American Flyers Cfi Academy

myron96

myron96

Well-Known Member
Anyone been to the Cfi Academy in the Past year? If so let me know your experience please..
 
From everything I've seen about AF, their CFI academy is the one gleaming diamond in their pile of overpriced turds.
 
I've been interested in AF's CFI academy also. They always seem to get the job done, it just seems like I have to take it facedown when it comes to pay the bill. It is crazy how the bill inflates with them. They advertise $2995.00 but I heard it's more like 5k when your done. But what to do when you get the CFI rating now? :confused:
 
I did the CFI academy at the Pompano Beach location.

The instruction is outstanding. Every day for 30 days you will have classroom instruction. Usually the class started at 8:00 a.m and ended around 12:00-1:00. Our class was taught by the chief flight instructor who was a real pleasure to work with. During the classes you will go over topics in the PTS i.e steep turns, IFR lost comms etc... and as the days pass everyone in the class gets up in front of the class and teaches a subject. After you are done with your "presentation" your classmates and the instructor will critique you (constructively of course) and add any suggestions that may have made the presentation better.

After the ground school ended for the day, the afternoons were spent either flying or making lesson plans/studying and practice teaching of your fellow classmates.The weekends were alittle bit different as they were usually reserved for written test prep for the writtens needed ( FOI, CFIA,CFII).

The flying was in C-172s and C-172RGs. If I remember correctly most of them had a GPS in them. Other than that the aircraft were nothing special but were in good condition and got the job done. The MX was great and one of the mechanics even taught us a class on systems.

Once you go home for the day you will need to study/make lesson plans if you want to go home at around 30 days. You may have to be flexible with scheduling of examiners and weather so you could end up staying longer. I was the first one in my class finished with both CFI,CFII and it took me 38 days. Also you will probably go over the $2995 price they advertise but they did tell me that before I went. I ended spending about $4500 for both tickets. However, you will need to pay your own housing as well. Overall I had a good experience, made some friends and learned a lot! Hope this helps and good luck!
 
USMCmech said:
From everything I've seen about AF, their CFI academy is the one gleaming diamond in their pile of overpriced turds.
Click to expand...

I posted this in another thread:

I attempted the CFI/CFII Flyer’s academy in PMP. There was a girl that got through part 61 in 29 days and only went over a couple hundred $ (needed 1 more hour in the 172RG for landings as she trained in an Arrow previously). The only people the program seemed to work well for and not be too irritating to were younger individuals who just finished their instrument and commercial and were very proficient in both. If you want out in 35 days (granted no FSDO curve balls) come with your writtens already out of the way, a good understanding of what you need in your lesson plans, and even maybe make a few while studying for your commercial before you show up. Patrick (a chief and the instructor academy’s instructor) is the glue that holds the place together. Have fun with sgt. Dasho; he called me an enigma. Funny guy.

There were some older people there who trained up to the commercial level back in the day that took 35-55 days to finish. They were not told to come instrument proficient to a level that would allow you to pass your instrument ride and they thought just because they did an IPC recently they were fine. They were pretty frustrated and felt were miss-sold on the program (30-day sign-off; not rating). But they got out alive eventually with another $1,000 +/- dished out. Most required 6-10 hours instrument flight (instead of the 5 advertised) and 8-10 hours on the CFI-A maneuvers (instead of the 5 advertised) plus lots of sim time (they break...a-lot).

From personal experience, they pretty much will not let you do it part 141. It is also a waste of time. You must spend 15 of the 20 hours you buy on instrument flying per the approved syllabus (they got busted a while back letting people do chandelles, etc during these 15 hours and will not bend any more). I forced part 141 to get more Cessna time (I trained in Diamonds) and it was the whole trying to get a pig to sing routine. 2 and ½ months later I got bored and left. Long story short, there are only 2 instructors you can fly with for the 141 program and they are chiefs so they don’t have that much time for you.

