down and Dirty

Hawk

New Member
OK Folks. I'm posting this on the schools I am looking into. I want to hear from anyone who has the time to offer insight and intelligent information (no bashing).

Question:
What is the best school for the bucks and networking? I currently have my Private, Intrument, and commercial ratings (all SEL). In about a year from now, I will embark on a journey that will take me from where I am to the regionals or corperate. I am talking flight schools only and not college (which is taken care of already).

again, I will post this on the schools that I am interested in the most: Ari-Ben, ATP, FSA, Regional (no post site), and Pan Am.

Have at it...
 
If you already have that, I see no reason to go to an academy or large school. Get your Multi-commercial add and CFI ratings. Then start building time.
 
Some may consider it bashing, but if the bashing is coming from several different people and is reoccuring, then that must be the truthful insight on the school that you are looking for.
 
Anyway, if I were you I would attend a small school somewhere. Most small schools will hire you as an instructor if you get all of your ratings from them. If I had to do it all over again, I would stay at a small school because they are cheaper. Also, being at a smaller setting, you also get to know people better--giving you more chances at networking.
 
Spend a few thousand bucks and get your CFI at a school that will hire you. Add your multi-CPL, CFII, and MEII as needed. The money you'll spend at a big school at this point isn't worth it.
 
Then again, if you completed your instructor rating at Pan Am you could get hired on and average 80 hours a month as a CFI. As opposed to the FBO's where most are getting 20 a month.

I'd contact the schools you're interested in and visit.
 
complete the cfi at pan am and get hired on and average 80hours per month? Where and when does that happen. Show me an instructor that is flying 80 hours a month. Most of the recent cfis wait. There are some from December that have no students. Just curious where you get your numbers.
 
Where and when? Phoenix location right now. What are CFI's at Florida location averaging a month?
 
I would say most cfi's are averaging no more than 40 hrs a month. Some more, but most less. And lets not count the cfis that have been sitting doing duty cfi for months. Not looking good in FPR.

Any chance you would give a FPR grad a fighting chance to work in DVT?
 
i'd go for a local school that will hire you in exchange for training with them. sounds pretty hard to find a place to CFI unless you do just that. first its less expensive, and you can start flying right away after getting the rating. the academy thing just seems like it'll take to much sitting to get what ya want, and you'll spend a bunch just for that. academies would be a much better idea if there was as steady influx of students and a steady outflux of instructors onward and upward. if that was true they would be great places, but thats not happening...no matter what thet tell you. of course it would nice if you were one of their senior instructors, cause you'd probably get all the students and time flying you could want.
 
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Where and when? Phoenix location right now. What are CFI's at Florida location averaging a month?

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I'm tired of coming in here and having to clean up the BS all the time, but that's just a blatant lie.
 
And Mav I am tired of telling you that you don't know anything because you don't work here. I am averaging 80 hours per month. Is that good enough for ya? Don't try to be the expert on Pan Am just because you happened to grace our buildings eons ago. People who work here know the real deal. I don't claim to be an expert on Sawyer nor do I even care about what you guys are doing over there. I'm not trying to start a war here I just think you need to be careful about what you THINK you know and what is the reality.
 
Checked my logbook and I have averaged about 65 hours a month since the beginning of the year. If I wasn't so lazy I would have been closer to 80. But wait, about 95% of that was in the multi. So mavmb1, how many hours are you flying each month, and how much of that is multi time?
 
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And Mav I am tired of telling you that you don't know anything because you don't work here. I am averaging 80 hours per month. Is that good enough for ya? Don't try to be the expert on Pan Am just because you happened to grace our buildings eons ago. People who work here know the real deal. I don't claim to be an expert on Sawyer nor do I even care about what you guys are doing over there. I'm not trying to start a war here I just think you need to be careful about what you THINK you know and what is the reality.

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Well I just call them like I see them. And so far I've had two instructors from Pan Am come over to Sawyer looking for jobs and aircraft rentals because they said they were getting very few hours of instruction in at Pan Am and the little that they were getting was mostly sim time.

And Tired I'm averaging about 20 hours a week flying right now so I'm pretty happy with that. No sim time, and every once in a while multi time in a 310.
 
