnt by myself when quite young that good things tend to sell themselves and utter garbage often has the biggest marketing push behind it. If more ab-initio folk weren't so precious about themselves then this company would have gone out of business a long, long time ago and quality institutions, like the aforementioned Peter Bini Advanced Flying Training, would have gone from strength to strength.
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watched him become a multi millionaire
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For those who know the people at Bini, I think you'll find that they see themselves as the other end of the curve, that is, highly differentiated, providing a personalised training, and focusing on quality and standards, and certainly not on volume. They seem to have no ambition to become a larger school which I truly respect. At the other end you have Soar (and metoos), big on marketing with shiny instagram accounts and websites, high volumes but obviously poor on quality and standards. I don't want to be too broad brush here, but all the other MB operators I had dealings with were some kind of trade off between the two, or stuck in the middle.
With regard to ab initio kids doing their homework, the least you would expect someone to do is hit up "Flying schools Melbourne/Sydney/..." or some kind of similar keywords on Google. Here's perhaps where experienced pilots/recent graduates/current students with a view to improve/give back to training could do something. I don't think that it would take much more than a nicely designed web page with no affiliation (and certainly not to flight training operators) that provides a clear picture of the current flying training environment in Australia. This would include the structure of training, advantages/drawbacks of the integrated vs. nonintegrated curricula, common pitfalls, words on the type of aircraft, things to consider once training started (school organisation, sticking to schedules, ...), etc. In addition to providing an utterly clear and impartial message (i.e. no bashing of RA aircraft, just an objective statement what things are), this web page could also have an "endorsement" where real pilots just add their name to a statement such as "My name is XXX, and this is what I would like to have known when I started my training" and those who want could volunteer some of their time to answer questions. There would also be a chapter on how to deal on a personal level with difficult instructors. I found it common to find students feeling "stuck" with an instructor they dislike for fear of speaking up when they forget that they really are the client and, as such, should feel free (if not entitled) to request to train with someone else.
The page could be maintained by donations in an effort to depart from a money making standard unfortunately pervasive nowadays. It would be a free resource with no strings attached. I don't think it would take much beyond some of you willing to spend a bit of time reviewing the content. Any ab initio would certainly find it worth $10 of their budget and pitch in at one point or the other.
One free resource that I found particularly refreshing and useful while doing my IR was this one: https://weflyplanes.com.au/
I don't think that flight training needs to be such a painful experience in Australia. That luck plays such an overinflated part in something that is so expensive really doesn't make sense to me.
With regard to ab initio kids doing their homework, the least you would expect someone to do is hit up "Flying schools Melbourne/Sydney/..." or some kind of similar keywords on Google. Here's perhaps where experienced pilots/recent graduates/current students with a view to improve/give back to training could do something. I don't think that it would take much more than a nicely designed web page with no affiliation (and certainly not to flight training operators) that provides a clear picture of the current flying training environment in Australia. This would include the structure of training, advantages/drawbacks of the integrated vs. nonintegrated curricula, common pitfalls, words on the type of aircraft, things to consider once training started (school organisation, sticking to schedules, ...), etc. In addition to providing an utterly clear and impartial message (i.e. no bashing of RA aircraft, just an objective statement what things are), this web page could also have an "endorsement" where real pilots just add their name to a statement such as "My name is XXX, and this is what I would like to have known when I started my training" and those who want could volunteer some of their time to answer questions. There would also be a chapter on how to deal on a personal level with difficult instructors. I found it common to find students feeling "stuck" with an instructor they dislike for fear of speaking up when they forget that they really are the client and, as such, should feel free (if not entitled) to request to train with someone else.
The page could be maintained by donations in an effort to depart from a money making standard unfortunately pervasive nowadays. It would be a free resource with no strings attached. I don't think it would take much beyond some of you willing to spend a bit of time reviewing the content. Any ab initio would certainly find it worth $10 of their budget and pitch in at one point or the other.
One free resource that I found particularly refreshing and useful while doing my IR was this one: https://weflyplanes.com.au/
I don't think that flight training needs to be such a painful experience in Australia. That luck plays such an overinflated part in something that is so expensive really doesn't make sense to me.
Last edited by Okihara; 15th Nov 2019 at 16:01.
For those who know the people at Bini, I think you'll find that they see themselves as the other end of the curve, that is, highly differentiated, providing a personalised training, and focusing on quality and standards, and certainly not on volume. At the other end you have Soar, big on marketing and volume, obviously poor on quality and standards. I don't want to be too broad brush here, but all the other MB operators I had dealings with were some kind of trade off between the two, or stuck in the middle.
With regard to ab initio kids doing their homework, the least you would expect someone to do is hit up "Flying schools Melbourne" or some kind of similar keywords on Google. Here's perhaps where experienced pilots/recent graduates/current students with a view to improve training could do something. I don't think that it would take much more than a nicely designed web page with no affiliation (and certainly not to flight training operators) that provides a clear picture of the current flying training environment in Australia. In addition to providing an utterly clear message, this web page could have an "endorsement" where real pilots just add their name to a statement such as "My name is XXX, and I endorse the advice to prospective new pilots".
