Does what it said on the tin!

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Submitted by George P on

This Review Overall Rating

I went from 0 hours to ATPL within 2 years, I can not knock the school for this as I got the outcome that I had wanted.

When I joined the school In 2017 they had around a quarter of the students that they have now , which meant over the duration of the course the amount of students to instructors had increased. This slowly started to cause problems for me as the aircrafts and instructors became less available to me. From what I can see the school is growing and still had teething problems when I was there , I can only hope that these problems has been looked at under the new ownership of the school.

I started my training on the Spanish course which has now been taken off of the curriculum by the school as it caused too many problems having a satellite base in Teruel. I agree with the schools decision on this as I know students had horrible experiences on this course. I won't go into the problems because these have now been solved. But what I will say is where ever you choose to learn to fly , try and get as close as you can to busy Class A airspace such as the London TMA as It will help in the long run.

The facilities in shoreham were OK. The operations and flying department were based in a old pub that used to be based on the airfield. The Aesthetics of the building was not good and really needed some work done to it, but from what I have heard now it has been renovated. Shoreham Airport has its own reputation in the Industry with its expensive landing fees ( which are NOT included in the course fee).

The Aircraft and simulators were all up to standard and very fun to fly, the DA40/42 were great to fly and easy to use on the IFR flying segments. I believe the school has got new aircraft and simulator this year to help with the increase of students. 

The Ground instructors at the school were good, they all had some sort of experience in the industry and each individual instructor had a specialist subject, I found this useful as I knew there was someone to talk to regarding problems that I found studying the 14 exams. The problem in ground school is that instructors would just read information from a slide show and it is your choice to note it down or not, from what I know this is a industry wide problem of slideshows being pushed down your throat.

The Flight instructors were great, I enjoyed flying with them and learning the different methods of flying and planning. There is not much to say about them, they were generally all good people. The operations team were very friendly and great to deal with, I feel like these people were the face of the company and they really made me feel welcome during my time there.

The only constructive criticism for the school would be in regard to the parking on site, there was very limited parking maybe 5 spaces for 100 students moving throughout the facilities during the day. The school knew this was a problem and did nothing to fix this. There was many car parks empty for the school to hire form the airport but they did not want to spend the budget on that it seems. At one stage students were getting parking fines for double parking around the airport, with no help from the school.

During my 2 year stay with FTA I rented a room privately through another student I meet on the course, it does seem like students services can and will help you find accommodation in the area, but be advised it is very expensive to live in the area so take this into account during your budgeting.

Fortunately I was able to find employment after finishing with FTA, but with no help from them. But this was never promised from them. All of my thanks would go to Jet Master Class for the help on finding employment, but FTA did put me on to them to gain my APS/MCC.

3 positives:

  • I went from 0 to ATPL, FTA does what it said on the tin.
  • The aircraft are well maintained.
  • The teaching standards are high, and employers know this!

 

3 Negatives:

  • Over runs are serious, and need to be double checked by the student.
  • High volume of students.
  • Low volume of instructors.

Course(s) taken:

General

Facilities

4

Atmosphere

5

Student Support

4

Customer Service

3

Communication

3

Graduation Support

1

Social Life

3

Aircraft

Overall aircraft rating

5

Aircraft Availability

5

Aircraft Reliability

5

Aircraft Age

5

Aircraft Maintenance

Simulators

Simulator Age

5

Simulator Maintenance

5

Simulator Reliability

5

Simulator Availability

5

Simulator Overall

5

Theoretical Training

Quality of Instruction

3

Instructors Per Student

3

Extra Tuition Support

3

Value for Money

5

Learning Material

4

Classroom Overall

4

Class Size

3

Class/Life Balance

5

Practical Training

Quality of Practical Instruction

5

School Manuals

5

Lesson Regularity

5

Standard Operating Procedures

5

Practical Instructors per Student

4

Lesson Scheduling

4