Hey hawk, don't know if it helps, but I switched from Pan Am to RAA for my CFI and it was the best thing I could have done. The school cares a lot more about its students and the administration is far more professional and experienced than Pan Am. At Pan Am they were always chanting about 'the airline way', yet they had no real airline experience (other than a guy that flew for a regional carrier for 6 months - and yeah, he was a champ). At RAA most of the execs are retired airline folks - so at least they have a decent credibility. When I left Pan Am the wait list to teach was at least 6 to 12 months. At RAA the instructors are getting hired on immediately (some when done with CFI and some when they are done with CFI-I), and they are getting hours (not just hired and put on waiting list). In general, I feel that I'm getting the education that I went to an academy for - not just a general aviation package in an expensive wrapper (ie Pan Am)
 
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And Mav I am tired of telling you that you don't know anything because you don't work here. I am averaging 80 hours per month. Is that good enough for ya? Don't try to be the expert on Pan Am just because you happened to grace our buildings eons ago. People who work here know the real deal. I don't claim to be an expert on Sawyer nor do I even care about what you guys are doing over there. I'm not trying to start a war here I just think you need to be careful about what you THINK you know and what is the reality.

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I think all the FBOs and Academy's are out for your money; they're all busineses, and that's what businesses do. PanAm, Sawyer, Westwind, all the same old story when it comes to money; and same old quality when it comes to instruction: new-hires leading the studs, blind leading the blind. Good or bad, that's just how it is, since not many come out of industry and go back to instructing these days.

If anyone wants my opinion, CFIing is boring. You want to build hours, get a job doing Ag, banner towing, or radio station. There is other ways to build time, one just needs to look for them. Was in the same predicament myself moons ago, and I avoided the "CFI trap" of feeling that there was no other way to build time.
 
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And Mav I am tired of telling you that you don't know anything because you don't work here. I am averaging 80 hours per month. Is that good enough for ya? Don't try to be the expert on Pan Am just because you happened to grace our buildings eons ago. People who work here know the real deal. I don't claim to be an expert on Sawyer nor do I even care about what you guys are doing over there. I'm not trying to start a war here I just think you need to be careful about what you THINK you know and what is the reality.

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I think all the FBOs and Academy's are out for your money; they're all busineses, and that's what businesses do. PanAm, Sawyer, Westwind, all the same old story when it comes to money; and same old quality when it comes to instruction: new-hires leading the studs, blind leading the blind. Good or bad, that's just how it is, since not many come out of industry and go back to instructing these days.

If anyone wants my opinion, CFIing is boring. You want to build hours, get a job doing Ag, banner towing, or radio station. There is other ways to build time, one just needs to look for them. Was in the same predicament myself moons ago, and I avoided the "CFI trap" of feeling that there was no other way to build time.

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Sawyer doesn't charge people a 3000 dollar penalty charge when they have to move or leave the school. Not all businesses are unscrupulous.
 
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[ Sawyer doesn't charge people a 3000 dollar penalty charge when they have to move or leave the school. Not all businesses are unscrupulous.

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I would certainly agree that if PanAm has that policy, that I disagree with it. Is that policy for departing the school for any reason?

I do know that when I was training for my PVT way back in the 80s, Sawyer always had the higher prices for aircraft rental than the other FBOs. These days though, every FBO has about the same high rental prices, and most all the academies charge and arm and a leg for their program; much of it for the name of the academy on the recipients certificate. The quality of instruction (talking Pvt/Comm/Inst) is pretty much the same whether it be FBO or academy; the same inbreed low hour, newly-minted, book-smart-but-no-real-world-experience IPs toting the truly blind along in the learn-to-fly process, and dong it @1.5 at a time. Unfortunately, that's just how it is. I don't think a PanAm IP is any better or worse than a Sawyer IP (or Westwind/Glendale Aviation/Scottsdale Flyers, et al) for what they're going to be teaching the students.

Difference being at one school, everybody gets to wear shoulder boards and white shirts, while at the other they get Polos.
 
MikeD, can we get the pictures of the fluoride guy and the girl under your name switched? I’d like a bigger version of her. Sounds like you had some bad experiences in your civilian training, sorry to hear that. In a perfect world, all the flight instructors would have 30k hours of experience, train new pilots and send them off to fly right seat somewhere. Then after they built up 30k hours, they would become flight instructors. Unfortunately, the economics don’t work out that way. I must say though, that I have been very lucky with my flight instructors (for the most part) in receiving very high quality training. These guys were definitely not “blind”.
 
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