The page could be maintained by donations. I don't think it would take much and any ab initio would certainly find it worth $10 of their budget.
With regard to ab initio kids doing their homework, the least you would expect someone to do is hit up "Flying schools Melbourne" or some kind of similar keywords on Google. Here's perhaps where experienced pilots/recent graduates/current students with a view to improve training could do something. I don't think that it would take much more than a nicely designed web page with no affiliation (and certainly not to flight training operators) that provides a clear picture of the current flying training environment in Australia. In addition to providing an utterly clear message, this web page could have an "endorsement" where real pilots just add their name to a statement such as "My name is XXX, and I endorse the advice to prospective new pilots".
The page could be maintained by donations. I don't think it would take much and any ab initio would certainly find it worth $10 of their budget.
Although given the content of this thread I wouldn’t advertise where you trained. Some people put where they did their CPL on their resume. This mostly never gets looked at and if you don’t include it nobody will notice.
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Actually, if anyone reading this is seriously considering giving me a hand with my idea above, let get organised and PM me.
Caveat emptor.
If there are false representations about the product/services that is a matter for the State consumer affairs/fair trading department. Also at State level, the institutes that provide these qualifications.
If taxpayers money is being used as a lure then I would suggest there could be a level of corruption that goes pretty high at the federal level.
Would a bank lend a flying student the money for this? Bearing in mind there is no aptitude testing and a pilots career can be destroyed in an instant with a medical event?
If not then neither should we, the taxpayers.
Of course the schools will tell prospects what they want to hear...the government will pay for you to be a pilot and then you will get a job in a shiny jet. We all know it's bull**** but you can't expect the students to know.
Not all of us school owners want to be multi millionaires. Personally I get satisfaction from knowing when I hop on QF9 one of my old students will be flying me to London. What we watch is these schools come and go leaving a trail of destruction for students, instructors and suppliers, then another one comes along (often the same characters reappear) and the whole cycle begins again. The common denominator? Government loans.
If there are false representations about the product/services that is a matter for the State consumer affairs/fair trading department. Also at State level, the institutes that provide these qualifications.
If taxpayers money is being used as a lure then I would suggest there could be a level of corruption that goes pretty high at the federal level.
Would a bank lend a flying student the money for this? Bearing in mind there is no aptitude testing and a pilots career can be destroyed in an instant with a medical event?
If not then neither should we, the taxpayers.
Of course the schools will tell prospects what they want to hear...the government will pay for you to be a pilot and then you will get a job in a shiny jet. We all know it's bull**** but you can't expect the students to know.
Not all of us school owners want to be multi millionaires. Personally I get satisfaction from knowing when I hop on QF9 one of my old students will be flying me to London. What we watch is these schools come and go leaving a trail of destruction for students, instructors and suppliers, then another one comes along (often the same characters reappear) and the whole cycle begins again. The common denominator? Government loans.
Last edited by Clare Prop; 16th Nov 2019 at 10:07.
Caveat emptor.
If there are false representations about the product/services that is a matter for the State consumer affairs/fair trading department. Also at State level, the institutes that provide these qualifications.
If taxpayers money is being used as a lure then I would suggest there could be a level of corruption that goes pretty high at the federal level.
Would a bank lend a flying student the money for this? Bearing in mind there is no aptitude testing and a pilots career can be destroyed in an instant with a medical event?
If not then neither should we, the taxpayers.
Of course the schools will tell prospects what they want to hear...the government will pay for you to be a pilot and then you will get a job in a shiny jet. We all know it's bull**** but you can't expect the students to know.
Not all of us school owners want to be multi millionaires. Personally I get satisfaction from knowing when I hop on QF9 one of my old students will be flying me to London. What we watch is these schools come and go leaving a trail of destruction for students, instructors and suppliers, then another one comes along (often the same characters reappear) and the whole cycle begins again. The common denominator? Government loans.
If there are false representations about the product/services that is a matter for the State consumer affairs/fair trading department. Also at State level, the institutes that provide these qualifications.
If taxpayers money is being used as a lure then I would suggest there could be a level of corruption that goes pretty high at the federal level.
Would a bank lend a flying student the money for this? Bearing in mind there is no aptitude testing and a pilots career can be destroyed in an instant with a medical event?
If not then neither should we, the taxpayers.
Of course the schools will tell prospects what they want to hear...the government will pay for you to be a pilot and then you will get a job in a shiny jet. We all know it's bull**** but you can't expect the students to know.
Not all of us school owners want to be multi millionaires. Personally I get satisfaction from knowing when I hop on QF9 one of my old students will be flying me to London. What we watch is these schools come and go leaving a trail of destruction for students, instructors and suppliers, then another one comes along (often the same characters reappear) and the whole cycle begins again. The common denominator? Government loans.
I didn’t really see any gouging from them even even though their prices were on the higher side around the airport. But you were getting newish 172’s and the maintenance was decent at the time. So it can be done that a school does VET fee/HECS and holds up their end of the bargain.
The only thing I had to question and get removed from my account at the time was the seemingly random admin fees that kept propping up.
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If Bini’s has registered as an RTO, along with Tristar and all the other little schools, they too would have a piece of this sizeable pie. Instead they watched him become a multi millionaire.