Cabair v's Oxford Aviation ATPL Ground School
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Cabair v's Oxford Aviation ATPL Ground School
Im looking at both of these schools to potentially start the september residential courses.
Have visited OAA and they seemed to have a very good set up, Cabair is quite a bit cheaper though and the money saved could equate to a night rating or a good few hours. I have not been able to go over to cabair yet.
OAA seemed to think they had high 90% pass rates where Cabair were a bit more modest at around 80 - 85%. Not sure if this is a reflection of the instruction, materials or purely down to the individual?
Would like to get a feel from a few people who have attended either school, whats good and whats bad.....
Many Thanks
Have visited OAA and they seemed to have a very good set up, Cabair is quite a bit cheaper though and the money saved could equate to a night rating or a good few hours. I have not been able to go over to cabair yet.
OAA seemed to think they had high 90% pass rates where Cabair were a bit more modest at around 80 - 85%. Not sure if this is a reflection of the instruction, materials or purely down to the individual?
Would like to get a feel from a few people who have attended either school, whats good and whats bad.....
Many Thanks
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Have you looked at BCFT in Bournemouth?
Its worth a look.
I did my training with Cabair excellent training school. I am happy to recommend them both.
Just to add I do not work for either company!!!
Saving some money for cover your type rating cost could be the key to you having a flying job today or not. Worth doing some research in this area.
There a few airlines today who will pay for your type rating.
Airbus TR can be around £40,000 mark, including sim test & hotel/ accommodation, etc costs for up to 6 weeks.
Boeing TR can be around £30,000 mark, including sim test & hotel/ accommodation, etc costs for up to 6 weeks.
If you do your research, pairing up with 2 people will save extra money & some companies will be alot cheaper.
However if you get offered a job before doing your TR they will tell you where they want you to do the TR.
Its worth a look.
I did my training with Cabair excellent training school. I am happy to recommend them both.
Just to add I do not work for either company!!!
Saving some money for cover your type rating cost could be the key to you having a flying job today or not. Worth doing some research in this area.
There a few airlines today who will pay for your type rating.
Airbus TR can be around £40,000 mark, including sim test & hotel/ accommodation, etc costs for up to 6 weeks.
Boeing TR can be around £30,000 mark, including sim test & hotel/ accommodation, etc costs for up to 6 weeks.
If you do your research, pairing up with 2 people will save extra money & some companies will be alot cheaper.
However if you get offered a job before doing your TR they will tell you where they want you to do the TR.
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I would be interested in some information about OAA as well. I've heard they should be really good at introducing their graduated students to jobs. Is this really true? I have heard numbers like 80% of a course being in job within a year after graduation.
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Good that you are doing your research! There are pros and cons for both schools from what I understand. They operate different aircraft and have different facilities. No doubt some will say one or the other is better but unless they have studied at both schools, how can they truly know? Trust your gut is what I am trying to say. The pass marks are of course subjective unless you know the demographic of the students so be a little cautious when using those as a basis for choice. Both are quality training establishments so you are likely to be in good hands either way. Best of luck...
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"really good at introducing their graduated students to jobs"
If you do an integrated course this is normally true from OAA & Cabair. However if you do a modular course trust be they do not recommend or put you forward , for jobs. Thats why the price of the two courses are different.
If you do an integrated course this is normally true from OAA & Cabair. However if you do a modular course trust be they do not recommend or put you forward , for jobs. Thats why the price of the two courses are different.
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Hi guys
Hi guys,
When looking through all the threads, im happy to come across this one! Im 16 coming 17 in June and in lower sixth. This means I will hopefully be starting my coarse in over a year. I want to be a pilot and have been to an opening evening for PTC and going to the open day in July in OAA. Anyone have any suggestions/tips. Anything is appreciated as I am constantly researching but it can be hard. Also I dont really know much about type rating training- how much and all. Do airlines sometimes sponsor you? Mhanks, Michael
When looking through all the threads, im happy to come across this one! Im 16 coming 17 in June and in lower sixth. This means I will hopefully be starting my coarse in over a year. I want to be a pilot and have been to an opening evening for PTC and going to the open day in July in OAA. Anyone have any suggestions/tips. Anything is appreciated as I am constantly researching but it can be hard. Also I dont really know much about type rating training- how much and all. Do airlines sometimes sponsor you? Mhanks, Michael
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Do airlines sometimes sponsor you?
Now days... "sponsorship" is few and far between, and they'll make you work hard to ensure you pay back the money they spent on you in the shortest possible amount of time.
