HDhillon;

If you have read my post properly. This is hardly just a rant about the FTO by the guys who has failed. There are many issues. But what gets me are the ethical ones

@ColonialFlyer,

lol obviously there is going to be deadlines, it's an intergrated course. -__- are you seriously ranting/complaining about deadlines and getting charged for it? What do you expect, no offence but they probably didn't as much effort as which was required... YOU GOT TO WORK HARD AND DO YOUR OWN STUDY! I don't understand why people assume, like "oh a FTO in USA, it will be amazing, I'll go out all night blah blah blah".

If you don't put in dedication, determination, the perseverance and the hard work into this career or the passion, why would you deserve to become a pilot? If you don't want it as bad?

Again apologies, but yeah ColonialFlyer I do understand your concerns, but if you don't put the effort in. What do you expect? Obviously you would come onto PPruNe and talk about your negative experiences, which is fair enough, but if that's all down to the examiner and people I understand, but what I don't understand is, that the "oh I just lost my money, I didn't work hard enough, now I'm going to abuse the FTO and blame the school, so no-one goes to it".

Please don't take this to offense, but it is what I believe and I respect your opinon.

Diary
 

Some of you may of started to read my diary while I was at EFT, that was suspiciously cut short by a mod.

Everything -maroonedinfl is 100% accurate. It all came to light a few days after I started a diary. It pains me to admit it but, it was heart breaking so see what was really going on after all the trouble you go through to get there..

Lokki, I remember reading your short lived blog. Were you able to get your training done?

did you carry on your diary elsewhere? Unfortunate that the MODs stopped other people learning from you experience.

Can you give us a short brief of your experience? (dont put DEAR DIARY - you will get shot :mad:)

I think we all know who SF is, thought he was a instructor and not examiner? or am i wrong? :confused: Dont think the negativity he receives on here is fair so maybe it shouldn't matter who his examiner was?????

EFT
 

I did but back in the UK.

Sorry I didn't continue with the Diary after that, felt a bit disappointed at the time.

Had bigger worries while I was there that took the fun out of things..

Hi,

I was enroled for my CPL, not a PPL. I guess I prepared myself like everybody does, for example I tried to fly as close to CPL standards as possible before leaving for FL and went through all the books before. And yes, I also found it "borderlined" to mention names, but on the other hand, what happened there was highly unfair and I felt it was my duty of some sort to inform people about what happened, even tough I was a bit afraid myself. Many students are self-made people and +10h and a failed checkride does mean much more than it may seem at first sight (yes I know, aviation is expensive - but what do you think people expect from modular training?)

We have been a class of 5 and up to my knowledge, most people failed for almost everything, from taxi to departure, even for stuff like radio. If it was only me, I may think different about it, but given it happened to virtually everybody and we all proofed our skills in the 170 before, it really seemed more about playing games. I agree the school is not responsible about wich examiner gets assigned to students, however if there is somebody around that obviously likes to fail people, I would expect a more protective behaviour. At least this is how I would do it if I had a school, however I don't know that kind of business from the inside, so no idea about that. If I would scan my first checkride-form and post it here, you probably wouldn't believe me (in fact, I do get a lot of laughs when I tell other pilots about that form...:O )

I think I mentioned the name of the examiner, it's initials were not SF, but A(M)C. I believe I know whom you mean, but I guess he does not test for EFT, rather the schools around.

EFT
 

I agree EFT or any other school for that matter has a certain degree of responsibility towards their students. If the CAA are delaying sending an examiner (as claimed by EFT) then they should put some pressure on the CAA to move things forward and not pass the buck to the student who as travelled hundreds of miles to be out there.

As it happens there was another examiner available 7 days a week and lived in close proximity yet he was never called out? Couldn't eft be bothered to take that matter up with the CAA?

The CAA written policy is 10 working days, and they don't budge unless the examiner states they're unavailable. It is unfortunate but that's the policy. It helps ensure standards by meaning people just pick the examiner they want. Remember their job is regulation not to keep "customers" happy

MaroonedinFL - If you genuinely feel like the examiner did you wrong, complain - until then you just come off as a disgruntled student who failed because he wasn't good enough. Hence the replies your getting. (Including mine - which was a little harsh for which I apologise.) Fly safe.

Hi,

excuse me, but in my eyes, that argument "You failed because you didn't try hard enough and now you're whining around" is pretty short-sighted. How do you know we didn't train hard enough? Most got their training done in +/- 3 weeks (tough not the minimal hours) and we all passed the 170-form before, in wich you have to proof you fly to CPL-standards to another intsructor. Thats a good point in my eyes to proof our fails were not only for our own lack of trying or our quality of flying. I accomplished my ATPL-theory with over 90% on average and now I'm to stupid to taxi the airplane? Tough I had never complaints about that in my training before? 5 people in a row? With an examiner who accidentally got fired by the school before? Please, add some common sense to this question and then think about it again. I believe I made some mistakes, however none that were not normal for a student in a CPL-test situation. I agree about the things with the policy, but as a school, they could have done a lot more for their students. Of course, they do have their "golden boys" who never have problems with issues like this, and who can get the examiner changed on request (wich happened before - believe it or not).

