The Issues with Paying Up Front for Flight School

I was on the floor laughing when I learned Troy Wadsworth "resigned" and was so disappointed at the Faddis brothers when the public became aware that people were bringing the harsh realities of their (new buzzword) ponzi scam/scheme to light.

Troy Wadsworth was 100% involved in the entire scam that was National Pilot Academy or NPA. To even begin to think that he isn't still involved with the Cedar City, Utah gang of Cole Faddis, Jared Faddis, Robert Tripp, Craig Davis, or even their promotable daddy David Faddis of Skywest is impossible.

If anyone is even remotely considering spending time at the new Western Aviation or whatever slime they call themselves this week, search for all the names listed above and find out just what happens when you give these people money to play with....


JayAre said:
Western from what I hear took over the 141 program NPA was or working on. The backer of Western wings is Cheany(sp?) who was leasing back his 172 NPA and along with M. Leavitt who brought Troy back from Reno a couple of times to help set up Western Wings. IMO Western isn't out to screw people over as long M. Leavitt is involved it will be legit. Troy is just as guility as Cole and Jared, I don't buy the resigning before closing he knew what was going on and didn't really care. Before I was thrown under the bus there. Troy was bragging how SkyWest was interested in buying the flight school and runnning there own training program since NPA was far better than anyone else and SkyWest just wasn't getting good enough applicants. He was dropping names such as Camille Ence and Brad Holt coming to visit the school. If people would just do the homework and not get sold on empty promises by these scam schools.
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I would like to comment on the last two post by Mr. Scout Fouts (sdfcvoh) and JayAre. You guys need to get you facts straight and stop spreading false information about Troy Wadsworth and Craig Davis. They ran the flight department and had nothing to do with the business side of NPA. Cole and Jared controlled the money, not TROY AND CRAIG.

Scout Fouts has a personal vendeta against Troy and Craig since they repermanded him for taking one of NPAs aircraft to 17,500 and then attempted to brag about on this forum. He also had a prop strike in Sedona AZ and flew himself with his family back to Tuscon and proceeded not to tell anybody about it, a real safe guy. Troy and Craig repremanded him for that as well. After those incidence Scout Fouts has had out for Troy Wadsworth and Craig Davis.

I heard that Scout Fouts was now an Instructor.. GOD HELP THE AVIATION INDUSTRY if Mr. Fouts is instructing. I can't believe a flight school would hire a yahoo like him. They need to contact there local FSDO i am sure they have some good info on this guy.

Please Scott, don't bash these two guys because you got in trouble by doing something stupid in the aircraft. Scott they were only looking out for your safety...
 
This issue comes up from time to time. Here are my thoughts pasted from several months ago in another thread:

jrh said:
I just wanted to point out that from a flight school management perspective, there are some very legitimate reasons for giving "block time" or "prepayment" discounts.

Where I work, we give a $15/hr discount for paying for half the estimated cost of a rating up front.

The reason for this is because we want to reward customers who are serious about getting a license. We're in the business of getting people licenses, not individual lessons. We've found that if a person has money on account with us, they fly more often, have a significantly lower dropout rate, develop higher proficiency, and and are generally happier with their experience. On our end, it is less paperwork, our instructors are happier because they don't have to deal with students constantly starting and stopping due to financial setbacks, etc. Prepaid accounts make for easier planning for the future. We are a more stable operation because of this.

We also have a money back guarantee, so if a customer wants to stop flying with us for any reason, they get their money back. In the year and a half I've been with this school, only one customer took us up on this offer, and it was because he had a problem with his medical certificate.

Will we accept "pay as you go" customers? Of course we will. We're not going to turn away business. But to be completely honest, we don't think that's the best way to run our operation, which is why we give incentives to pay in advance. It has nothing to do with "borrowing from our students to pay our bills."

There are plenty of shady flight schools out there, but be careful to classify one as shady without seeing the other side.
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Why anyone who wasn't rich would even consider going to a flight school is beyond me. You can pass all your written exams with home study. If you get your own hull insurance ($250~400 per year) you can always find someone who will rent you a 152 for cheap. And with all the underemployed flight instructors around it's easy to find someone to instruct you for half of what the schools charge. Why pay 50 or 60K for all your ratings when you can do it yourself for 15 or 20?
Anyway, that's what I did.
 
gliderboy said:
Why anyone who wasn't rich would even consider going to a flight school is beyond me.
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"Rich" is a *very* subjective term.

gliderboy said:
You can pass all your written exams with home study. If you get your own hull insurance ($250~400 per year) you can always find someone who will rent you a 152 for cheap. And with all the underemployed flight instructors around it's easy to find someone to instruct you for half of what the schools charge. Why pay 50 or 60K for all your ratings when you can do it yourself for 15 or 20?
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Same reason some people work on their own car, some people take it to the corner mechanic, and some people take it to the dealership. Various levels of expertise and service for various prices.

gliderboy said:
Anyway, that's what I did.
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I'm glad your training worked out for you. I don't think most people would be successful if they tried the same approach.
 
I paid for all my training up front- Worked out great, Don't think I would have been able to get it done any other way. But sometimes you just worry about if you walk up and the doors are locked :dunno:
 
FLYBOY71 said:
I would like to comment on the last two post by Mr. Scout Fouts (sdfcvoh) and JayAre. You guys need to get you facts straight and stop spreading false information about Troy Wadsworth and Craig Davis. They ran the flight department and had nothing to do with the business side of NPA. Cole and Jared controlled the money, not TROY AND CRAIG.

Scout Fouts has a personal vendeta against Troy and Craig since they repermanded him for taking one of NPAs aircraft to 17,500 and then attempted to brag about on this forum. He also had a prop strike in Sedona AZ and flew himself with his family back to Tuscon and proceeded not to tell anybody about it, a real safe guy. Troy and Craig repremanded him for that as well. After those incidence Scout Fouts has had out for Troy Wadsworth and Craig Davis.

I heard that Scout Fouts was now an Instructor.. GOD HELP THE AVIATION INDUSTRY if Mr. Fouts is instructing. I can't believe a flight school would hire a yahoo like him. They need to contact there local FSDO i am sure they have some good info on this guy.

Please Scott, don't bash these two guys because you got in trouble by doing something stupid in the aircraft. Scott they were only looking out for your safety...
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I always love it when there's a thread that points a finger at someone, and suddenly out of the blue there's a first time poster who comes to the rescue of the accused.
 
Hacker15e said:
I always love it when there's a thread that points a finger at someone, and suddenly out of the blue there's a first time poster who comes to the rescue of the accused.
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When somebody writes on this forum to try to destroy personal reputations it is a concern.. I am not trying to rescue anyone. I just want for these people to get thier facts straight...
 
FLYBOY71 said:
When somebody writes on this forum to try to destroy personal reputations it is a concern.. I am not trying to rescue anyone. I just want for these people to get thier facts straight...
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So, you are concerned when people's reputations are getting destroyed?

Well, you certainly made a nice attempt in your post!

Scout Fouts has a personal vendeta against Troy and Craig since they repermanded him for taking one of NPAs aircraft to 17,500 and then attempted to brag about on this forum. He also had a prop strike in Sedona AZ and flew himself with his family back to Tuscon and proceeded not to tell anybody about it, a real safe guy. Troy and Craig repremanded him for that as well. After those incidence Scout Fouts has had out for Troy Wadsworth and Craig Davis.

I heard that Scout Fouts was now an Instructor.. GOD HELP THE AVIATION INDUSTRY if Mr. Fouts is instructing. I can't believe a flight school would hire a yahoo like him.
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Yep, you certainly are all about "the high road".
 
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