What was your westwind experience like?

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Chopshop

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My training was okay but overpriced, working as a CFI at westwind was a joke(no work). I was quoted 40 k and I spent around 55 K. Lots of loop holes in the quotes such as prices increasing after you start, fuel surcharges, quoting hour flights for checkrides, quoting a shorter time to complete ratings than what it really takes. Westwind is expensive and you should get a degree out of it for the price that they charge but you don't. Quality of training comes down to the instructor, which if you get a brand new CFI for your private it will cost you a fortune since at that level of a CFI you really don't know what you are doing and when a student is ready for solo and checkrides which usually leads to extra training. Requesting for extra missions for students is granted as soon as you hit the request button on the computer and it doesn't matter how many times you request the same mission the Chief never sits down with the instructor and the student to discuss the issues. That is one of my biggest complaints is the Chief isn't watching what the CFI's are doing enough and will turn his head if the instructors are milking students because that is money to westwind. Other issues are the LOFT program. Waste of money, it's a rogue mock ground school for 2500 dollars. You have to do it before CFI which is because they can use the Job isn't guaranteed if you don't do it. Basically you do a little systems review, flows, and some sim training by instructors who have no airline experience. Could be different now with 737 sim, but it's probably more money. What good does the 737 sim do for students who won't be in one for at least 7 years? Marketing sales pitch. Getting charged .3 on both ends of flights isn't in the quote but westwinds management says its your job to do it and charge the students for every flight,(alot of instructors just charge it even if there was little briefing). I personally think pre/post briefings should be included in the hourly charge for the plane. That's no included in the quote and adds up over time. The money you get from Key bank(used to be able to get) is the students even though westwind thinks it's there's. They limit what you can spend it on because they try and make sure they get as much of it as they can. Key bank would say 1500 a month for living expenses but westwind would say 1100. 400 a month for a year is an extra 4000 dollars in their pocket. CFI job is a joke. You have a job but no students? Is that really a job? First thing management would tell you when you got a wet CFII ticket was to get a 2nd job. They will can you for any little excuse they can get and knock on wood if you ever had an screw up, I would dare bet they wouldn't back you in court and you will be on your own. Bottomline is regionals don't care where you did your training. You should go put as much research as you can into where to do your flight training before going. Westwind is an FBO with a fancy name, fancy uniforms(although I don't think the aviator with shorts and tennis shoes is too fancy), nice facility, and good used car salesman. So I ask everyone to post their experience good or bad.

PS. Newbieairlinepilot is management at westwind so take that for what it's worth.
 
Yea… this sounds very much like my experience. On day one, they load you up with a huge box of books… we’re talking hundreds of dollars, for the entire program, including PTSs for every rating, however little do you know at that point that they are available free on the FAA website as PDF files…. You could go to Kinko’s and pay $10 to get them all printed and put in a binder…. Instead WW sells them to you for around $10 each- not to mention that they change periodically as well… there were a few that I had to buy twice as the previous ones had been superceded. Then they proceed to sell you the king CD courses for around $180 each, which makes absolutely no sense, considering you’re in their professional pilot ground schools! Of course as a brand new student to aviation, you don’t know what you need and don’t need; you trust the guidance of your flight “school”

A note on the groundschools…. They cover pretty much everything in class, yet you still must do two or three hours of ground every few lessons or so with your instructor. This really doesn’t make sense… as I remember being taught things that I had already learned in class. It’s just another one of their money extraction techniques.

As far as the quality of training goes, I would say it is average to poor depending on the instructor that you get- I guess it could be good depending on the CFI, but it is hit or miss. There is no standardization whatsoever amongst instructors, no accountability, or recurrent training- instructors can repeat as many lessons as they want at their discretion. The newly minted CFIs are the worst… kinda like the blind leading the blind so to speak. The Chief flight instructor has got to be the sorriest excuse of a flight instructor, and manager that I have ever seen. He seems to think that he can re-write the PTS to tighten the standards…. Like requiring instructors to pull mixtures during slow flight and stalls in the multi-engine planes. This led to their accident, which they are very hush-hush about. In my opinion he should have lost all of his certificates for that one, as it claimed the lives of three fine young pilots. They’re being sued by family members as a result of his negligence, and I intend to help out in any way possible to see that justice is served. See my other posts in the 7 page long thread regarding this. http://forums.jetcareers.com/showthread.php?t=29027&page=5

