OAT vs Cabair!!! confused
 

hi all!
i am VERY confused and would like (need!) help and reassurance...
i've had a look at both Cabair and OAT but i'm getting negatives and positives about both and i have no idea which to go for. if there are any graduates from either school or if there are people who have personal experience from either school, PLEASE help me! :sad:

thanks a lot! :ok:

Hey kurt.

I think any replies you get to this will just add to your confusion! Your bound to get positives from graduates from both schools, and youll get negatives from drop-outs from both schools too!

You just have to make up your own mind and stick to your guns!

Good luck :ok:

JB

hey JB,
firstly thanks for answering! well i guess you're right... thanks!
kurt

Hi Kurt,

I'm in a similar position to you in that i'm trying to decide between these two schools.

I think the thing about this forum is there's a lot of opinions flying around (get it?) so you've got to take what you read with a pinch of salt.
Having said that it can be a really useful way of gleaning information from people in the know.

My advice to you would be to go visit them both and use that to inform your decision. I've been to them both and that's really helped to separate fact from fiction and get a decent feel for the two schools.

Good luck!

Have you paid the schools a visit yet? If you are applying for the integrated course then you may as well apply for both, you might not get in the one you want.

Just wondering why you guys are deciding between Cabair and OAT, what about CTC?


PS: I will be in a similar position very soon!!!

Having done a bit of research and having spoken to students from a number of schools, out of the 2, I would definitiely go to Oxford.

I will add another name into the mix, namely CATS

http://www.cranfieldaviation.com/uk/

I've literally just started with them on the PPL/ATPL route and was most impressed. I haven't, as yet, heard a bad report. Keep your options open and if it is between Oxford and Cabair, the former would be my choice!

All the best

Greg

What about FTE? Far better reputation and job prospects than one of the school's mentioned.

If your going down the mod route then forget OAT And sCabair, there are far better modular FTO's. :ok:

what about job prospects with CTC cadet? seem to be better than both Oxford and CABAIR

Go and visit the different schools if time and money permit you to do so, see which one suits your environment best. For me, CTC just got infront of the other schools because of their employment statistics and that people who have gone through the course and got their job are delighted with the end results. Some however have to wait longer than others to get the job,but im sure thats just down to the demand at that particular time.

CTC are without a doubt the best option for any student pilot, but they are fairly hard to get into.

When you graduate your training debts are put into a bond with the airline, so they put money towards it as well as you. Many of their pilots go straight into BA and Easy on pretty good wages with their TR all paid for.

well having read all these posts i'll deffinatley have a look into CTC and any other school mentioned.
in response to if i have visited either school, i have not as yet for the reason simply being that i live in another country! lol
i live in Malta (just off Sicily), so it isn't very easy to just drop everything and go visit a school which is a 3hour flight away:*
however, i will be visiting Oxford in November, maybe i'll visit Cabair whilst i'm over there too. thanks for all the advice! :ok:

hey preduk,
i visited the CTC website, and i was really impressed. they certainly give a much better course description than oxford and their site is way more informative. only thing is...its in bloody NEW ZEALAND! lol i was not expecting that one, though the airline scheme is very attractive.
also, it actually costs £2000 LESS than oxford! not very much but its still less!
will keep on searching!
kurt

I visited OAA the other week and was blown away by the facilities

bat, have you visited Cabair?

The debate between the two is perpetual.

I would just say that the Cabair fleet is far more modern. Both the SE and ME work is carried out in G1000 equipped aircraft, except for the first few hours which are on PA28's. But then some experience of "steam" instruments is useful. For IR issue you need to demonstrate unusual attitude recoveries on dial instruments, so some experience is absolutely necessary.

However I think the glass cockpit environment is better training for the transfer to modern fleets.

Just my £0.02 worth!

CTC have a 100% employment rate, no other school has that. OAA and Cabair will most likely try and send you to the states anyway...

Kurt,

I wouldn't worry about it as you have a few years before you are old enough and things may have changed by then.

If you are lucky the masses may have grown a brain and decided not to spend £60,000 on flight training or pay for type ratings (or convince daddy to), then the stupid prices at UK schools may start to drop, airlines would reintroduce proper sponsorship schemes and wouldn't expect new hires to pay for their training.

pred, as far as I know neither OAT nor Cabair send you to the states for any of the flying training on the integrated course. Cabair do the first 20 or so hours out in Rekennah in Spain, as the weather tends to be a bit better.

The only way they claim that (do they even claim that!? I dont ever remember hearing 100%!? 95 perhaps) - is that when they cant find you a job, they will throw you into their own holding pool for months (maybe years?) until you do find a job.

I expect a graduate from any of the afore mentioned FTOs has a 100% chance of employment... how long it takes is another matter...

