Passed the CFI @ shebles

Flyin_bryan

Flyin_bryan

New Member
Passed the CFI @ shebles. The examiner was a fed, an inspector for the faa at the las vegas fsdo. The checkride was no cake walk.

I was quite dissatasfied with shebles. I paid my mere $4300 dollars for:

-16 hour ground school signed in my logbook as 28 hours
-8 hours in old 172's
-6 hours of time with old incompetant flight instructors
-some cheetos
-to have my checkride arranged
-to arrange the checkride myself after it became questionable
-to have no one explain anything to me
-employees just taking the day off
-not getting a spin endorsement
-driving 100 miles to another school and getting a spin endorsement
-70+ hours of self study time
-ect ect ect

screw the cfi certificate, I want a plaque that says "I survived shebles"

im not exagerating in the slightest.


additionally, something I wanted to mention. there is an on staff DPE at shebles raking in serious money. At $400 cash a pop, my buddy saw him do 4 check rides in one day. Thats $1600 cash per day. Lets say this guy does 3 check rides a day, every weekday. Lets say he only works 45 weeks a year. THATS $250,000 dollars per year CASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Holy #### people. Some of the DPE's around there are charging $500 per pop! These people are taking poor flight students to the cleaners. I hope they burn in :D.
 
Flyin_bryan said:
Passed the CFI @ shebles. The examiner was a fed, an inspector for the faa at the las vegas fsdo. The checkride was no cake walk.

I was quite dissatasfied with shebles. I paid my mere $4300 dollars for:

-16 hour ground school signed in my logbook as 28 hours
-8 hours in old 172's
-6 hours of time with old incompetant flight instructors
-some cheetos
-to have my checkride arranged
-to arrange the checkride myself after it became questionable
-to have no one explain anything to me
-employees just taking the day off
-not getting a spin endorsement
-driving 100 miles to another school and getting a spin endorsement
-70+ hours of self study time
-ect ect ect

screw the cfi certificate, I want a plaque that says "I survived shebles"

im not exagerating in the slightest.


additionally, something I wanted to mention. there is an on staff DPE at shebles raking in serious money. At $400 cash a pop, my buddy saw him do 4 check rides in one day. Thats $1600 cash per day. Lets say this guy does 3 check rides a day, every weekday. Lets say he only works 45 weeks a year. THATS $250,000 dollars per year CASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Holy #### people. Some of the DPE's around there are charging $500 per pop! These people are taking poor flight students to the cleaners. I hope they burn in :D.
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+
Congrats man! But I have one questions, why did you continue your training there if you were so dissatisfied?
 
Congrats! I'v heard of Shebles, do they also do seaplane ratings there? Sorry you had a bad experience but I dont blame you one bit I'd be pissed too. This forum is a great way to let future aviators know about your experience there.
 
youngflyer said:
+
Congrats man! But I have one questions, why did you continue your training there if you were so dissatisfied?
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hi youngflyer,

to answer your quesiton:

Sheble Aviation makes you pay $4300 right off the bat when you get there. After traveling to Kingman Arizona and scheduling 1.5 weeks of your life to them its a little hard to reverse anything.

Also, I wouldnt call what they gave me "training"....

Sheble aviation taught me how not to be an instructor, how not to run a flight school, and how not to treat students. They taught me how to scam flight students and maintain a profit margin of roughly 70%. Funny cause they surely dont spend that money on their flight school which is frankly a trailer park dump.

There are students there at various stages of flgiht training, some have been there for months. I think they pass the indian fellas just to get them out of the place. There was constantly students just standing around waiting to fly, day in and day out. HAHA it was so outrageous. Their website says 8 days for cfi training. My checkride was scheduled on the 10th day. There were people there for 2 day multi IFR weekend. Turned into an entire week.

Most days I spent there consisted of me arriving at 8 am. Studying on my own or with another guy doing cfi. I had to ask multiple times to go out in an airplane with an instructor. All the instructors were incompetent. One was pshyco, another wore a baseball hat sideways and some skater shoes and talked like he looked'. The others were old and senile and wasting my time. The people that ran the place were never around except to collect your money.

Frankly, its a liability to even go to the place. You have to taxi these airplanes through chain link fence posts. Also, Shebles is not even technically on the airport, so after that you must taxi down a broken asphalt road in between street signs and electricity poles to an airport perimiter fence. You stop there and wait for someone to "hit the clicker" at the flight schol. No, I am not joking. And on the way back after your "flight training adventure" you must taxi the airplane to within one foot of that fence to activate the sensor to open it. Thats right, the propeller has to be within one foot of the fence to activate the car sensors embeded in the concrete. God forbid one of your breakes gives out and the prop starts ripping through the fence....