For example, have a search through the forums for "CTC Wings" .... you'll find some people calling it a "Pilot Slavery Contract" (not my words, just quoting someone elses....).
Do your homework, research the industry and don't look at it through rose-tinted spectacles that flying for a living is cool. Those days are long gone, and now days there are few jobs, lots of candidates and preference given to direct entry candidates with experience, not the masses of low-hours pay to fly newbies.
I'm not necessarily saying "don't become a pilot", I'm just saying spend a bit more time looking through the PPRuNe archives, there's lots of good info here. (an easy way to search is using Google .... use the prefix
Code:
site:pprune.org
Last edited by mixture; 20th May 2011 at 21:34.
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OAA
I graduated from OAA in Feb 09 after completing a Cadet Scheme (what some might call sponsored). No financial costs were covered by the company but this was outlined from the start, "you qualify and we'll give you a job"
I was one of the lucky ones. Of the 20 that finished my course only 5 of us had jobs for the first 6 months, then the Ryan Air interviews started giving the results and people were then getting jobs with RYR (albeit at huge personal expense).
I think OAA's figures of 90% are true, in fact, of the 40 people graduating at the some time as me all 40 completed the course.
Having been in the industry for a little while now, I've had discussions with many training managers and recruiters and the overall opinion is, to get your first job you need to either know someone in the industry, or have come from a reputable school (and different schools I think have different contacts)
Now, this is my opinion and my opinion only, others will have different thoughts, but:
I think OAA and CTC will have better links to the Major Airlines and Charter Airlines, where Cabair, Aeros, Multiflight, will have more connections to the regionals and single pilot operators. I think this is more down to the sheer size of OAA and CTC compared to the others.
FTE, I think will sit somewhere in the middle - but this is also a very good school.
I went to OAA and I would go there again if I had to start over, it's a little more expensive, but then again I was once told that its like buying a car. "When you buy a Jaguar, you pay more for the name and the product you buy, where a Ford focus, is a good car, but it just aint a Jag"
the above is meant to help make a decision and give a different perspective, I'm not here to antagonise TC, FTE or Cabair guys. Just wanted to give my opinion.
What sold ot to me was the OAA open day. In comparison to all others it was by far the best.
CTC made me feel like I should be humbled to be there and that I wasn't good enough.
Cabair just didn't come across as structured or organised, where OAA was organised, well planned and efficient and overall made me feel like I belonged there.
Good luck with your choice and future career.
I was one of the lucky ones. Of the 20 that finished my course only 5 of us had jobs for the first 6 months, then the Ryan Air interviews started giving the results and people were then getting jobs with RYR (albeit at huge personal expense).
I think OAA's figures of 90% are true, in fact, of the 40 people graduating at the some time as me all 40 completed the course.
Having been in the industry for a little while now, I've had discussions with many training managers and recruiters and the overall opinion is, to get your first job you need to either know someone in the industry, or have come from a reputable school (and different schools I think have different contacts)
Now, this is my opinion and my opinion only, others will have different thoughts, but:
I think OAA and CTC will have better links to the Major Airlines and Charter Airlines, where Cabair, Aeros, Multiflight, will have more connections to the regionals and single pilot operators. I think this is more down to the sheer size of OAA and CTC compared to the others.
FTE, I think will sit somewhere in the middle - but this is also a very good school.
I went to OAA and I would go there again if I had to start over, it's a little more expensive, but then again I was once told that its like buying a car. "When you buy a Jaguar, you pay more for the name and the product you buy, where a Ford focus, is a good car, but it just aint a Jag"
the above is meant to help make a decision and give a different perspective, I'm not here to antagonise TC, FTE or Cabair guys. Just wanted to give my opinion.
What sold ot to me was the OAA open day. In comparison to all others it was by far the best.
CTC made me feel like I should be humbled to be there and that I wasn't good enough.
Cabair just didn't come across as structured or organised, where OAA was organised, well planned and efficient and overall made me feel like I belonged there.
Good luck with your choice and future career.
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Cabair Integrated
Hi FattyBarr
Obviously we have to be careful how we answer this as we can't go upsetting any FTOs in the process...
I graduated Cabair Integrated in 2010. As far as the ground school instruction was concerned I can't really complain. The lecturers were fairly sound and you get a pile of in-house produced text books to go with it. I will say, however, that you cannot rely on the lectures alone and you will have to go away and go over everthing if you want to keep up. You get 6 months to cram 14 subject and they don't hang around. The 14 subjects are split into 4 blocks of between 4 and 6 weeks a block. So that's only a few weeks to learn up to 6 subjects before exams. In short - they cover a lot in little time so you WILL have to put in a lot of effort outside the classroom. Once you get behind it's a job to catch up.
