This Review Overall Rating
I completed the 3 week 'Whitetail' APS MCC Course in the Boeing 737-8 simulator in December with VA Airline Training.
I had originally signed up with them in March 2020, though with lockdown and the subsequent delays things got pushed back, though VA proactively communicated with me throughout from signing up to starting the course in November 2020.
The facilities at VA are very good indeed, break out area and kitchen, multiple classrooms, flight deck setup for practicing flows and SOP's and working FMC's. As above, I completed my course in the Boeing 737 simulator, which was excellent and worked without issue throughout the course.
The course consists of 4 days of classroom, followed by a day off, then 3 days in the simulator, a day off, then another 3 days in the simulator, a day off and the final 4 days. In total you get 40 hours of simulator training, 20 in the role of pilot flying and 20 in the role of pilot monitoring.
The instructors are al experienced airline pilots with varied backgrounds and experiences, which makes the quality of the instruction just excellent. On the odd occasion, it can be a little confusing, as each instructor has their own little way of doing certain things, however, they don't impress that way on you, it just differs to the SOP's being taught. All of the instructors were professional, knowledgeable and not only teaching the course, also making it enjoyable.
The classroom presentations could be a little better, the instructional delivery was great, though some of the slide material could do with some work, for example, some are just slides of 'a lot' of text.
I stayed in the property recommended by VA, which is basically a dedicated shared house for VA students. I opted for this as I thought it would be ore beneficial for practicing outside of the training sessions. Sadly, of a course of 5 of us, I was the only person staying there so it didn't end up offering any additional value and I could have probably stayed elsewhere a little cheaper.
All in all, I cannot recommend VA enough and would definitely go back and do further training with them in future.
Course(s) taken:
General
Simulators
Theoretical Training
Practical Training