Also, they have an interesting hook up with the local FSDO if you want an easy checkride. (No I am not saying it’s good, bad, or indifferent. Note: I left PMP with no instructor certs. for a reason). Basically the FSDO is so backed up they assign DPEs for your initial and they are the same half dozen +/- they use over and over so they’ve got a good gauge on the oral and ride. Since they are DPEs and not technically FSDO I don’t think anyone in my class spent more than 4 hours on the oral and ride combined and one guy did the CFI and CFII successfully in 1 day with the same DPE. Also, they’ve got the DPEs convinced that if you have a ground instructor certificate, 61.185(b)(1) means you cannot be tested over FOI (or at least can’t be failed for it so you may only get 1-2 questions). Upon learning this on day 2 of the academy, pretty much everyone called the FLL FSDO and made an appointment to get their AGI signed off (and I guess there’s a typo somewhere that reads if you have an AGI you can teach instrument, so nobody bothered with the IGI).

Overall, if you come prepared and are used to the shenanigans of your typical, larger flight school, it’s a pretty quick and cheap way to get the CFI and CFII. I’m just anal and can’t ½ ass things, so I’m back home going the FBO route in no hurry at all fine-tooth-combing everything. It was an interesting/good experience though.
 
LatitudeDancer said:
I posted this in another thread:

I attempted the CFI/CFII Flyer’s academy in PMP. There was a girl that got through part 61 in 29 days and only went over a couple hundred $ (needed 1 more hour in the 172RG for landings as she trained in an Arrow previously). The only people the program seemed to work well for and not be too irritating to were younger individuals who just finished their instrument and commercial and were very proficient in both. If you want out in 35 days (granted no FSDO curve balls) come with your writtens already out of the way, a good understanding of what you need in your lesson plans, and even maybe make a few while studying for your commercial before you show up. Patrick (a chief and the instructor academy’s instructor) is the glue that holds the place together. Have fun with sgt. Dasho; he called me an enigma. Funny guy.

There were some older people there who trained up to the commercial level back in the day that took 35-55 days to finish. They were not told to come instrument proficient to a level that would allow you to pass your instrument ride and they thought just because they did an IPC recently they were fine. They were pretty frustrated and felt were miss-sold on the program (30-day sign-off; not rating). But they got out alive eventually with another $1,000 +/- dished out. Most required 6-10 hours instrument flight (instead of the 5 advertised) and 8-10 hours on the CFI-A maneuvers (instead of the 5 advertised) plus lots of sim time (they break...a-lot).

From personal experience, they pretty much will not let you do it part 141. It is also a waste of time. You must spend 15 of the 20 hours you buy on instrument flying per the approved syllabus (they got busted a while back letting people do chandelles, etc during these 15 hours and will not bend any more). I forced part 141 to get more Cessna time (I trained in Diamonds) and it was the whole trying to get a pig to sing routine. 2 and ½ months later I got bored and left. Long story short, there are only 2 instructors you can fly with for the 141 program and they are chiefs so they don’t have that much time for you.

Also, they have an interesting hook up with the local FSDO if you want an easy checkride. (No I am not saying it’s good, bad, or indifferent. Note: I left PMP with no instructor certs. for a reason). Basically the FSDO is so backed up they assign DPEs for your initial and they are the same half dozen +/- they use over and over so they’ve got a good gauge on the oral and ride. Since they are DPEs and not technically FSDO I don’t think anyone in my class spent more than 4 hours on the oral and ride combined and one guy did the CFI and CFII successfully in 1 day with the same DPE. Also, they’ve got the DPEs convinced that if you have a ground instructor certificate, 61.185(b)(1) means you cannot be tested over FOI (or at least can’t be failed for it so you may only get 1-2 questions). Upon learning this on day 2 of the academy, pretty much everyone called the FLL FSDO and made an appointment to get their AGI signed off (and I guess there’s a typo somewhere that reads if you have an AGI you can teach instrument, so nobody bothered with the IGI).

Overall, if you come prepared and are used to the shenanigans of your typical, larger flight school, it’s a pretty quick and cheap way to get the CFI and CFII. I’m just anal and can’t ½ ass things, so I’m back home going the FBO route in no hurry at all fine-tooth-combing everything. It was an interesting/good experience though.
Click to expand...

Thanks for posting this. Inquiring minds will love these statements.
FSDO's love to read stuff like this.
:cwm27:

Thats almost fraud. I wonder if the FSDO's would revoke the CFI tickets if this was reported... Thats freaking cookie cutting like I never thought was possible. Can someone elaborate?
 
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