Thanks for apologizing, cheers!

EFT
 

BG

You probably are correct regarding timescales for the examiner and it being a CAA matter.

However when you quote 21 days as a reference for completion for a CPL as on EFT website, (okay you may add a week extra for Wx, aircraft tech etc) you expect that when your booked in for a course and fly over the Atlantic that all has been taken care of, inc examiner availability. If this is not the case EFT should be advising students not to make the trip until any delays with examiners or anything else for that matter have been dealt with.

If there's students waiting five weeks plus for an examiner surely someone within the management should of alerted on-coming students to delay until the previous have left?

Before anyone makes any remarks please give a thought to what I've just wrote and ask yourself if you don't honestly believe that it's true.

So Maroon,
What did you fail for? You have yet to told us.
You indicated it had to do something with taxying?
I know many reasons, and valid that people fail for,
Not getting the weather, not picking up airport diagram and looking at it before you move the plane.
That last one is probably the biggest reason people fail on taxi, they are so used to C-A-A1-10R they know it by heart, but the checkride is on commercial level etc. Some people taxi to fast, some use wrong lights etc...
So why in your mind did you not deserve to fail? Don't tell me that it was because he failed everyone else. He had to fail you on a specific reason.

AND....... if it was something specific on Taxi, did you all fail on that same thing?

Whatever you did fail on; can you HONESTLY say you 100% 'no doubt at all' that you should of"passed" it???

I feel like there is not 100% of the full story going on here, its that old saying;

"No smoke without fire" :confused:

Im thinking about going back to FL to complete my JAA conversion and EFT is one of my options.

One thing I react on, is "whole class failing". I find it quite unlikely. Schools and instructors want people to pass first time. If instructors/school have a high fail percentage, FAA gonna start asking questions.
If they want to milk people for money, they will fail you on your EOC-ride, not on your check-ride.
Same goes for examiners. FAA will start asking questions if he have like 70% fail-rate VS 10% avg in US (made up number!).

No offence, but I dont believe that this guy was failing everyone for 2 years and he is still examiner there and school dont want to talk to him... That just sounds unrealistic to me.


As for "bad management only wanting money" - every school, at least in US, is like that. Out of my experience. Only thing to do here is prepare your self well in advance, figure out every detail in contract, discuss every payment.
Then work and study hard and you should have nice and smooth ride.

And last, but not least. It is amuses me to read, people complaining about having little money and "therefore I picked that school", and then complaining about "old airplanes"...
You pay little - you get crap. Its like that everywhere.
Wanna cheap flight? Go for Ryanair.
Wanna service? 1st class at BA.
Wanna cheap school? Except old airplanes.
Wanna new, shiny airplanes? Prepare to pay x2 or even x10 the price.


I had friend doing ME and ME-hour building at aviator and they left very happy. They got what they was promised. Maintanence was quick and smooth and they finish everythin just in time, as planed.
Therfore I keep EFT as one of my options.

I went there in 2009 to get an FI rating. I agree this was many years ago, but I can see some of the persons are still there.
I finished on time and money without any problems. I actually went home owing the school about 1.500 dollars for my last 2-3 flights. They send me an email about it and of course I paid it. Case closed.
I find it very hard to believe that Mathew has acted up as previously described. From my knowledge of Mathew you seriously need to act like an idiot before he even raises an eyebrow.
I ended up doing my check-ride with the apparently notorious examinor (initials SF). It was an 8 hour exam, but I passed without any problems. Even though my flying was not top notch that day.
Accommodation was fine, and the school paid for hotel the first 3 days, because the rooms was not ready.
No complaints here...But again, this was 2009....

EFT
 

Nothing to do with the above post but I'm not finding UK CAA approvals on the CAA website for EFT?

http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/srg_lts...7June%2012.pdf

All overseas FTOs are now regulated by EASA directly from Europe, so aren't UK CAA schools anymore.
School's with principle places of business (i.e Oxford) are still UK regulated even though they do most of their flying in the USA.

This thread is way off topic and is more about testing and attitudes to training, and almost needs some of the posts merging into examiner issues as that is the bulk of the thread. (Moderators?)

EASA - European Aviation Safety Agency


All overseas FTOs are now all direct through EASA

EFT
 

I apologise, I stand corrected.

BG it's not about the examiner, it's about EFT and it's management.