DT,
The quote is real, you may not remember it I give you that but I didn’t make it up. It was part of a response from you back when the old forum was up. There is no way for me to prove it nor is there any point. For a second I thought it was in a newsletter but it wasn’t. While I was checking through a section in a newsletter where you defended your attitude toward DCA (based on some previous attacks(?). Apparently others had the opinion that you are against DCA as well.
What you (and deups727 you too) have missed from my first post in this forum is that I really do not care if one has a bad comment or even a couple of hundreds about something as long those are valid comments and as long the person can base the information on something more than a commercial.
You can run your forum as you want and frankly you can have whatever opinion you feel appropriate about DCA. But do not be surprised if one will point it out once in a while that indeed you do have that opinion. That is all I have done in my “rotten” post. Why it raised your blood pressure I have no clue. You talk Liberal, you will be called a Liberal. (no problems with Libs btw) That is how it goes.
Guess how many times have my blood pressure been raised when I read DCA bashing responses, 60% of which are based on the marketing practices, from readers of Flying Magazine (not students or former students of DCA).
Like I have said in my post I do not read much JC anymore so I did not know that since then you have launched an offensive against all the flight academies! Great! At least it is balanced now. Had it always been that way I would have had more tolerance. But to be honest I still think you have a bad opinion about DCA and you are always trigger happy to jump in with a little comment here and a little one there… AND that is your business and freedom even if your opinion is based on… I am not sure on what… perhaps on people posting here and e-mail you receive and whatnot. However it is my freedom to say it laud what I think about that. You got the kill switch so use it if you want to… but than that would not work too well on the ideas of freedom of speech I guess.
I guess we will leave it at that my opinion is “rotten” and IMO yours is rotten too… using your own words here.
DE727UPS,
I have been reading your comments on several boards not only this, and have always had great respect for you, your achievement and your stand on the academy vs. FBO issue. Not that I want to kiss ass or anything just wanted to make it clear in advance.
However, and correct me if I am wrong, I though you got your ratings from an FBO. Apparently it worked for your very well. Too bad that you can’t have a 1st hand experience about DCA so your 1st hand criticism will be limited to that advertisement that you have read yesterday.
I can see that everyone is trying to sell the idea that worked best for him/her. FBO worked good for you but it did not work that well for many CFIs in the past 2 years. It is a shame but that is how it was. While DCA managed (agreeably partly due to the huge growth at regionals on the expense of Delta which in long term may be negative for all of us wannabees) to place, and still manages to place grads to DCI regionals while the school opens up new locations.
Based on the above, don’t you think that they can advertise that they are the only school who has done that? Who else has placed anyone into Comair lately? Who has sent the most amount of students to Chautauqua? It was DCA. Weather you like the system, the method, or without starting to argue weather it is fair or not, the fact remains the same.
BTW about marketing. I don’t know where everyone is living but if you have $45-65k to spend and you can’t see through marketing, and base your opinion only on that, than you are a very lucky dude. Because most of us (late career changers) who had to came up with the money alone surely looked around where to drop it. How can you base your opinion only on marketing? You would never buy anything if you would do that.
About my criticism: I have almost 700 posts here (it surprised me too when I logged in after a while), I have been a very active member for years and I have criticized CAA, DCA, call it the way you want it, several times before for:
- quality of airplanes (not safety related though)
- scheduling problems
- customer service issues
- usual politics of any flight academy
- at times unrealistically high expectations
etc…
Some of these issues were resolved, some others weren’t, and I am sure some new will come up in the future... However I had to realize, anywhere I go I would have had to deal with these or similar issues. So I can bitch as much I want… Just like $10/h for CFIs… it sucks but it sucks everywhere not only at DCA. Most of my posts are gone by now but I pitched in deeply when it came to criticize, I got into piss matches with other DCA students too, and I have also had my times when I felt I wanted out. But the bottom line did not change. Almost all of my former CFIs are either hired at a DCI airline or hired somewhere else, or are waiting for an interview. Every student whom I have seen finish training was either hired as a CFI, or was picked up by another school within no time because we have a good reputation as far as standards of training and you can’t be a complete idiot if you have finished here. I have already received a CFI offer before I even had my CFI ticket from an FBO… didn’t take it but it sure is a good feeling to know what if I get the axe. It is not that difficult to wash out in standz class.
I am a week or two from being done with my training and spent about $40-42k-ish total (up to CFII) by staying in Broward. I doubt that that is too much today. I would not trade my training with any FBO for like 10 grand even if I will not get hired as a CFI here. Just right now I had to put in 6 hours study time into a single ground briefing (on top of another 4 yesterday), other places will sign you up with the DPE without even making you do a single CFI brief. Thanks I rather stay… and bitch about high standards.
This in general to whomever:
People are envy of DCA because they feel they don’t get the same chances and when they figure it out it is too late. When hiring was good DCA got some badmouth, but not even close as much as during the hiring slowdown. That is a clear indication of people being envy and thinking DCA grads got some unfair advantage because they had the money. Guess what? Someone somewhere had to make that money, someone somewhere had to decide that he will not be cheap and give it a shot… Most of those are in, some aren’t. If you could do it cheaper GREAT!!! I am glad for you, but if you could not than don’t blame DCA for it. This is a world of money… sucks not to have it though, took me 3 years to finish what one can finish in 10 months… sucks but I can promise you, you do not want to change to communism.
Now lets see if I still have an account to paste this in…