JB

I think you will find that OAA do most of the single and some of the twin in Arizona. About 3 months or so.

modulars spend 5 weeks doing the cpl in arizona at oaa. Just my 2p's worth is that oaa whilst expensive is a good option for integrated. However i'm in phase two modular groundschool at oaa right now and i can't recommend oaa for modular training (and neither do most of their own groundschool instructors for that matter) as no matter what the sales team try and tell you, you most ceratinly ARE treated as a second class student to the app guys. Quite simply the app courses are full and the entire operation is overstretched and simple economics means that the integrated students pay more and therefore get priority. I wouldn't be shocked if oaa binned modular training altogether in the next year or so just as they binned ppl training a couple of years back. That aside for a modular student the training takes twice as long as it should do and costs twice as much.

I'm modular at Oxford, some students may feel 2nd class, although I've not seen it yet.
I'm spending an extra few grand but it amounts to very little after the MCC and any potential relocation costs to train elsewhere.

10.5 months to train from Start to finish seems pretty fast, although being modular, students can take more (or less time) depending on circumstances.

I'm happy as a pig in the proverbial, but as badadj said, it's very much down to personal experience.

Safety First

CR

I think the flyer professional flight training at LHR next month looks good for picking flight schools. The universities that do combined degree and fATPL courses (mostly with cabair I think) are all gunna be there, check this out:

http://www.flyer.co.uk/exhibitions/exhibitorlisting.php

I have Cabair in mind also for the ground school due to the fact that they split the exams in three.
I believe that is quite good

Matt,

OAA do 130 hours of training in Goodyear, Arizona on their integrated course and a 28 hour Modular CPL course as well. All of their aircraft, including all PA-28s have Garmin 1000 GPS. They don't have any Glass Twinstars, but once MPL fleshes out, I bet they will get them for the non-MPL students. MPL will not include any twin flying in real airplanes, so it would be foolish for OAA to replace their Seneca's right now, as they might be selling off many of the twins in a year or two. I have to admit though, it would be nice to do the IR in a glass cockpit with an autopilot!

Yep Oxford send you to Phoenix for most of the flight training :ok: I just got in to OAA Int. APP First Officer. Chuffed to bits:) I am a little biased but OAA had such a great feel to it everytime I have been up there and all the students seem friendly and enjoying themselves.

Also OAA have one of the stronger affiliations with BA and with regards to employment, 98% of graduates have flying work within 12 months, 88% within 6 months.

Hi Nick, welcome to OAA!! where did you get those employment stats from?? they don't seem to tally with what i'm being told here at kidlington.

OAA themselves. Though it only applies to APP First Officer iirc. Im pretty sure that's what Lorainne @ Oxford said. :)

hmmm... sounds like the sales team and the instructors aren't singing from the same hymn sheet on this one.

On a more positive note.. the internet appears to be working properly at langford now!!

As it has already been said, there are a vast number of opinions on this site and it can make things more confusing. You need to pick the FTO which just feels right for you, visiting anywhere you're going to apply to is essential!

I've visited both OAA and Cabair and have made up my mind. What I've written below is purely fact based on my experience of visiting both schools....however I'll probably manage to step on a few toes :ouch: and be bombarded with comments of how I've been "sucked in" by all the marketing.

Ground School - ATPL
The course structure at Cabair does have an advantage with regards to splitting the exams up into 4 sittings. It means you have a better chance of getting to grips with the subjects and have fewer exams to take in each sitting, obviously reducing stress for you. However, you sit your last 2 exams the week before you fly out to Spain and don't get the results before you go. This means that when you're in Spain doing your initial flight training you might be told you failed one of your exams and need to sit it when you get back to the UK. So you return to the UK having spent a number of weeks flying and have to get back down to revise for a subject which you haven't done for some time.

At OAA they split it into 2 sittings with 7 in each, although this is greater pressure it seems to work and they get very good results with a 95% average. They don't let you go to Arizona for the 5 months flight training until you have passed all your exams. I’ve read some people saying the course information for OAA is very limited; this is a full breakdown of the course:
http://www.oxfordaviation.net/air_appfo.htm

There have also been a number of comments about Cabair offering degree courses alongside flight training. At OAA a foundation degree is part of the course.

Flying
The DA40 and DA42 are very nice aircraft and I can see why Cabair have gone for glass cockpits as this is what a majority of graduates will be flying once they complete the course. The IR pass rates are said to be, if not close to, the best in the country in terms of those completed as part of an integrated course. As Adios said I expect OAA will move onto something like this. I do think though that it's essential to get experience of flying with older instruments and not to rely on the features of the glass cockpit.

With regards to the MCC/JOC Cabair complete it on the Alsim 200MCC which is a fixed based simulator. It can be configured to different aircraft through the use the LCD screens. OAA complete the MCC/JOC in a full motion simulator, based on the 737-400. Although some may question the relevance of this I think it's hugely important. One of reasons for Cabair using glass cockpit aircraft is that it will help to familiarise students with modern day airliners. Well having a 737 configured simulator over one which can be configured for a Cessna Citation business jet is far more valuable, it provides students with a real opportunity to realistically practice and get to grips with flying an aircraft they could be sitting in several months later.

Employment Statistics
Both have good statistics but the facts show that OAAs are better.

