First Day

Originally posted by keephopealive09:
Purdue Pilot,

I think what citation x meant was that going to Pan Am, as opose to another flights shool, isn't going to beef up your resume at all, and I agree. Nobody will care that you went to Pan Am. Also, I have just posted my experiences to help other people get an idea of what it's like. I don't think that many former Pan Am people are aware of Dougs website otherwise you might get some similar things from them. Most of the positive posts are from current students that haven't been there very long, i.e. more than 3 ratings, cause it took me that long to figure out how screwed I was getting. Good Luck
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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You would suggest that I continue on the path that I'm already on (ie: taking lessons at an FBO)?
 
In my opinion.... ABSOLUTELY!! Finish school while your flying part time. Then make it a full time thing. I doubt an FBO will say no if you want to fly 5 days a week. Meanwhile study your butt off!! I promise, as little as that means, that you will be in the same spot as someone that dropped a huge load out of their pocket book. Why not try it out. When you are flying and studying full time, get in touch with a Pan Am student, or another one of those rip off schools, and compare your pocketbook and progress. I did!!, and that's how I figured it out. Unfortunetly I was on the wrong end of the stick. Your aviaton career is ALL about what you put into it. Flight instructors are all the same, most of them anyway, and they have an obligation to make you a safe pilot. At the same time you need to make yourself an excellent pilot. Good luck, again... just my advice
 
well, i try to answer some of the questions from what i know from being at pan am. i'll try and tell some stories from guys and gals who are there right now, who i've come to know pretty good for scuh a short time and whose opinion i really trust. first, what keephopealive and other are saying is what you'll hear debated by just about every possible student of flight. my class consist of 9 PPL guys, from 20-38. a couple of the guys were telling me that, yes, it was much cheaper to obtain their PPL where there were from, but they wanted to get a more "professional" experience without having to dilly dally and work during training. they and my instructor made a good point, this school may be a little more expensive than an FBO, but we have a set, very structured curriculm that everyone follws, very little deviation in trainig from instuctor to instructor. so we're all on the same page. FBO's have very good instructors, but they may only teach you THEIR way of flying for each individual. it may be just fine for some peolel that way and i'm not knocking it, but you'd end up learning the same thing in 8 different ways with 8 different instructors. and it may work but it also might not be the best it can be. we don't just get opinionated training, we get the procedures and clearly stated intent of our "classes" in a manner coherent with what an airline pilot would need to know, but we get this drilled into our brain right from 0 hours. which maybe some instructors will do for you somewhere else, but on the other hand you're leaving that to chance. i believe, as others do that there is a line between just learning to fly, and training to be a professional pilot. how fine that line is, who knows, but there are differences. as for this brief time people complain about...it may say "brief time" but don't forget there's no column for "instruction time", reason...breif time IS instruction time. some people say that breif time is nonexistant, well, i'm here doing it and i can vouch that we do quite a bit of "brief" time before and after the flight that backs up our ground school work and flight experiences. the plane costs a certain $$, and the instructors do have to get paid. we get maybe 1.5 hours flight time and a good 20 minutes before and after each flight.

6-6:45 is class brief
6:45-7:00, 7:10 is individual instructor brief
7:00-8:30 first flight
8:30-9:00 breif for second flight
9:00-10:30 flgith 2
10:30-11:00 breif for thrid flight
11:00-12:30 flight 3
12:30-1:00,1:30 final post brief.

mind you each breif is attended by the three students (not 10-1, which may be true in Pheonix, i don't know)that each instructor has, and we just drill what we will do and have done along with acedemics of each flight lesson. so the brief time is there. not to mention brief time includes flight instruction in the air.

facilites, are amazing...from my opinion as well as others far more experienced than i. planes are brand new, i think the oldest was from july 99 or something that i've seen. mechanics and ground crews are very good, very quick to fix any problems such as fuel, battery, oddball stuff. as well as getting squaked planes back to the students. there are always extra planes on the field for us to do dry flights in, go over check lists, practice manuever procedures and what not. the pad is getting enlarged as we speak for more aircraft as well. we have got some great instructors, some great administarters, and base faculty as well. we have experienced airline pilots here, as well as those from airline admin. departments.

