What makes a good flight school?

[BOATFIXERGUY]

Hire ME

 

BWAHAHAHAHAHAH (evil laugh). . . just joking. I enjoy where I'm at, and have no plans to move .

 

Thanks for taking up an entire page with blank space. Felt like I was watching golf as I waited for my browser to skroll down... ...I suck at golf.

 

And I thought you wanted to go to the Gulf?

[clay]

one day, I will end up there. as of now, I'm good. everyone in the gulf is loosing jobs anyway.

[BOATFIXERGUY]

one day, I will end up there. as of now, I'm good. everyone in the gulf is loosing jobs anyway.

 

I hear that!

 

I had a contract flying a LiDar ship here in denver...contract got cancelled yesterday... I was going to call you to have you do some SIC time...maybe next time.

[RkyMtnHI]

Hey All,

 

Thanks so much for the input, some really killer ideas that i will surely use.

 

I especially like Rick's thoughts on having a marketing person or persons... this makes so much sense to me. I was thinking of having classes to teach the instructors HOW to market and to get them consistent.. but doing it his way makes much more sense.

 

I also like Joe's ideas about the East, especially China. I expect that is an untapped market and will work on that for sure.

 

I can tell you already that i will cut and paste some of this to my "things i learned my first year" topic. Really good info, please keep it coming.

 

We are doing a power line inspection on Monday, as suggested by John and another (sorry, can't remember), we will put a deserving student in the helo for the experience.

 

thanks & aloha,

 

dp

[AngelFire_91]

Dp, some more thoughts....

 

I really really really like the idea of having an "admissions" person, or "student manager" type person that their job is to handle students questions, concerns, problems, maybe even oversight of records. ONE person that they can go to get things handled within the company that the instructor can't handle or answer. This is one of my biggest pet peeves of where I did the majority of training, and now work. I have to go talk to about 5 different people to only find out that I should have been talking to person "F" all along, and then they send my question to Person "M" who has no idea what is going on and tries to take care of it. The Left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing.

 

BE CAREFUL with international contracts!! I currently work for a very contract based school, and A LOT of problems come up because those students that are paying on their own with no assistance from company contracts or else, will feel not as important because they don't "bring in the money" like the contracts do. I have a lot of first hand experience as a student and instructor in a school with international contracts. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE be careful with this!! If you want more Dp feel free to call me and I'll tell you all the problems we run into with contracts.

 

And now, Probably my biggest pet peeve of flight schools.......

Promising something and then not following through with it. If you get a turbine ship, and are going to advertise that students get to fly it, or get experience in it. Then make sure that STUDENTS get to fly it, with instructor of course is fine. When I first started to go back to college and choose a flight school, one thing that attracted me to the school I went was because they advertised, "We have a Citation 2, Cheyenne, and King Air, that students get real world experience in. blah blah blah." It wasn't until I was in school for a little while and started to realize, it's not students flying those, it's 2000-5000 hour instructors and managers that used to be students 7 or more years ago, and the Citation wasn't even in our department, you had to apply for that position just as if it was any other job, and there was only 4 spots available which were filled with high time ex-airline guys just doing it for fun with no plans on leaving. That's un-realistic, you can not advertise that students get to fly them and have pictures of students in them, and then the biggest you'll ever see in school is maybe a light piper twin or something. I did eventually get to fly a Baron, King Air, and right seat a Citation, but that was not with the school, it was a private weather research firm using the schools hangers and maintaince. I realize that's all fixed wing, but the idea still applies to Helicopters as well.

[BOATFIXERGUY]

Dp, some more thoughts....

 

I really really really like the idea of having an "admissions" person, or "student manager" type person that their job is to handle students questions, concerns, problems, maybe even oversight of records. ONE person that they can go to get things handled within the company that the instructor can't handle or answer. This is one of my biggest pet peeves of where I did the majority of training, and now work. I have to go talk to about 5 different people to only find out that I should have been talking to person "F" all along, and then they send my question to Person "M" who has no idea what is going on and tries to take care of it. The Left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing.

 

Good advice. This is usually handled by the Chief Pilot if he/she knows what they're doing. So many chief pilots think their only job is with the pilots, but it's really much more than that. It also invovles being an ambassador for the company and a buffer between management and flight operations. Having a bunch of cif's runing around without supervision is usually a very bad idea. Someone needs to be in charge of them with a chain of command to handle decisions and advice.

[500E]

I expect you have thought of all these but occasionally it helps if some one else lists their thoughts.

