scooter2525
Very well Member
Me thinks you are taking the comments from the peanut gallery a bit too personal.
5 ways flight schools cheat students
- Thread starter Mavmb
- Start date
I dont usually have the time to post but i will invest a few minutes of my life and try to educate some of you who do not have enough experience in this industry. This is my two cents as a flight instructor for 15 years and as a Flight School Owner for the last 8. Again, this is my personal opinion and I may be wrong for some of you. Everybody sees things differently.
First of all, I understand the above video represents somebody's opinion and I don't think refers to all flight schools or flight instructors out there. Like every other business, aviation/flight training is no different. There are the good and the bad guys. However, the person responsible for your training is not the school owner or the flight instructor but YOU! And remember, you get what you pay for!!! (most of the times)
During my experience I met thousands of people. Usually the ones complaining and "cheated" by the system are the ones who try to save pennies. Nothing wrong with trying to save money but make sure the savings are worth the headache. example: I personally advised a young guy not to fly with a specific "flight school" for many reasons. He told me straight in my face that he will fly because the planes were $6 an hour less than mine. A month later the plane crashes due to maintenance issues. Is your life worth $6 an hour??? I hope you get my point.
As far as the 5 "scam" points in the video:
1. Never pay everything upfront unless its a reputable school with a good name and good reviews. Just pay as you go or in small payments if you can. Once you make the payment your money are gone. In my place, we just let people know that as long as they have positive balance in their account, they will get a few dollars off per hour. Fair for everybody. Most places require money up front to start because they have bad experiences. A guy shows up, fly for a few hours and at the end he "forgot" his credit card. Most of them disappear and the school loses the money. It happens a lot.
2. Instructors will solo you when you are ready to solo. Just because somebody else soloed at 10 hours does not mean you will. Accept the fact that everybody is different! As a flight school owner, it will be one of the strongest marketing tools to advertise that people soloed at 10 or 15 hours. So, I don't think or at least I don't want to believe there instructors doing it on purpose.
3. Flight instructors come and go. Its the nature of the business. Most of them instruct until they find something else more exciting to do. Some of them are really good instructors and some are not. Advise: If you don't like your instructor, speak up and tell the management to switch you to a different guy as soon as possible. Its nothing wrong with it. Instructors and students have to like each other in order to be proactive.
4. It is very easy to recognize a plane that is not airworthy. The logbooks should be available to you at any time and a good school/instructor will teach you about maintenance at lesson number one. It will be very easy for you to just ask for the logbooks and read them or have somebody else do it for you. Also use common sense. I remember a few years ago there was a "flight school" in my area renting a piper warrior for $90 an hour while everybody else were over $130 and the fuel was $6.80 per gallon. Obviously that guy can not cut on fuel or parking but maintenance and the local FAA guys took "good" care of him. What sounds too good to be true, it probably is!
5. Weather is always a factor when comes to flight training because is so unpredictable sometimes. If you show up and you can not fly because the weather changed or is going to change don't get upset. There are so many things you can work and catch up with instead of just flying. Seating down doing some ground training for an hour, it may cost you money but you will save more money in the long run. Students love flying but hate doing ground and I see that on a daily basis. If you want to get your license close to the minimums and save money, do yourself a favor and do ground training with your CFI. The more ground you get the less hours you will spend in the air and the more you will save.
Hopefully I helped a little bit. Just remember, not everybody is out there to scam you. Make sure you do your homework before you start. Visit different schools and talk to other pilots. The internet is a great tool these days. AGAIN you are the one to make the final decision and not just because Joe and Mike said so.
First of all, I understand the above video represents somebody's opinion and I don't think refers to all flight schools or flight instructors out there. Like every other business, aviation/flight training is no different. There are the good and the bad guys. However, the person responsible for your training is not the school owner or the flight instructor but YOU! And remember, you get what you pay for!!! (most of the times)
During my experience I met thousands of people. Usually the ones complaining and "cheated" by the system are the ones who try to save pennies. Nothing wrong with trying to save money but make sure the savings are worth the headache. example: I personally advised a young guy not to fly with a specific "flight school" for many reasons. He told me straight in my face that he will fly because the planes were $6 an hour less than mine. A month later the plane crashes due to maintenance issues. Is your life worth $6 an hour??? I hope you get my point.
As far as the 5 "scam" points in the video:
1. Never pay everything upfront unless its a reputable school with a good name and good reviews. Just pay as you go or in small payments if you can. Once you make the payment your money are gone. In my place, we just let people know that as long as they have positive balance in their account, they will get a few dollars off per hour. Fair for everybody. Most places require money up front to start because they have bad experiences. A guy shows up, fly for a few hours and at the end he "forgot" his credit card. Most of them disappear and the school loses the money. It happens a lot.
2. Instructors will solo you when you are ready to solo. Just because somebody else soloed at 10 hours does not mean you will. Accept the fact that everybody is different! As a flight school owner, it will be one of the strongest marketing tools to advertise that people soloed at 10 or 15 hours. So, I don't think or at least I don't want to believe there instructors doing it on purpose.
3. Flight instructors come and go. Its the nature of the business. Most of them instruct until they find something else more exciting to do. Some of them are really good instructors and some are not. Advise: If you don't like your instructor, speak up and tell the management to switch you to a different guy as soon as possible. Its nothing wrong with it. Instructors and students have to like each other in order to be proactive.
4. It is very easy to recognize a plane that is not airworthy. The logbooks should be available to you at any time and a good school/instructor will teach you about maintenance at lesson number one. It will be very easy for you to just ask for the logbooks and read them or have somebody else do it for you. Also use common sense. I remember a few years ago there was a "flight school" in my area renting a piper warrior for $90 an hour while everybody else were over $130 and the fuel was $6.80 per gallon. Obviously that guy can not cut on fuel or parking but maintenance and the local FAA guys took "good" care of him. What sounds too good to be true, it probably is!
5. Weather is always a factor when comes to flight training because is so unpredictable sometimes. If you show up and you can not fly because the weather changed or is going to change don't get upset. There are so many things you can work and catch up with instead of just flying. Seating down doing some ground training for an hour, it may cost you money but you will save more money in the long run. Students love flying but hate doing ground and I see that on a daily basis. If you want to get your license close to the minimums and save money, do yourself a favor and do ground training with your CFI. The more ground you get the less hours you will spend in the air and the more you will save.
Hopefully I helped a little bit. Just remember, not everybody is out there to scam you. Make sure you do your homework before you start. Visit different schools and talk to other pilots. The internet is a great tool these days. AGAIN you are the one to make the final decision and not just because Joe and Mike said so.