5 Ways Flight Schools Cheat Students

my flight school was named number one in the country when I got my pilot's license so it really bothers me to hear other people's poor experiences in the flight training industry so today I'm making you this video to show you the top five ways that flight schools cheat their students [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] item number five on our bad flight training experience checklist is paying upfront always be wary when asked to pay upfront for flight training or told that you have to good schools will give you the option to create an account to reduce your overall training cost but if you're told that you must create an account this is a sure sign of disaster I've heard of several schools that will charge ten thousand dollars for a private pilot's license upfront and if you look at their contract its non-refundable if you finish your license early or decide to go somewhere else that money is gone forever or even worse the school could decide to close at any time and take your money for a road trip to Vegas if your school does offer a discount program for opening an account with them make sure you read the contract carefully and you're allowed some privileges like full refunds given 30 days notice number four skipping on maintenance although it doesn't directly cheat their students it does put their lives in danger or at least their reputation most schools aren't nearly this bad but I recently heard a story about an instructor who sent their student for their private pilot check ride in an airplane that hadn't been an Ewald in years at the time of your private pilot exam you are technically the pilot in command or P I see so it is your responsibility to determine whether the aircraft is air worthy for the flight including all inspections maintenance and documentation needless to say it was quite a while before this instructor and the student could apply to get his license again in most cases margins in flight training are just so close the fastest way for flight schools to cut their losses is to reduce their maintenance costs there are some inspections they can't really go without such a 100-hour inspection in the annual but there are others they can just kind of put off or ignore such as changing the oil in the airplane every 50 hours furthermore I just see a lot of flight schools with airplanes that I would never fly in to be completely honest with you one of the reasons aviation gets such a bad reputation with the general public is when they fly in a 40 year old airplane that looks like it's falling apart they're not all like this I promise you just find a flight school with enough pride to take care of their airplanes and present well to the public you can always ask to see the maintenance records of the aircraft and figure about whether or not you're flying in a safe airplane but think about it this way if you have to ask you probably don't want to know number three being told you're not ready to solo the margins on renting an aircraft alone can be as small as nine percent flight schools of course make their money on flight training where the margins are mildly better this means it's in their best interest to keep you flying with an instructor as long as possible a good instructor will solo you as early as possible like 10 or 15 hours while I was training we had students come to our flight school that had more than 60 hours under their belt and had never so load it wasn't because they were incapable it was merely because their school was milking them for money if you think you've fallen victim to a scheme like this much like you might do in a doctor's office consider getting a second opinion I would much rather spend $50 an hour on another instructor and rent an airplane than be led on for years similarly if you have an instructor who's taking you on long multiple hour cross-country flights as soon as you start flying that's also a sign that they're just looking for your money it's hard to learn a lot about flying an airplane when you're just flying direct to another Airport after each lesson ask yourself how much did I really learn today and could I have learned it from YouTube videos or from a book if the answer is not much and yes then consider a new flight school number 2 is more of an industry problem than an individual flight school problem it's really about the instructors they hire and how they got there it's no secret that a lot of flight instructors are at schools to build a lot of hours while spending as little money as possible they get paid to fly after all but consider what this means to you if your instructor is looking to build hours to join an airline how much do you think they really care about teaching you and how qualified are they to teach there's a big difference between a good pilot and a good teacher just because a college professor has tenure for their research doesn't make them a good instructor nor does it make non-tenure-track faculty any better at research unfortunately there's no quick solution for you I wish I could tell you just look for young instructors just look for old instructors look for part-timers but there really is no way to tell you have to fly with them ahead of time get somebody else's recommendation or try several instructors until you find the one that feels right for you on top of this there's usually a fundamental problem with how flight schools hire their instructors to reduce their operating costs it's actually illegal for schools to set up their students with their instructors if their instructors are hired as independent contractors they can't even tell them how to conduct themselves during the lessons they're independent as the name implies if your school is engaging in significant misconduct in the hiring of their instructors consider reporting them to the aircraft owners and Pilots Association the AOPA and lastly by hiring structures that are trying to move on as soon as possible students are often shuffled between multiple instructors between their lessons whoever's available at the time this leads to having really disjointed lessons and ultimately learning a lot less in a lot more time at number one on our list I've saved my personal favorite story for last a new student walks into our flight school on a beautiful summer day and asks our chief instructor are we going flying today to which he responds of course why wouldn't we the student gestures out the window and says but there are clouds outside it turns out their previous instructor would cancel a lesson in favor of ground school any day that wasn't perfectly clear this is a lesson to us all to ground yourself in whatever training you're doing make sure you have friends you can talk to about it in the industry and get your information straight if you're like me and drove over an hour to get to your flight school this can be a major bummer to get to the flight school and find out there's an aircraft down for maintenance or the weather is not sufficient for flying that day but they do it in hopes of charging you for some ground training talk to your instructor early on about their weather minimums you'll notice that when they sign your solo endorsement they also have to put these down if you're like me the first day that you flew even close to these restrictions really pushed your comfort level but later you'll come to realize that their years of experience and wisdom always prevail that is if you go to a good flight school all the stories that I've shared with you today come from my experience in aviation so I urge anyone with a bad flight training story to leave a comment below and everyone to share this video with your friends in flight training it's up to us to hold flight schools to the highest of standards and not settle for any less ourselves that's it for today guys I'll catch you next time on the friendly skies channel and always remember squawk VFR and have fun [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Friendly Skies Film

Views: 996,000

Keywords: flying lesson, flight training, piper warrior, cessna, vfr, aviation, flying, private pilot, Pilot, gopro, Flight, Cockpit Audio, hd, ATC Audio, atc, friendly skies film, nick cyganski, cyganski, N8027F, shareaviation, mraviation101, flightchops, mzeroa, steveo1kinevo, film, graphics, 3d, cgi, film effects, KORH, worcester, recording, high defintion, professional, flight school, scam, cheat

Id: wz0-08ny2G8

Length: 8min 8sec (488 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 09 2016