something to note, from what i hear from the admins. and instructors this is program and how it is run is set up differently than it was before. don't know exactly how, but i keep hearing them say this is new and we're the first ones. i must also say that the group i'm with is so awesome its unbelievable. we all have created a study group, and bonded very well to attack our studies. our admins. ,and instructors were really taken back at seeing how we are digging right into the experience and helping each other. as for myself i'd say i know most of the staff already(super nice) and the rest of the guys have networked very well also. if anyone plans on coming to this school you're guranteed that this group of guys now will help you out in the future if you need it while you're here. just ask any of us, or anyone else at the school. there aren't any cliques here, evryone is very helpful and respectful to each other.

anyway, enough of my experiences. i just want to say that you don't need to take my word for it. if you're thinking of this school come check it out. come and see the place but better yet talk with the people there. grab a student, ask THEM questions not just the tour guide. and don't ask opinions on what they think of the other schools. just visit them and do the same thing. make your own opinons while you're visiting. because basically, there are enough opinionated people on this site to give you all the goods and bads of each place and type of training. which is very helpful to all of us. listen to the posts on the site and use that as your question basis while you tour the schools. ask a question, get an answer...just remember to ask the question. and remember to leave the opinions of others (including mine) back at home when you come to visit a school. make your own opinion, just be sure to talk to the people. i'm sure everyone will agree on that philosophy

ok, hope this helps some of the people that need it. later
 
Timbuff...the most i know is that PPL at FBOs will cost less in most places. the FBO in Buffalo was estimating $7k-$10k for PPL. so for me, it wasn't much off the $7k+ Pan AM was projecting. theres a bunch of people here that did do a PPL prior to Pan Am that i've met. not uncommon to the schools i guess. a couple reasons why Pan Am or another larger school might benifit you is:

1) groups of fellow students working together with you to get your PPL

2) cohesivness from program to program within the school, get a feel for the school.

3) quicker time to PPL cert.

4)more and/or better resources than FBOs, etc...

it all comes down to what works for you. i like the "university" feel to the bigger schools that i've seen at Pan Am. i think its the best way to learn. i know i'll get through PPL fairly rapidly because of that. and yes i have heard from some that PPL has been the toughest for them. i think thats everywhere though. hope that helps some
 
I almost went to Pan Am myself recently. I certainly don't have a bad opinion of it, but my CFI has shared some things. He went to FSI in FL, got everything except his CFI there. For that rating he got so angry with Flight Safety about scheduling issues he actually left and went to Pan Am for his CFI/MEI. He also mentioned that the stagecheck thing was absolutely nothing more than a fantastic cash cow. The stagecheck is not meant for maneuvers to be to PTS, it's just as much a review of your instructor as it is you.
 
I just want a fast-track to my Multi, CFI, CFI-I, and CFI-Multi.

I currently have my private/instrument and I'll be starting my commerical soon. I hope to have my commerical before I graduate sometime next year.
 
i really do hope to instruct someday soon. but i have a LOT to learn. and i do mean a LOT. talk about studying. starting to be a 6am-9pm school day, including flights, studying, more studying, briefs, yadda yadda yadda. its a great deal of work, but well worth it. oh, and my instruntor Beth is the best instructor in the whole world...(in case yer reading beth! he hee) she made me say that, but really she is awesome. ok, i'm gonna go study...had a bad flight, went brain dead but i landed well today so not to worried...i'll get um thursday!!!
 
oh, and as for switching from a different school to another like rascal mentioned... they'll give you $500 if you sign on with Pan Am. they'll also give whoever refered you to Pan Am $500
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. my name is MEDAKOVICH, Mark, just in case...just messin! but they will give you $500 to switch(could offset for deposit) and $500 to whoever refered you. so, something to think about. so if ya like it, and it seems right for you then bring that up to them.
 
Pan Am does? Wow, maybe they should "kick me down a little scratch" whenever I send students their way!

Where's that Stephanie Weeber-Herond (Pan Am-PHX)? I know you browse the forum!
 