Sounds as if you have covered most all the bases from finance to instructors & hardware.

Hope all goes well with the venture.

 

Trust is the thing, it works both ways, the school has to have a inclusive approach, the student has to feel that they matter, (and they do) but at the same time they have to realise they have a commitment to the school, beyond the money.

Good maintenance is a must, if AOG timely phone call to tell student, nothing like turning up to be told Sorry, that is no good.

Instructors who are turned out at least clean and tidy, (some like the uniform others like more casual approach)

A choice of machines is nice but personally it would not have been my first worry.

Cost do not push to be the cheapest, again although cost is important another few $ £ on total may be well spent & could mean, less hours to licence due to better FIs.

Give instructors a living wage, then hopefully if their nerves are not shot they will stay.

S F Hire A real minefield, will the hirer tell if over speed? (we hope so for all our sakes) we go back to trust & knowing the hirer, personally I would NEVER hire to some one I did not know and trust, this could be a problem if hire is a part of the business plan.

(Know of at least 1 O\speed and a tail rotor strike not reported, + starts and shut downs not as per RFM. Turbine shut down within 30 seconds of landing C20, not kind to say the least.)

Premises do not have to be big or flash, but clean & tidy (always)

[ADRidge]

I expect you have thought of all these but occasionally it helps if some one else lists their thoughts.

Sounds as if you have covered most all the bases from finance to instructors & hardware.

Hope all goes well with the venture.

 

Trust is the thing, it works both ways, the school has to have a inclusive approach, the student has to feel that they matter, (and they do) but at the same time they have to realise they have a commitment to the school, beyond the money.

 

That's the main thing right there. Don't ever let students think they're just your personal piggy bank, or that they're just a face in the crowd. Yes, flight school is a drawn-out job interview, but as long as the money flows from Student to School, the school has somewhat of an obligation to not step all over the student.

 

Of course, once the money flows from School to Instructor, you can step on em all you want!

[clay]

I hear that!

 

I had a contract flying a LiDar ship here in denver...contract got cancelled yesterday... I was going to call you to have you do some SIC time...maybe next time.

 

 

I'm glad you thought of me! I'm always in to go fly more. . . who were you going to do the LiDar ship flying for? local company?

[Rogue]

cool glad to hear you have commercial oppurtunities availible

 

it doesn't take a whole lot of intelligence to figure that if any school's only means of progressing someone is as a CFI then it is inherently by design a pyramid scheme. seriously, it takes 3 to 4 full on students to build a CFI up to the magic 1000 and that's not even magic anymore. so for every CFI that leaves the nest only 1 out of 3 or 4 can move up, that's just piss poor business practice right there. that only works if the other 2 or 3 students are foreign students who will return home at the end of their training.

[helonorth]

cool glad to hear you have commercial oppurtunities availible

 

it doesn't take a whole lot of intelligence to figure that if any school's only means of progressing someone is as a CFI then it is inherently by design a pyramid scheme. seriously, it takes 3 to 4 full on students to build a CFI up to the magic 1000 and that's not even magic anymore. so for every CFI that leaves the nest only 1 out of 3 or 4 can move up, that's just piss poor business practice right there. that only works if the other 2 or 3 students are foreign students who will return home at the end of their training.

Not really. I never put up a single CFI applicant. A lot of people just getting privates for fun, air rides, animal counting, pipeline, flight reviews, photo work. Many places that do training can and do quite a bit under part 91.

Tried to edit earlier. Missed the "if". Sorry.

Edited June 17, 2009 by helonorth

[joshroyse.com]

Hey DP, does your school have a website yet? If so, send me the link. I'm really looking to transfer to another school and would love flying in that area! If not, as an internet marketer, I can tell you that the value of online presence is unspeakably huge. Since I'm a complete newb that's the only valuable advice I could ever offer for a helicopter school

 

From a new students perspective, emphasis on the 'don't let your students feel like a personal piggy bank'. I have wasted hundreds of dollars on ground school when I look back and realize how much of the time my instructor was pitching new 'special price packages' to me while we were on the clock for instruction.

[RkyMtnHI]

Hey DP, does your school have a website yet? If so, send me the link. I'm really looking to transfer to another school and would love flying in that area! If not, as an internet marketer, I can tell you that the value of online presence is unspeakably huge. Since I'm a complete newb that's the only valuable advice I could ever offer for a helicopter school

 

From a new students perspective, emphasis on the 'don't let your students feel like a personal piggy bank'. I have wasted hundreds of dollars on ground school when I look back and realize how much of the time my instructor was pitching new 'special price packages' to me while we were on the clock for instruction.

