This Review Overall Rating
Like many modular students I did my research beforehand to find the most affordable but best flight school on a budget to gain my commercial licence. Bartolini was the flight school I decided on and a decision I do not look back on with regret.
Bartolini provided training for my NVFR, CPL, MEP and IR. For this review I will break down each section, plus add in, accommodation and living in Lodz.
NVFR: This was a pretty straight forward training for myself as both my instructors in the aircraft helped me fly through it. However I felt the NVFR theoretical training could have focussed more on flying at night and what visual clues (or lack of) to look out for.
CPL: I had the same CPL instructor throughout my training expect for the last one hour. The CPL theory did help me prepare for the CPL flying. I enjoyed the CPL training as we were able to fly to some very interesting airfields and big airports such as Warsaw Modlin. My instructor was very happy with my flight planning along the way until I had the last hour to do with another instructor who told me that I had been doing much of my flight planning wrong and that I should do it his way. Whilst I agree there was aspects of my fight planning that I could improve on, I think there should have been a standard set by the flight school on how to flight plan.
MEP: I really enjoyed the MEP flying in the Tecnam P2006T. The instructors allowed us many opportunities to practice single engine flying in the twin which was very exciting. The SOPs for flying the twin were very thorough and the operations manual was detailed to explain how to handle the aircraft.
IR: Bartolini has a well known IR simulator instructor whos style teaching isn't really in line with modern styles of CRM and flight school training.
On my first day in the simulator I was told I would be doing an ILS approach into Graz. I had never flown on instruments or done an ILS approach, but was given the controls without any instruction from simulator instructor on how to do such an approach. To put it into perspective a friend of mine was in training at Diamond flight school in Sweden and had an hour and half lecture on how to fly an ILS approach. After this it was apparent I would only get through the training by watching what my simulator partner was doing or by sheer luck.
During the simulator training the instructor tries to get as much training in as possible, often starting at 0630 in the morning and finishing very late at night. The training was going well until a mixture of lack of sleep, fatigue and not eating properly due to nerves about being in the simulator with said instructor finally got to me and I had the worst two hours. I was really struggling to do NDB holds and it was obvious that I needed an instructor to sit beside me and show me what I was doing wrong and just give me some instruction. Instead the instructor just sat at his desk and shouted at me over the microphone that I did not know what I was doing and that I would require more simulator hours because of this. In my opinion this individual instructors approach to teaching is not in line with the quality instruction I had experienced with other Bartolini instructors and other organisations I have previously flown with.
The simulator instruction cost me €3150 (at the time) which is a substantial amount of money to pay for such an important stage of professional flight training, of which I do not believe I have received the quality training I was expecting or needed. On my final day it felt like the last three hours was a test of everything to determine whether I would need additional instruction or not. Luckily, I flew to the best of my ability and was very happy to be able to do all of the NDB holds with one engine inoperative. However, instructor told me on my last session that maybe I should give up being a professional pilot and be a fisherman?
This simulator instructors style of instruction of constantly belittling and berating students is not acceptable in my opinion. Informing students they do not know what they are doing after receiving little to no instruction on what to do in the first place does not make sense. After speaking to past students I was told that this instructor has received numerous complaints previously about his training, however it does not seem that Bartolini has done anything to address these issues since I have left the flight school?
In terms of the actual IR training in the aircraft I had two very good instructors who made the instrument flying interesting and very constructive. Both instructors were always happy to answer any questions I had and were supportive of my decision making. I really liked their style of teaching and the way they would correct or suggest ways in making my instrument flying better.
Accommodation was not provided by Bartolini, but they have recommended places to live whilst out there. I stayed in Salsa for the first few months, which was okay, but then transitioned to a place called Politechnika which was cheaper and much better than Salsa.
Living in Lodz was an experience in itself. There are many restaurants and bars to explore to delve into the delights of Polish cuisine and Beer. When I was at Bartolini there was a great mix of British and EU students who would often come out for a post flight training drink. This was a great time to unwind after school and socialise with other students.
I passed my CPL, MEP/IR with Bartolini in February 2019 with first time passes. Whilst I had a somewhat bad experience with my IR sim instructor overall I really enjoyed training at Bartolini and would recommend it to anyone who is looking fondly at the Modular route for flight training and wants to have quality flight training in modern aircraft on a budget.
Course(s) taken:
General
Aircraft
Simulators
Practical Training
