Civil Flying School at YMMB
 

Good morning, all,

Does anyone have any idea what has happened to CFS at Moorabbin?

My reason for asking is that an elderly neighbour was given a birthday present of an hour's flight with them in a Cessna 150 but, when he went to Third Street at YMMB last Friday to set up a date, he found the premises deserted.

He came to me since he knows of my aviation background, and the fact that I live close to YMMB, so I thought I'd ask here. I looked up their web-site, it still appears with no info whatever!

Over to you,

Best regards,

TheNightOwl:confused:

Closed...
 

TNO,

I had an email from a mate who told me the other day that they'd shut up shop for good. A sad day for Civil, but inevitable really, as they'd been
mismanaged for years. Sadly, the last ditch buy out attempt was also a failure.

They also owed me money, but I'm guessing I wont be seening any of that.

AFAIK, the gift certificates were via a vendor company (such as Adrenaline or Wishlist). I'd suggest your neighbour contact them to see if it is transferable to something else, or refundable so that he can go to another flying school for his flight.

Hope this helps,

DIVOSH!

And the phone number doesnt work. Brings up an error saying "Number Not Connected"...

Fax line still rings, though I didnt actually send anything.

Wasn't Civil the ones doing some large training courses for a large airline in the area?

I heard about Civil on the w/e.

They went down hill, owing rent on the hangar and building, and they're phone is disconnected by the landlord. Also they CFI and grade 1 instructors still turned up for work when they were locked out.

It wasnt long a go (I think 2001) they merged with Troy aviation. Geez how many flying schools at left at MB? i know GAS are only doing contract training and not taking on private students.


Jnr380

Di Vosh - many thanks for the info, yours appears to be the best bet for my neighbour, so far.

I know life for the training establishments has been hard for some time now, but it's still sad to see another go to the wall, perhaps moreso for those still owed money than the owners who must have realised what was in the wind.

Cheers,

TheNightOwl.

Gee this is becoming more more common hearing of outfits shutting up shop.
Is this a reflection of times and increased expense or a lack of students coming through the doors due to cost of flying these days . Both iassume , it seems unless you got students coming from off-shore its pretty bloody hard.

:ok:

G'day Mate
 

TNO,
How the hell are you, long time no hear.
What are you up to these days?

BSB

BSB: Check your PMs.

Best regards,

TNO.

Aircabbie
 

Mate,

Not so much a reflection of the times; more a case of very apathetic management over a number of years.

Although the points you made didn't help, MB and GA could have been having a boom time and the end result would probably have been the same.

DIVOSH!

cheers mate , sounds like rough roads ahead for the smaller GA guys from what i can gather ..

Nightowl

Its a shame to hear that Civil's have gone, I did my PPL with them back in the 80's........times change sadly.

Give the RVAC a call, they were very decent when I was last at MB, which sadly was last year.

N2000

pm me for any further info

Anyone know of the whereabouts of E.Wittenburg? He was an instructor at Civils when I was there 5-6 years ago, and a very good one at that.

LaTus
 

Eddie hasn't flown for a few years now. He left Civil to work in the family business in 2004 (or thereabouts). I last caught up with him around 18 months ago.

Hope this helps. :ok:

DIVOSH!

Civil Flying School
 

Thanks to all who posted, I feel that I've struck out as far as helping the old chap goes.

The relative who bought the certificate tells me that it came directly from Civil themselves, so there doesn't appear to be much hope for her money, nor her uncle's flight.

As an aside, would the afore-mentioned Mike Sutcliffe be the one married to Ruth King! Not screamingly important, just being nosey!!

Kind regards,

TheNightOwl.

TNO
 

Short answer: YES

Sorry to hear about your neighbour, and it's a shame about Civil. I keep in touch with most of the instructors, and will be in contact with them when I get back to Oz.

DIVOSH!

Melbourne Flight Training honours voucher
 

I hear Melbourne Flight Training at Moorabbin honoured the voucher, nice work guys!

giant-bird, you beat me to it!

Some days ago, Melbourne Flight Training, in the form of Glen Buckley, sent me a PM advising that they would be happy to honour the voucher, with no strings attached.
I organised for my neighbour to meet Glen, and the upshot was that, yesterday a.m., MFT took him for an hour in a Cessna 172 round the city/bay much to his delight.
He had a ball, I think perhaps some "hands-on" time helped in that regard, and he hasn't stopped telling all and sundry about the experience.
I also have a feeling that the offer of "a beer on a Friday evening" just may be taken up soon!

I want to express here my admiration for MFT and, in particular, Glen Buckley, for the offer and for the pleasure it gave Geoff not only for the flying part, but also for the restoration of his belief in the goodness of most people.
He isn't a youngster, and has a long-time love of flying, and the upset with Civil dented his belief somewhat. For MFT to undertake to fix a problem not of their making, and at their expense, I believe is well worthy of public acclaim and, with Geoff's agreement, I hereby do so.

Well done, Melbourne Flight Training, rest assured that Geoff and I will sing your company's, and personal, praises for a long time to come!!

Kindest regards,

TheNightOwl. :ok:

RVAC -- avoid them!
 

Just to chip in my 2c's worth on the RVAC endorsement above, I would strongly urge any prospective student to evaluate that school carefully before they make their decision to part with their hard-earned!

I went there for some instruction on an ill-informed recommendation, and wasted hours on substandard instructors: No pre or post flight briefings to speak of, thereby provoking very avoidable c:mad:ckups and thus the need for more flights.. go figure! Communication in general lacking to say the least, no attempt to understand the background or needs of the student, plus some of the worst instructional performance I have ever encountered in aviation (basically one guy who justed wanted to get his hours up and couldn't care less about the student, and another one who couldn't teach if his life depended on it and just grabbed the controls whenever he felt like it). :ouch:

Now I am sure there are decent instructors around at RVAC and a lot of people will choose that established club for a lot of good reasons, so just be warned that you probably need to be more clued up than myself and make it very well understood what you need and want (not that I wouldn't expect from a good instructional institution of any ilk to figure that out FOR the student :sad:).

Did you happily wander out to the aircraft with the instructor without a preflight briefing? Or did you ask the instructor "Hey, why havent we briefed yet?"

Did you attempt to communicate with the instructor and find out what his/her aims were, and to express your aims?

Did you attempt to convey your background and needs to the instructor?

Did you arrange a meeting with the CFI at the conclusion to discuss the experience you had, and to address shortcomings in their instructional system?

RVAC
 

Yes I did give them my briefing about where I was coming from and what I needed, but that information was ignored resp. not passed on from the CFI to the instructors.

I did try to communicate, but as originally posted both asigned instructors had issues or alterior motives. I took a passenger up without telling him what the issue was (I thought it was me being dumb..), he confirmed my observations..

Not trying to justify my behaviour here (I should have left without giving them the benefit of the doubt for a few flights), just trying to alert the avid reader that they should be careful when evaluating who to spend their hard earned with..