I paid $4300 / 10 days = $430 per day

hahahahhahahhahahaha :buck:
 
jettison IT said:
Congrats! I'v heard of Shebles, do they also do seaplane ratings there? Sorry you had a bad experience but I dont blame you one bit I'd be pissed too. This forum is a great way to let future aviators know about your experience there.
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Hi Jettison IT,

to answer your question:

yes they do seaplane ratings there. But by no means go there for a seaplane rating. My buddy did it.. and it basically consisted of one hour flying a float plane. He had his sign off after 1.1 hours... didnt know his training was actually the checkride also :buck::buck::buck:.

Ive got a SES. I got it up in minnesota. Its a seaplane base up by anoka county airport, its called surfside. This and shebles are the only places west of the missisppi to get a SES. By all means do not get your SES at shebles, buy a plane ticket in the summertime to minneapolis for cheap, and drive on over there to surfside. ITS 5000000 GAZILLION TIMES better than shebles. Its an amazing place. you will be satisfied with your experience there, unlike sheble aviation.

so lets calculate how much my buddy spent for his 1.1 hours in a floatplane at shebles.

1,335 + 400 examiner / 1.1 hours = $1527 an hour!

hahahha they probably gave him a break and only charged him $1000/hour!

you are absolutely correct, I am trying to spread the word about sheble aviation. STAY AWAY FROM THIS PLACE AT ALL COSTS. THIS PLACE SHOULD BE SHUT DOWN. I actually said this to an faa inspector whom I did a checkride with. IM NOT JOKING.
 
Wow....Thanks so much for sharing that info.
The fact you got yourself through all that successfully says alot about you as a person.
You really should not be subjected to that kind of hell for your money though. Hopefully others will learn from your account.
 
Bryan. Why did you go there in the first place and where would you do it knowing what you know now?

Funny side story:

In Fresno, we park on this freight ramp that doesn't even have any building around or anything. They do have an access gate you have to get through to the hotel van. How do you get the gate to open from the airport side? They have a shovel....the kind you pick up dirt with....that you swipe over the metal dector in the ground to get the gate to open so you can get to the hotel van. Funniest dang thing I ever saw....
 
I did my CFII and Multi Comm there and didn't seem to have any problems. They do, however, give you the minimum training for whatever rating/license you are going after. You aren't going to get the same quality of instruction or aircraft as your neighborhood FBO.

Basically, you pay your money and buy your ticket.

And yeah, trying to taxi a twin from their new off airport location down an asphalt road while managing not to hit any mailboxes along the way is pretty nervewracking.
 
Bryan thanks for clueing us in on shebles. I went back to some notes I had made a few weeks ago on where to get my seapane rating and sure enough Shebles seemed like the most cost effective place to get it. After reading your review, Shebles will definetly not get my business. Again thanks for the eye-opener.
 
DE727UPS said:
Bryan. Why did you go there in the first place and where would you do it knowing what you know now?

Funny side story:

In Fresno, we park on this freight ramp that doesn't even have any building around or anything. They do have an access gate you have to get through to the hotel van. How do you get the gate to open from the airport side? They have a shovel....the kind you pick up dirt with....that you swipe over the metal dector in the ground to get the gate to open so you can get to the hotel van. Funniest dang thing I ever saw....
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hahah. the bit at fresno sounds pricess! I will look for it next time I am there.

I went to shebles in order to knock out the CFI over my spring break. I had low expectations from researching forums, but I never thought it would be like it was.

I could probably teach someone how to study and organize stuff for the cfi checkride in one hour sitting down with them. shoot I could probably write out what they need to do here on the forum in about an hour. All you gotta be is halfway smart and motivated to be a good instructor and the rest will fall into place with the proper guidance.

SUMMARY:
-Do the lesson plans a certain way.
-print out the current endorsement ac's.
-go through the regs book parts 61 & 91, highlight important, cross out things that dont apply.
-mark up the regs books with small post its, to find stuff during the oral
- buy a instrctor pts
- go rent a 172, grab a buddy and go through all the pts and explain everything to him like he was a student. I mean #### anyone can sit in the right seat. better yet, find another guy that is doing cfi and split the costs, critique eachother.
- just know basic areodynamics, endorsements, the maneuvers, where to find things in books, and how to organize things...
-spend some time with an instructor and get the sign offs.

and then call up the fsdo and tell em you want a free checkride. yes the fsdo checks are free.

if you fail, who the heck cares, it was free. go study some more. come back next time better prepared.

total cost. $1000. wish i would have did it that way... oh wait I did it that way... except I paid shebles 3300 more than that.

look at it this way, i learned what endorsements were all about when I had to figure out what endorsements I needed for the cfi practical. that is because the cfi's at shebles hadnt a clue, i wrote the endorsements in my logbook and they simply signed their name.
 
I know for a fact there are more than two SES training bases west of the big muddy. In fact, the very best is way out west.

I know the ramp at FAT...pretty funny but you do what you have to do. More than a few times I've been stuck inside the fence at different aprts. The worst had to be Las Cruces, 0300 in January in blowing snow with baggage and pax and all the buildings locked. Oh well.

I have seen a lot of students get mightily pissed at a flight school. SOME had good reason, some actually had very good reason. But most just seemed to want to blame someone else.

