Very much in agreement with WWW, especially his views re FTO operators discarding their anonymity. After browsing this forum for a couple of years you get to know most of them but what about the newcomers who are just about to make very important and expensive decisions concerning their future careers.
I would also be in agreement that the pass rates of the various FTO's is not necessarily a true indicator of the quality of instruction available due to the reasons cited by WWW and Alex Whittingham. However, I see PTC in Waterford give full information re pass rates on their website and I suspect most prospective students will welcome this information.
Willby

On the thorny subject of integrated vs modular it would be good to see some statistical proof of what all that extra investment by
students who are integrated yields. ...

The CAA used to call the integrated route the 'approved' route
thats because they endorse full time continuous training over part time ad hoc training - nothing wrong with that I hear you say

It just would be nice to see some hard data that shows that this route pays the dividends that warrants this 'approved' tag...?

:O

With regards to the freedon of information act, If I fail an exam and I then ask the CAA to see my paper so I can work out what area of the subject I am weak at, will they me obliged to do so ?

But the CAA being the CAA I guess the answer will be a "no" !

Willby

If we are still publishing pass rates on our website please let us know where so we can remove that information. We agree with the points made by WWW and Mr Whittingham above, that there is much more to the overall picture of a student's or an FTOs performance than this single measure.

Best wishes

Darragh Owens
Business Development
Pilot Training College of Ireland
Waterford

Hi Darragh,
I have revisited your website and can confirm that there is no mention of pass rates etc. Please accept my apologises and sorry if I have caused any embarresment ,as I obviously have got confused with another site.
Regards
Willby

>cyclic_fondler

From Jan 2005 you will have the right to request such information and unless that information is restricted due to public interest, data protection, commercial confidentiallity or security they will have to cough up. But cough up what?

Clearly they should not revel their question bank as that my fall under the public interest tag

It would be nice to get a breakdown of weak areas so that your resit may be better focussed, not least because you have paid for the examination and they should supply feedback to you...

The whole process of pilot education in the UK has been bi-passed as far as modern teaching and learning philosopy is concerned... The focus on an MCQ with no feedback has more to do with revenue and cost reduction than it has to do with safety or customer service..or good practice in teaching and learning..

I remember when you rang the CAA up and the theme was ' I have known you for quite some time but the thought of love has never crossed my mind...' That attitude is common through the whole of SRG...

True other factors are involved in pass rates, but their are schools that have such alarmingly bad pass rates. That no amount of other factors can explain.

I would also like the CAA to publish some financial background on owners and managers of FTO's as some just make a habit of going bankrupt with wannabees money.

20 working days
 

The CAA say that they cannot enter into correspondence about the results of examinations.

Well guess what; that statement next year may prove to be rather out of date.

After 20 days working the CAA will need to respond or these customers will be filing with the Information Commissioner.....

CAA Success Statistics
Next year the CAA will have to reconsider its policy of not publicising success statistics for pilot wanabees like yourself.

i.e. The statistics on the Integrated Route versus the Modular route - is it worth it? Where is the proof of this? - the CAA used to call the integrated route their APPROVED route so they clearly have evidence that merits that tag if they approve of it; the CAA think it must be better, trouble is no one knows upon what data they based that tag - its all a bit of a secret...........Could it be that more people get success from the integrated route or could it be that the pass rates are better... ummmm we cant tell you, has traditionally been their response unfortunately......They have the data they just wont cough up. All we know is that integrated is expensive and assume it to be better?

One important thing do statistics indicate that Integrated/Approved Pilots are safer per revenue km flown? As a shareholder in BA I may want proof of that before I could approve of the extra costs to 'my' company in its training budget...?

What is the age profile of people who get initial multi-crew type ratings? How many fATPL holders achieve success?

Other examples ...How many sat the CPL exam, how many failed that exam. How many PPLs took the IR how many failed etc etc..
What test centre has the best Wx record? Which test centre is most active?

What is the most difficult ATPL exam? It used to be Nav cos the scatter patter on the sitting demonstrated this...

Minutes of SRG policy meetings what change are they planning next ...?

Good News on the horizon however - This is because next year they will as a UK public body have to, under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal such Data.

This should inform customer (wannabee) choice....

The FAA do produce stats but we its seems have the attitude in Europe that information is power..

http://www.api.faa.gov/Airmen/Airme...%20CONTENTS.htm

For example: This shows that the FAA issued 10,858 IRs to Private Pilots in 2003 adding to the total of 59,774 PPL/IRs many of whom fly in the UK

There are some limited Stats from SRG issuing just 25 IRs to
Private Pilots in 2003