The LOFT program that Chopshop mentioned in previous posts was probably the biggest joke of all. You had to do it right after your commercial multi, in order to get the job as a CFI. The groundschool and sim were taught by 600hr CFIs with NO AIRLINE EXPERIENCE!!! And when I went through the program, the B-1900 sim was a dilapidated old frasca-242! They didn’t even have coherent jepp charts for the simulated airline flying throughout the northeast. One fond memory of the LOFT program was my sim partner and I getting in an argument with the instructor over him telling us to proceed direct to a VOR- to which we were already on an airway segment, which led directly to the VOR in question! This instructor was adamant that we were not proceeding direct! Talk about top-notch instructors! :sarcasm:
From what I understand, they are now selling a LOFT program with a 737 sim. This has got to be another one of the biggest jokes I have ever heard in the flight training world, and nothing more than a marketing ploy at best! No one who leaves WW is going straight into a 737! Perhaps a CRJ, or an ERJ…. But a 737? Come on! and it’s not like you get a type rating out of it!

Speaking of instructors that don’t have a clue what they’re doing, when I was working on my instrument rating, doing GPS approaches, I recall my instructor telling me to never select “Vectors” mode on the GPS because it puts it in a “weird mode” and I would have to “start all over” with the setup. Hmmm… now this is quite interesting because it is a function on a TSO’d navigation unit, meaning that it is there as a requirement for certification- Perhaps it might be important to know what that does? Especially considering the fact that 95% of all approaches in high-density traffic areas are Vectored approaches? This just reaffirms my posts in previous threads that Westwind’s instructors really don’t have a clue what they’re doing!

If I had to do it all over again, I would find myself a retired airline guy, or a 10,000 hr+ career CFI who does this because he/she loves sharing aviation with others, and not some time-building jackass CFI who doesn’t know or care about what he/she is doing.

Experience in Flight training is so important, and yet so often overlooked…. And while Westwind touts on their website that they’ve been training pilots over 20 years, I would venture to say that 90% of their instructors have been certificated PILOTS, not even instructors, for 1.5 years or less!

But hey, I’m just a guy who flies jets for a part 121 airline…. What do I know?
 
Well…….I’ll say it again, I had a good experience. Don’t get your panties in a bunch and accuse me of being management because I’m not.

I was a student during the time when things were slow around there. I remember there being 100+ instructors and hearing all the b!^ching and moaning about them flying 5-10 hours a month. When I was working on my CFI certificates I contemplated going elsewhere because I was afraid of that same situation happening to me. After checking out a few places I decided to stick with it and see how it turned out. When I finished all my ratings I did checkouts and discovery flights for about a month, then I was given one custom student and 3 professional students. During that time enrollment started to pick up pretty quickly and the instructors were flying more often. I was fortunate enough to always keep myself busy and was consistently flying 60-80 hours a month. Some instructors were busier than others and it seemed that as long as you were productive with your students, they kept giving you more. I don’t really believe that Westwind promotes milking students but I think there were a few instructors who were j@ck@sses and couldn’t teach. Some people went way over budget and others didn’t. At some point people have to take responsibility for their own training and do something about it. If you’re not happy, get out. If you think you’re getting raped…..quit. Its as simple as that and I’ve seen some guys do it. The flight training industry operates in cycles(similar to how the airlines do). Things get slow and then pick back up and I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes. I just happened to be working there when it was busy and it worked out well for me. I think I got what I paid for and that’s why I like the place. If I was in the shoes of Chopshop or Embraer, I might have a different opinion.


I do, however, think the LOFT training is a joke. I did it in the B1900 FTD and think it was worthless as far as preparing me for the 121 world. I never did the 737 thing so I can’t comment on that. I messed around on the 737 sim a few times and it was fun but that was it.