Which one is Bryan, I don't know and that isn't my point. My point is since when has anyone made a big decision based solely on what ONE person has to say?

I'm not here to defend Sheble's or any other school. Your experience is just that. My best suggestion to any applicant is to gather as much information as one can. Still, it can be a gamble.

Stay in aviation long enough and you will have experienced enough to make you very bitter or very likeable with some great stories. Same experiences, different outcomes. Why, in my own firsthand experience I am deeply troubled by one school which is thought of highly right here on JC. But that's my experience and seemingly it is in the minority.

Back in the saddle again. Heh, maybe it's the barrel....
 
RICHARD5 said:
I know for a fact there are more than two SES training bases west of the big muddy. In fact, the very best is way out west.

I know the ramp at FAT...pretty funny but you do what you have to do. More than a few times I've been stuck inside the fence at different aprts. The worst had to be Las Cruces, 0300 in January in blowing snow with baggage and pax and all the buildings locked. Oh well.

I have seen a lot of students get mightily pissed at a flight school. SOME had good reason, some actually had very good reason. But most just seemed to want to blame someone else.

Which one is Bryan, I don't know and that isn't my point. My point is since when has anyone made a big decision based solely on what ONE person has to say?

I'm not here to defend Sheble's or any other school. Your experience is just that. My best suggestion to any applicant is to gather as much information as one can. Still, it can be a gamble.

Stay in aviation long enough and you will have experienced enough to make you very bitter or very likeable with some great stories. Same experiences, different outcomes. Why, in my own firsthand experience I am deeply troubled by one school which is thought of highly right here on JC. But that's my experience and seemingly it is in the minority.

Back in the saddle again. Heh, maybe it's the barrel....
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point taken rich.

Im not mad at shebles, it is what it is. I am just trying to share the experiences so people can know what their in for... and possibly after knowing what I just went through choose an alternate route.

and yes there are a couple off the radar places to get SES. But the two main ones are shebles and surfside. and frankly i think surfside is the only place that will allow you to actually rent a seaplane and go on an adventure after you get the SES!
 
Sheble's has a very poor reputation. It is widely considered a certificate mill that spends the minimum amount necessary for maintenance on aircraft and is know for very poor instruction. Pay your money, buy your certificate from the on staff DPE... they are probably single handedly responsible to the CFI ride now falling under the domain of the FSDO.
 
If you want to buy your ticket this is the place. I will sleep well tonight after the 6 hour drive from kingman.... with no Commercial license, and $2000 extra to spend on real flight proficiency. What flight training is worth $1000 a day... This is just buying your ticket. (wow, i didn't even think I still had morals)
 
surfCRQ said:
If you want to buy your ticket this is the place. I will sleep well tonight after the 6 hour drive from kingman.... with no Commercial license, and $2000 extra to spend on real flight proficiency. What flight training is worth $1000 a day... This is just buying your ticket. (wow, i didn't even think I still had morals)
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surf, did you drive over there to take a look at the place???
 
Flyin_bryan said:
Passed the CFI @ shebles. The examiner was a fed, an inspector for the faa at the las vegas fsdo. The checkride was no cake walk.

I was quite dissatasfied with shebles. I paid my mere $4300 dollars for:

-16 hour ground school signed in my logbook as 28 hours
-8 hours in old 172's
-6 hours of time with old incompetant flight instructors
-some cheetos
-to have my checkride arranged
-to arrange the checkride myself after it became questionable
-to have no one explain anything to me
-employees just taking the day off
-not getting a spin endorsement
-driving 100 miles to another school and getting a spin endorsement
-70+ hours of self study time
-ect ect ect

screw the cfi certificate, I want a plaque that says "I survived shebles"

im not exagerating in the slightest.


additionally, something I wanted to mention. there is an on staff DPE at shebles raking in serious money. At $400 cash a pop, my buddy saw him do 4 check rides in one day. Thats $1600 cash per day. Lets say this guy does 3 check rides a day, every weekday. Lets say he only works 45 weeks a year. THATS $250,000 dollars per year CASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Holy #### people. Some of the DPE's around there are charging $500 per pop! These people are taking poor flight students to the cleaners. I hope they burn in :D.
Click to expand...

I got •ed by Sheble's too! Went out to finish a three day course in January (2014) and was totally ripped off. First I asked for a refund (court advises you do that first) They said no and when they got a call from the KVGT FSDO they (Sheble)asked me to leave the school. They are currently being investigated by the FAA, their instructor "Sleepy" Matt actually falls asleep while flight training. The wife who schedules the flights has a restraining order against the husband the only honest soul there is the dog. They are operating out of Needles, Ca now. The FEDS think it's because Sheble wants to be out of reach of the law. (won't work) The FEDS are on the way there now. These inbreeds are a disgrace to flying. Do not do business with these ass holes, don't get "Sheble-ed" Fair warning. Check with the local FSDO.
 
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