Dakovich,
I responded a few days back. I have really enjoyed and benefited from your postings. I have a private pilot license and would be starting at Pan Am at the Instrument Level. I was wondering if you could maybe supply some information as to what people think of the Instrument program, what the hours are that they fly, etc. and If students run close to published cost/time. Any other info would be great. Thanks in advance for your "columns" and help.
 
today i'll try to find whoever started ,and/or completed their instrunment training here and talk to them for you.

found out we're only at about 50% capacity right now at the school as related to students. and their getting more new planes. about 175 students i think it was, we're supposed to be at 350 at max operating from what i've heard. thought that was interesting. also learned that KLM(Dutch Air) sends their pilots here for training. there's a bunch of their pilots down here, they seem to be starting from scratch like the rest of us, but not in our same group. ok, i'll try and post after this weekend again...i'm so looking forward to this weekend, FREE TIME!!!
 
Dakovich,

Thanks for your posts. It is great to have an "insider".

As your time allows, please continue your posts!

Perhaps others in your group could post on Jetcareers periodically. I would especially like to have a perspective from the older classmate (38) for us older prospective Pan Am students.
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I too have benefited from reading the posts (including the ones from "Keephopealive09"). I believe that one of the reasons for the high cost of training at Pan Am is due to the age and type of aircraft they use. Newer model Pipers have always been more expensive than Cessnas, and from my so far very little flying experience, they seem faster and higher in performance. I personally prefer Pipers, but don't mind the age as long as the airplane(s) is maintained. I'm still debating on whether to train at a facility with airplanes that cost less, or to train at Pan Am in newer and better maintained airplanes. One final decision I made is that I definitely won't be going to Sierra Academy. Unfortunately, the FBO I belong to as a member doesn't maintain the airplanes very well, and I've had to cancel a lesson more often than not because my CFI didn't approve. Another FBO I was at attempted to fraud me. They were another cheap FBO, so I suppose it's safer to say that you get what you pay for. I looked at Pan Am's facilities in Phoenix, and I was quite impressed. I plan on going to the PHX area during the second week of May to test for some jobs with several cities, and I'll be visiting Pan Am again, as well as Westwind and a few others. I'll be asking Pan Am about some of the things that I've read here. Again, I appreciate looking at all this info.

Erik.
 
i'll try to keep this post going as new stuff happens and my class progresses. i'm still trying to get some names of some of the CFI students to see if they might want to add to the discussion, as i know a couple members wanted to know about their experiences.

as for the pipers, its the only planes i've flown. even the FBO back home had the same aircraft, same color also by the way. we do have a cessna at pan am, its what we'll be doing our spin training in. guess the pipers aren't ok'd for that or something. otherwise the planes are really nice. couple REALLY nice ones that we obtained from canceled orders from Piper. leather, dual gps, had auto pilot and some other stuff but thats gone. real sweet, we call it the pimp daddy ride.

had our first test today for ground school. did pretty good, happy to have it over. after class friday night i think we're all going out somewhere to just chill. we all need the rest, pretty much a zombie crew of sleep deprived guys. i know i'm getting about only 4.5-5 hours a night and we've been going 7 days straight. lots to learn...maneuvers are soooo important to study, and restudy for each following days flight so that takes up a bunch of time. if you're not on top of it you're kindda flying blind when you go up for your flight lesson, subsequently wasting you're $100+ an hour. so, i'm gonna go look like an ass and use my ironing board as a make shift runway as i "practice" flying around it in my boxers.

oh, and for those who might consider comming here...look for a place close to the airport to live. one of us lives in Port St. Lucie (1/2hour) and he is feeling the stress of just being that far away. he finds he has little time to run back and forth to his house, even for just little things like doing laundry when he gets a free hour. it seems to be a bit of a problem. he's looking now into getting an apartment in fort pierce to be closer. some insight from what i've seen with all of us.

oh, i've entered the club of dumb-ass radio calls. "Fort Pierce Ground, Pan Am18 at pan am, southwest VFR with tango"...."um, try again, this is dispatch pan am 18". DOH! even better, after getting ground and taxiing to the runway i requested takeoff clearance from ground control. "repeat pan am 18"..."repeated request"..."try again son, i'm guessin you want the tower"..."thank you sir" DOH! DOH! DOH! made the others guys listening laugh so it wasn't all for lost
 
Don't worry about the radio calls. I've made some dumbass ones myself.

The most common mistake I still do is tune in a frequency on COMM 2, but forgot to switch over to COMM 2 and I transmit on COMM 1 to the people I was originally talking to!

You're still young in your career, so you still have a lot of time to make a lot of embarrassing mistakes like that!
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Keephopealive09, You mentioned other schools in Arizona. What schools do you recommend? I appreciate your opinion.

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