Everyone knows that airlines don’t give a • were you do your training so do whatever you think is right for you.

This is just my opinion so take it, and all others on this thread, with a grain of salt.

But hey, I too am just a guy who flies jets for a part 121 airline…. So what do I know?

 
Like I've told you before, I am not a memeber of Westwind management. Others on this site who know who I am can vouch for that, I work for a 121 operator. I do however wish to remain nameless and just give my input onto this site.

My training at Westwind was a great fit for me. Like supertool said, it doesn't matter what flight school you attend, just go to one that fits your needs. If you need a military type school, then maybe pan am or a similar school is going to be good for you. If you are self motivated and can make sure that you keep yourself on track time and budget wise then Westwind may be for you. I've seen tons of people go over budget and lots of people stay within budget. It's up to the person on how well they do (sounds a little like life huh?).

Now selecting a flight school that is just going to get you by with bare mins for a checkride is not going to get you anywhere fast. Go somewhere that they go above and beyond what the FAA expects you to know. That doesn't mean you'll be expected to know the tire pressure on a cessna, but you would be expected to know things like airspeed in class B airspace (think that might be useful in 121 ops?? gee I wonder).

So in my experience, Westwind was a great school. I only went to one other flight school before so it's not like I have a survey done on my own of all the flight schools in the country. But now looking back on my training experience and working for a 121 operator, I am glad I went to Westwind, it HELPED me get to where I am now, it didn't put me there. You do actually have to work hard yourself (some of this website expect your certificate to be handed on a silver platter and thats why they are still bit#hing about the training at Westwind from YEARS ago).
 
NewbieAirlinePilot said:
You do actually have to work hard yourself (some of this website expect your certificate to be handed on a silver platter and thats why they are still bit#hing about the training at Westwind from YEARS ago).
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When has anyone here ever said or implied this? You act like having high expectations from your school and instructors is a bad thing?
 
embraer said:
When has anyone here ever said or implied this? You act like having high expectations from your school and instructors is a bad thing?
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If you go into a situation where you are expecting that, you are less likely to put fourth a good effort and actually earn your certificates. That is all I'm saying. Having high expectations for a flight school is a good thing for sure, however having even higher expectations of yourself is too. Others on this site who complain about going over budget and being forced to retake progress checks and lessons I feel only had to do that because the instructor didn't feel the student was progressing enough. To say that managment tells the instructors to bill more hours than what is needed with the students is crazy. The school may say to bill more hours with a student each week (more billiable hours each week normally means more lessons being done, progressing faster) however that is totally different than trying to rip the students off by billing hours which aren't necessary.
 
embraer said:
hmmm, interesting.... because I remember a few CFI meetings where the chief flight instructor told us that we are not billing enough hours, and to step it up.
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Haha, you obviously only read what you want to. Like I said, just because you "bill" more hours each week, doesn't mean that you are cheating the student out of their money. It only means you are scheduling them more and getting more lessons done each week. For example, if you scheduled your students for 3 lessons a week or 5 lessons a week, which one do you think would get more hours billed? Does the fact that 5 lessons in that example were scheduled that week automatically mean the student is getting riped off by worstwind? Doesn't mean that at all. So when you were a wise old CFI at westwind and the chief says to bill more hours, doesn't mean to screw every last student out of their money, just means to get more lessons done if possible.
 
NewbieAirlinePilot said:
Haha, you obviously only read what you want to. Like I said, just because you "bill" more hours each week, doesn't mean that you are cheating the student out of their money. It only means you are scheduling them more and getting more lessons done each week. For example, if you scheduled your students for 3 lessons a week or 5 lessons a week, which one do you think would get more hours billed? Does the fact that 5 lessons in that example were scheduled that week automatically mean the student is getting riped off by worstwind? Doesn't mean that at all. So when you were a wise old CFI at westwind and the chief says to bill more hours, doesn't mean to screw every last student out of their money, just means to get more lessons done if possible.
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Jim you are misunderstanding, He is talking about the .5 added to both ends of the flight and how you and Jerry would stand up there in the meetings and say you can see who is doing thier job properly. An average westwind flight would involve 2hr flight and 1.5(atleast ground) with .5 tacked on=4 hours or so. Expensive, to long to be productive in the learning environment.
 
