How To Select a Flight School
This article is an excerpt from the book The Airplane Training Guidebook, How to Successfully Obtain Your Pilots License. Choosing the right flight school fit is dependent on many factors that you the customer, client, and student will have to assign individual weights to in order to make a more informed investment decision. We will briefly explore the major issues associated with the flight school selection fit.
LEGAL
There is often a misconception amongst pilots that once they obtain there Private Pilots Certificate or License the legal aspect of the school can be ignored. This could not be further from the truth. Firstly, I would like to get you into a legal frame of mind. When you invest your life savings into a stock, mutual fund, business, school for your kids, etc. do you perform Due Diligence? The sad truth is that most people do not! When beginning your due diligence you need to understand the Federal Aviation Regulations, Joint Aviation Regulations, and Civil Aviation Authority Regulations and other applicable laws that govern a flight school and business within your state, country or jurisdiction. The most important aspect to remember is that the product is the service provided – aircraft rental, charter, and flight instruction that require additional regulations. For Example, if the flight school causes harm or injury to an individual, the flight school would be liable under more generally, aviation law and tort law within your countries jurisdiction. Therefore, it would be most prudent of you to ask some basic questions, of your aviation regulatory body (FAA, JAA, CAA) such as what aviation regulations governs xyz flight school (i.e. FAR Part 61, 141, 142, JAR Reg. 131, CAA Reg….), has this school ever had an accident, what is the student completion rate, how is their aircraft maintenance, etc? These aviation authorities work for you, use them, get answers to your questions in person as part of your initial due diligence.
LOCATION - GEOGRAPHY
Do you want to be a Bush Pilot? Well then, you are not going to train in Arizona are you? When I did my training, I trained for my Private Pilots in New York so I could sharpen my communications skills, practice tough winter operations, including maximum cross wind landings, etc. I then did my instrument training in Arizona, Multi – Engine Training in California, CFI training back in New York, Airline Transport Pilot Training in New Jersey and finally I am flying for a major airline in Malaysia. Why would I purposely select different locations for my training? I knew that the weather, varying topographical features, and culture would provide invaluable pilot experience without having to log 10,000 hours to get that experience. Depending on your flight training needs, the location of the flight school may play a large role in the quality of the course. Perhaps you wish to combine your training with a vacation and will spend two to three weeks training for your Private Pilot. However, if you select a training facility in a region that often experiences poor weather conditions such as rain, fog, thunderstorms, and strong winds, your number of flights may be reduced and you will go home without your Private Pilot Certificate.
AIRCRAFT
The flight schools aircraft is directly relates to our first topic of discussion – legal. In order to comply with aviation law and county law, the aircraft will have to have insurance coverage. Flight training facilities insure their aircraft in several ways. Hull insurance is the protection for the owner / operator with regard to the value of the aircraft. At times, and owner / operator will not carry hull insurance and accept the risk involved. There is also Liability insurance and they will all have this one. This protects the owner / operator from direct or indirect liability in the event of a claim. Often, the student or renter pilot gets a copy of this policy and automatically assumes they are personally covered by this policy. That is not always correct. The student or renter pilot is not covered by the aircraft operator policy for personal liability. In addition, they would also be responsible for the deductible in the event of a claim while they are operating the aircraft. For example, if the aircraft is a multi engine prop with a book value of USD160,000 and the deductible is often 10% of the insured value. Typically, owners will insure multi engine aircraft at 100% of the book value. If you were involved in an accident with this aircraft you would be responsible for USD17,600.00 This is why you need to ask for a copy of the schools insurance policy and obtain renters (supplemental) insurance. Send a copy of the owners insurance policy to your renter insurance company and make sure their policy is still in effect.
The next issue is the aircraft availability. Look at the aircraft schedule online and or offline. How many aircraft does the flight school own? A good minimum number of flight school aircraft is three. However, this should not discourage you from getting premium flight instruction from a solo instructor practitioner. How does the flight school owner handle their scheduling? Have you ever made an appointment with your doctor? Did you see how scheduling is done? Doctors schedules are usually tight, with backup patients waiting in the wings for a cancellation. Aircraft scheduling is a function of weather, aircraft availability, instructor availability, and your availability. A flight school like a doctor lives and dies by the schedule. So how do you know if you can slot yourself in the flight-training schedule effectively? Have you ever heard of the “Hot and Heavy” method? Do you start work at 9:00 a.m. everyday; why not train from 06:00 – 8:00 every morning for three months? By flying the hot and heavy method, you will save time, money, reach and conquer your learning plateaus quicker and learn faster.