In my class there were 11 of us and only 3 of us passed all 14 exams on the first attempts. Most people retook at least 1 exam. Like I said though, do your homework and you'll have no problems.
As far as the flight school part of it goes...what I will say is that they have slightly less rescources than I would consider comfortable. ie you can expect to be sat around a fair bit due to lack of aircraft available. To be honest I think this is fairly standard with any FTO. It does help if you show up every day and make yourself known, even if you're not scheduled to fly. People that don't show up or don't put in the effort will be 'overlooked'. All the flight instructors I had were great - very friendly and very helpful. Both the CFI and Head of Training are very sound guys and will hear you out if you have any problems.
Last time I heard they had a policy now of charging for any extra flying hours on the spot so keep that in mind. As far as passes go, they do have a good IR pass rate. I struggle to think of anyone that failed their IR.
Last comment..we were sent to Florida for 3 months for our basic training (up to single engine cpl stage). We then came back to the UK and had 15 hours of SPIC flying to complete (IFR nav, so no looking out of the window) before converting to the twin, doing 6 hours and taking the CPL test, which is a VFR navigation. Point here is...you do all your VFR nav in the US then come to the UK and get virtually no time to adjust to UK radio procedures, airspace or navigation before taking the CPL skills test in the twin. This causes people a problem and hense some people fail the test on the first attempt and require more VFR nav training before retaking it (and are therefore charged £200/hour for it). Just a warning..
The standard of training overall is ok. I completed the whole course in 18 months (they quote 13) but I also lost nearly 2 months due to weather, so that's pretty good going. I also only exceeded my sylabus hours by about 6. If you pull out the stops it is possible to complete the course on schedule and not incure any extra flying costs etc so with that in mind the FTO can't be too bad. I would, however, advise against paying the course fees up front...keep to a monthly payment plan!
Hope that helps. All the best.
Would like to get a feel from a few people who have attended either school, whats good and whats bad.....
I graduated Cabair Integrated in 2010. As far as the ground school instruction was concerned I can't really complain. The lecturers were fairly sound and you get a pile of in-house produced text books to go with it. I will say, however, that you cannot rely on the lectures alone and you will have to go away and go over everthing if you want to keep up. You get 6 months to cram 14 subject and they don't hang around. The 14 subjects are split into 4 blocks of between 4 and 6 weeks a block. So that's only a few weeks to learn up to 6 subjects before exams. In short - they cover a lot in little time so you WILL have to put in a lot of effort outside the classroom. Once you get behind it's a job to catch up.
In my class there were 11 of us and only 3 of us passed all 14 exams on the first attempts. Most people retook at least 1 exam. Like I said though, do your homework and you'll have no problems.
As far as the flight school part of it goes...what I will say is that they have slightly less rescources than I would consider comfortable. ie you can expect to be sat around a fair bit due to lack of aircraft available. To be honest I think this is fairly standard with any FTO. It does help if you show up every day and make yourself known, even if you're not scheduled to fly. People that don't show up or don't put in the effort will be 'overlooked'. All the flight instructors I had were great - very friendly and very helpful. Both the CFI and Head of Training are very sound guys and will hear you out if you have any problems.
Last time I heard they had a policy now of charging for any extra flying hours on the spot so keep that in mind. As far as passes go, they do have a good IR pass rate. I struggle to think of anyone that failed their IR.
Last comment..we were sent to Florida for 3 months for our basic training (up to single engine cpl stage). We then came back to the UK and had 15 hours of SPIC flying to complete (IFR nav, so no looking out of the window) before converting to the twin, doing 6 hours and taking the CPL test, which is a VFR navigation. Point here is...you do all your VFR nav in the US then come to the UK and get virtually no time to adjust to UK radio procedures, airspace or navigation before taking the CPL skills test in the twin. This causes people a problem and hense some people fail the test on the first attempt and require more VFR nav training before retaking it (and are therefore charged £200/hour for it). Just a warning..
The standard of training overall is ok. I completed the whole course in 18 months (they quote 13) but I also lost nearly 2 months due to weather, so that's pretty good going. I also only exceeded my sylabus hours by about 6. If you pull out the stops it is possible to complete the course on schedule and not incure any extra flying costs etc so with that in mind the FTO can't be too bad. I would, however, advise against paying the course fees up front...keep to a monthly payment plan!
Hope that helps. All the best.