Chopshop said:
Jim you are misunderstanding, He is talking about the .5 added to both ends of the flight and how you and Jerry would stand up there in the meetings and say you can see who is doing thier job properly. An average westwind flight would involve 2hr flight and 1.5(atleast ground) with .5 tacked on=4 hours or so. Expensive, to long to be productive in the learning environment.
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As a prior instructor, I wanted to get paid for a debrief, I don't do those for free. My time isn't free for a debrief. I guess you never made it to CFI to know what I mean.

So are you telling me a ground and flight in one day is too much for you? Maybe you shouldn't go to a fast paced school like Westwind was trying to be. Some people actually go to Westwind because the pace suits them.

And once again, not Jim. I guess you cant believe that someone actually made it out of Westwind with a positive attitude about the place. Just because you didn't, doesn't mean everyone else didn't also. I think you need to try to comprehend that first before responding to this message.
 
NewbieAirlinePilot said:
As a prior instructor, I wanted to get paid for a debrief, I don't do those for free. My time isn't free for a debrief. I guess you never made it to CFI to know what I mean.

So are you telling me a ground and flight in one day is too much for you? Maybe you shouldn't go to a fast paced school like Westwind was trying to be. Some people actually go to Westwind because the pace suits them.

And once again, not Jim. I guess you cant believe that someone actually made it out of Westwind with a positive attitude about the place. Just because you didn't, doesn't mean everyone else didn't also. I think you need to try to comprehend that first before responding to this message.
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Where did I say I didn't make it to CFI? If you actually read my post you would realize I am posting exact info from the CFI meetings about charging students for post and preflight briefings. Those are not included in the price quote westwind gives you. Do you have over 2000 dual given or if you do it was before you went to westwind. How often do you fly Jim?
 
By the way Jim, I am waiting for you to point out all the false info that I have stated. It is all wrote down and you have proof that I said it. I have called you out at least 5 times now and you still deflect around it.
 
NewbieAirlinePilot said:
As a prior instructor, I wanted to get paid for a debrief, I don't do those for free.
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Yes I agree with this statement, however there was a "budget" that was presented to the students in the beginning, and then swept under the rug after they began their training. This kinda ties back in to Westwind's complete lack of accountability when it comes to the student's finances. I also feel that there needs to be a some kind of time limit on a lesson, in order to maintain effectiveness- and three hours of solid ground with an instructor who is struggling to fill that time slot, and then a minimum two hour flight, well, that can lose effectiveness and retention levels pretty quick.

Do you care to comment on the minimum two hour flight rule for all lessons? You think it is effective to take a brand new student, who is still very uneasy in the airplane, and fly him for two hours in the scorching arizona heat? yea... that sounds real effective. I also remembering Pitman telling us in the CFI meetings that if a lesson was cut short(less than two hours) then it needs to be fully completed before moving on to the next. so with that logic, a student who completes a lesson to standards in 1.5 hours may not move on to the next lesson without first completing .5 of the previous flight. Westwind gives the instructor NO leeway to save the students any money, but instead, sets everyone up to go over budget.

I have to agree with Chopshop in the sense that all you do is tout how great westwind is/was, while deflecting and denying all of the negative stuff that everyone else seemed to experience.... way to be objective! :sarcasm:
 
embraer said:
Yes I agree with this statement, however there was a "budget" that was presented to the students in the beginning, and then swept under the rug after they began their training. This kinda ties back in to Westwind's complete lack of accountability when it comes to the student's finances. I also feel that there needs to be a some kind of time limit on a lesson, in order to maintain effectiveness- and three hours of solid ground with an instructor who is struggling to fill that time slot, and then a minimum two hour flight, well, that can lose effectiveness and retention levels pretty quick.