Aircraft availability and maintenance work in unison. For example, there are specific maintenance procedures outlined in the FARs that must be performed at scheduled intervals (annual and 100 hour inspections). These maintenance procedures must be logged and endorsed by the appropriate maintenance personnel. You the student, soon to be the Pilot in Command of those same aircraft should become familiar with the aircraft that you fly. When you take the rental aircraft for a flight, look at the engine carefully for leaks around the seals. When you step off the aircraft, did you notice whether there was a field box near the aircraft tie down? The field box is where the where the school will keep tools, oil, etc. to keep their investment in tiptop condition. Does the school outsource their maintenance function or perform in house?
The type of training will dictate the type of aircraft. Do not get too caught up and confused in aircraft types. I will be covering this aspect in more details in future articles, and can field just about any question on our blog.
FINANCIAL AID
Making the financial investment commitment equals the time commitment, which greatly increases the likelihood of training completion.
Be very wary of upfront deals unless your package comes with a collateralized contract that you can enforce, and you execute this contract with a very experienced flight school business owner
Career Education Loans, VA funding and the GI Bill, and many other types of funding options require the training facility to meet FAR Part 141 minimums. There are times when a training facility meeting FAR Part 141 minimums are not eligible to accept certain types of funding due to their time in business, low number of overall students, etc. Make sure you ask the training facility what type of funding they are approved to accept. Some financing options that our students have utilized are Sallie Mae, Pilotfinance.com, and AOPA loan programs.
EXPERIENCE
The experience of the flight instructor should be placed more on the facility than solely on the instructor. A flight school that coordinates the students training syllabus with their flight schedule and periodically checks progress with the chief flight instructor and cross checks with other instructors is a school that cares about the student.A well-standardized training facility will put out the same information no matter what the instructors experience and background. Some flight operations require the instructor to be at the top of their game. The training facility is responsible for assigning instructors to train within their abilities and proficiency. A training facility with a well-experienced management staff will insure that the proficiency and ability of the instructors meet the training needs at hand. The experience of the flight training facility should also be evaluated. Due to the minimal profit margin in the flight-training field, instructor pilot salaries are lower than in most other helicopter missions. This is why you often find lower time helicopter pilots as the front line instructors in the industry. I taught y pilot instructors the techniques and procedures, which took many years of flying to develop. The professional pilot instructor imparts their knowledge to the student pilot. Professional Pilot Instructors are always learning – these are the folks who attend FAA safety seminars, recurrent ground and flight procedures program every 90 days to keep them sharp and in tune with their position requirements.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
The first telephone impression you get of a flight school is often telling. Did the schools customer service representative (CSR) ask you all the pertinent questions during your initial call up? Some of the pertinent questions are your Name (you would be shocked to know how many do not even ask for your name!), telephone number, how did you here about our school, what is your training objective, what do you expect of us, when would you like to complete you training, have you made the financial and time commitment needed to pursue this type of vocational training? etc. The CSR complete this history just as a doctor would complete a patient history, and passes to the owner and the instructor tat will be assigned to the student who arrange to have a meeting with the prospective student. In fact, you will know if the schools schedule and operation is tight when the CSR can tell you by punching in a few keys who you will be meeting with. If you got a CSR like who was thorough and courteous on the phone the a clean, courteous and professional staff is what you should see at the schools office. Airlines have gone out of business because their initial contact staff(reservations), ticket counter personnel and flight attendants were unprofessional, so can an unprofessional flight school. You are not only a customer, but a student so make certain your chosen flight school earns their keep!
Enjoy the journey, there is nothing like it in the world!
About the author: Captain Andrew Peter Saridakis is a Boeing 737 Captain for a major airline in Asia. He is also a principle of www.avaitionpilotsupplis.com and www.cfipilot.com. Captain Saridakis is an FAA Gold Seal Flight and Ground Instructor. When he is not flying he helps many flights schools and instructors succeed daily as a well sought after consultant.