The current statistics on the Cabair website are the same as those we were shown at the seminar in February (I wrote them down) and were last updated on March 14th. When you compare these statistics to those at Oxford it's a different story. You'll also notice that 83 Cabair students are said to have graduated in 2007, when asked by someone at the seminar where the other students were they were not able to provide a clear answer and said that those students may have fallen behind...

We were also told at Cabair that if you're training record is not "up to scratch" and you're unable to find employment with an airline then they'll offer sponsorship to complete your Flying Instructors course with them. In some ways this can be seen as beneficial as it's another option for you in case you're not able to find employment. At OAA, if you're not up to the desired standard for employment with an airline then they will take you off the course and if this happens before the ME CPL they'll refund a large percentage of the training fees. After the ME CPL they feel you should be quite capable of passing the IR and finding employment.

Facilities
The facilities at Cabair are not very impressive with regards to the classrooms and crew room, they were dirty and didn’t feel comfortable in anyway. I don’t know if this was because the tour was fairly limited but there didn’t appear to be any facilities such as a bar, restaurant or shop. Also we didn’t see anywhere for students to work (not in classrooms). At OAA there is a computer suite with “synthetic training devices” where students can practice using instruments, I’m not aware of such a facility at Cabair.

At OAA the facilities are very impressive. The rooms are far more comfortable and I would say a much nicer working environment. There are two restaurants on the campus along with a bar and a small shop for the essentials.

Conclusion
I think it's fairly obvious what I think about each school and if choosing purely between these two where I'd like to train. Like I said, what I've written is purely based on fact and what I saw/heard when I visited each of the schools. I stand to be corrected on some of the points I have made, perhaps we had a bad day or were told incorrect information.

Personally I didn't think Cabair was worth the money. OAA would appear to know what the airlines want and this is definitely reflected in the course, the facilities and the employment statistics.

well, for now I think i'd go for OAA, but i was just wondering...about the foundation degree course which OAA are offering with Bucks uni, it seems to be the exact same course that Cabair are offering with Bucks uni. is it the same thing? i'm asking because OAA have very little info about it and Cabair have the whole timetable for all to see! i have seen it and it's spread over 3 years. however the course of OAA is about 1 year...if its the same degree, how can it be done in such a short time???

Its the foundation year for the same/similar degree I believe.

It's a full foundation degree, normally taken over two years, compressed into one...some how. More details are here:
http://www.oxfordaviation.net/docs/O...%20Release.pdf

OAA have published their 2008 brochure, well actually it's more like a book, and it's definitely worthwhile ordering one.

JoffyH, what an excellent post. I don't think you've been sucked in by the marketting, I think you've made an educated decision which is right for you. The only thing i would argue with is that the OAA sims are NOT 737-400 sims. They are based around a 737-400 but are not a "737-400 simulator" which is an important difference. Other than that you are pretty much spot on.

I stand by my original coments that oaa is a very good (but expensive) option for integrated training, and perhaps not such a good one for modular, but as captin rossco rightly pointed out, it's different strokes for different folks. I am (on the whole) happy with my groundschool at oaa, although i think the books could and should be more concise and exam relevent rather than trying to teach us to fly to the moon one handed and blindfolded!!

I also think that it is important for past and current students at all colleges to come onto forums like pprune and "tell it like it is"...good and bad so future students can make up their own minds with objective comments as no fto is going to put "well actually we're a bit crap" on their websites!!!!

Thanks Bajadj :)

I've changed the section about the simulator.

thanks Joffyh for the website! i downloaded the brochure. but it still doesn't say anything about the foundation degree course. I suppose I'll have to remember to ask about it when I go to one of their seminars later on this year. :ok:
Just a random question here, I know it's out of topic but, if all goes as planned I would like to begin training in October 2009 (or whenever the course starts), when I would be 18 years old. Do you think it'd be a good idea to start at that age?

Well I don't know about the brochure then, I've got the 2007 one which doesn't have the info. in it but I assumed the new one would.

With regards to age it really depends on the individual. I'm 19 tomorrow and looking to start training at the end of this year. To get onto any integrated course you have to complete an assessment and one of the things they're looking for is maturity. I've heard people coming away from OAA having been told they should go back in a few years, usually after University. To enrol on the APPFO course at OAA the minimum age is 17.

If it's what you've always wanted to do then you just need to do it! No harm in completing the assessments. The assessment I was one had 3 people aged 18-19 and 3 others aged 20-25.

How much extra work is the foundation degree? Seems pretty pointless to me since it isn't a proper degree(?) and the university isn't all that is it? But if it isn't too much work I guess an extra qualification isn't any harm!

OAA have said that it won't affect your ATPL studies, apparently it's a few essays etc. The best way to get answers to question is to use the forums at www.oxfordaviation.net or contact OAA directly, they're always happy to help.

http://www.oxfordaviation.net/docs/BCUC%20Leaflet.pdf
Some more info. RE the Foundation Degree (timetable, credits info...)

sqwk, you kind of confirmed what I suspected there. I hadn't heard of them having G1000 equipped aircraft. G430 maybe?