 

 

I totally agree with the website comment, and we are working on it. There is just so much to do you wouldn't believe it. We did a really cool flight of two yesterday to make some videos for our website. I'll attach a couple of photos.

 

Ground school is another one of those issues.. the prices range around here from $30 per hour to $55 per hour for entry level training. My experience is that there isn't enough ground provided. Jack at RMR has mandatory ground built into stages in his syllabus, you must complete the ground in order to move on. It's not a lot, but documents the process which i really like and makes sure the student actually does ground training (his ground btw is the lowest on the scale which i also really like, the instructor makes the same as the higher school but the school takes less). So, i guess i'm asking the question: what is the going rate for ground school and what is the instructor/school split? And, how much ground do you teach in each level of training?

 

dp

[joshroyse.com]

The rate at my school is 50 dollars an hour, and the flight school gets it all due to the fact that the owner is the instructor.

 

Yeah websites do take a lot. Remember, even though it may not be remotely fair or sensible, there will be a lot of students that choose a flight school based on their website! It would probably be a good idea to really make a suitable investment on a website. I promise you'll get an ROI. I'm 22, and nearly everyone in my age group relies on the internet for a large portion of their information. EX: I found my flight schools, the student loans to finance that schooling, my school books, and my flight suit and helmet online haha.

 

The pictures are great! Ya'll have some beautiful flying out there. And having an organized ground syllabus correlating with flight training is an incredible idea. I bet that really boosts the learning curve for students.

Edited June 21, 2009 by joshroyse.com

[beckwith]

I agree with Josh you need a website bad buddy. As a new student I wouldn't have even considered a school that didn't have one, assuming that I ever even found out they existed. I think it may be a quirk of my generation that we regard a lack of website as being shady and fly by night. same goes for a bad website or one with too much go-gah s**t flying around. I have a buddy that does web design in the area I'll send you a PM a soon as you clean out your box.

 

btw I came by to say hi this morning and nobody was home.

[RkyMtnHI]

I agree with Josh you need a website bad buddy. As a new student I wouldn't have even considered a school that didn't have one, assuming that I ever even found out they existed. I think it may be a quirk of my generation that we regard a lack of website as being shady and fly by night. same goes for a bad website or one with too much go-gah s**t flying around.

 

totally agree with all that... we are working on one.. but would like to have as many contacts as possible.

 

I have a buddy that does web design in the area I'll send you a PM a soon as you clean out your box.

 

sorry, didn't know about it being full, Clay keeps sending me resumes!!

 

btw I came by to say hi this morning and nobody was home.

 

yeah, we all were toasted from the flight, Kremer was there somewhere but i was asleep!!! sorry we missed you.

 

dp

[clay]

your full of it. . . .

[67november]

is that why his eyes are brown?

[wait4me]

Just to add in an amount. Bristow is $45/hr for tutored instruction, flight or ground. The instructors get varying amounts based on amount of flight time and whether they do stage checks etc. I think they start at around $17 and go up to the mid twenties. Most of the instructors don't seem to want to tell me exactly what they make (or don't make)

[BOATFIXERGUY]

So where's the web site? Let's go Dennis!

[RkyMtnHI]

So where's the web site? Let's go Dennis!

 

 

thanks so much for the interest guys, and all the good words, we are working on it, but there is so much to do... remember this wasn't exactly planned!

 

we have the copy (words and stuff), and the video is coming together, it will be up soon. I know it's important, in my opinion the most important part of any marketing, but we want to get it right.

 

man, the pressure!!! i just can't take it!!!!! :-)

 

dp

 

 

ps, sincere thanks for all the help, the visitors and the good will.. i can not tell you how much it means to all of us!

[clay]

pardon my french.. but this is horse sh*t. . . the anticipation of not knowing what your school offers is killing me!!!!! put something up already

[AngelFire_91]

You know..... I have to agree. I'm starting to get all gitty and can't sit still. Pretty soon I'm gonna be pacing back and forth, "When is Dp gonna get the site up, when is he gonna get the site, when is...." I'm trying to figure out if I need to come back there or not, come on Dp!!!!

[67november]

GEEEEEZZZEE, like a bunch of kids on christmas morning

[clay]

I FOUND IT GUYS!!!! DP was slacking and didn't tell us. .

 

here it is guys. (click here)

 

 

I want to sign up for the Master CFI program mentioned in the video. :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(sorry DP, had to give you grief)

Edited July 18, 2009 by clay