Do you care to comment on the minimum two hour flight rule for all lessons? You think it is effective to take a brand new student, who is still very uneasy in the airplane, and fly him for two hours in the scorching arizona heat? yea... that sounds real effective. I also remembering Pitman telling us in the CFI meetings that if a lesson was cut short(less than two hours) then it needs to be fully completed before moving on to the next. so with that logic, a student who completes a lesson to standards in 1.5 hours may not move on to the next lesson without first completing .5 of the previous flight. Westwind gives the instructor NO leeway to save the students any money, but instead, sets everyone up to go over budget.

I have to agree with Chopshop in the sense that all you do is tout how great westwind is/was, while deflecting and denying all of the negative stuff that everyone else seemed to experience.... way to be objective! :sarcasm:
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Heres the big question..... When in the he!! are they going to close their doors?

Not soon enough I guess...

ILS
 
embraer said:
Yes I agree with this statement, however there was a "budget" that was presented to the students in the beginning, and then swept under the rug after they began their training. This kinda ties back in to Westwind's complete lack of accountability when it comes to the student's finances. I also feel that there needs to be a some kind of time limit on a lesson, in order to maintain effectiveness- and three hours of solid ground with an instructor who is struggling to fill that time slot, and then a minimum two hour flight, well, that can lose effectiveness and retention levels pretty quick.

Do you care to comment on the minimum two hour flight rule for all lessons? You think it is effective to take a brand new student, who is still very uneasy in the airplane, and fly him for two hours in the scorching arizona heat? yea... that sounds real effective. I also remembering Pitman telling us in the CFI meetings that if a lesson was cut short(less than two hours) then it needs to be fully completed before moving on to the next. so with that logic, a student who completes a lesson to standards in 1.5 hours may not move on to the next lesson without first completing .5 of the previous flight. Westwind gives the instructor NO leeway to save the students any money, but instead, sets everyone up to go over budget.

I have to agree with Chopshop in the sense that all you do is tout how great westwind is/was, while deflecting and denying all of the negative stuff that everyone else seemed to experience.... way to be objective! :sarcasm:
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I may or may not be correct on this one, but I just assumed that those .3 hours here and there were included in the pre/post flight briefing section on the price quote. Which I also assumed to mean ground lessons also? Am I wrong? Was I given a different price quote? I don't know...

Also, when I was a CFI I was given total le-way to do whatever I felt necessary to get the lesson done. All you had to do was talk with the asst chief and explain why you thought that was best. Most of the time I didn't even bother because I knew they would say it was okay. There were several times I had a new student, went up for .8 hours and then moved onto the next lesson, no questions asked. I don't know about you, but I felt I was given total authority to do whatever I wanted as far as time wise goes. Also as long as the student was progressing with the subject matter good enough, I was free to review any previously deficient items and maybe do something that wasn't on the lesson plan (good or bad?) There were lots of times I did a 2 hour lesson in less than 1.2. As long as the student did what was expected of them on that lesson, we moved on. I figured that a student would probably later on in their training need to repeat a lesson (like I did a few times) and could use all those .8th of an hour saved up to complete that extra lesson.

Like I said for some of you old schoolers out there (ie westwind more than 2 or 3 years ago), maybe things have changed.
 
Chopshop said:
By the way Jim, I am waiting for you to point out all the false info that I have stated. It is all wrote down and you have proof that I said it. I have called you out at least 5 times now and you still deflect around it.
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I will point it out as I see them pour in. I don't feel like going back through all your prior statements and point them out. I you say something not true, I will point it out from now on.
 
NewbieAirlinePilot said:
I will point it out as I see them pour in. I don't feel like going back through all your prior statements and point them out. I you say something not true, I will point it out from now on.
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So, you are not denying that you are indeed Mr. Jim Pitman?

We all know that you have MANY aliases here....


ILS
 
CLR4ILS said:
So, you are not denying that you are indeed Mr. Jim Pitman?

We all know that you have MANY aliases here....


ILS
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ils, you are an idiot. i've told you many times here that i am not pitman. you say that anyone who ever had a positive experience at westwind MUST be pitman. i know for a fact that people like myself and supertool are not pitman. i know supertool personally, he also flys for a 121 operator.
 
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