Calgary-Okotoks flight school? (CFX2)

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Alav
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Calgary-Okotoks flight school? (CFX2)

Post by Alav »

https://flycalgary.ca/

Tim ulmer - founder.

I know it's just recently opened,

Curious if any of you can coment on him as an instructor or as to the quality of this ftu? I'm going to guess by the number of times I see his 172s coming and going that it's got to be just him so far?

Someone had suggested a while back a ftu was coming back to cen4 - I haven't found anything though?

Thoughts?
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Posthumane
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Re: Calgary-Okotoks flight school? (CFX2)

Post by Posthumane »

I don't have any experience with the instructor or school, but I read through the "Our Story" section of their website and was a little amused. It's basically a rant about how bad he thinks flight training in Calgary is. A few things jumped out at me. First off, it sounds like this is a guy who just got his PPL at over 50, and then decided to open a flight school due to what he thought was a bad experience. So how much experience does he actually have now? I hope he's hiring some good instructors.

Some of his complaints are probably valid. But he was upset that schools wouldn't let him do four hour blocks per day, combining several lessons into one long one. I think there's a reason that most schools won't do this - after a couple hours of training most people's brain is pretty well saturated. There are majorly diminishing returns with longer training flights. If he's offering to do four hours of flying per day with people, he should be expecting to repeat a lot of the material learned late in the day.

Another complaint that he has is that schools have a minimum 3 hour/day rental if you're taking their plane on a long cross country. Is he really willing to rent out his aircraft for a week or more with no minimum flying time?

Finally, he says anyone should be able to get their license in 45 hours with good instruction, and offers a fixed price guarantee. But the fixed price is $15500, so if you actually do your licence in 45 hours that works out to $344 per hour! Ok, granted, you can take a bit off for materials, flight test, etc, but it's still quite expensive. 65 hours at $200/hr works out to 13k. He also says if you buy his premium fixed priced package you will be priority over students who haven't purchased this - he will even cancel their flights to make room for yours. Not exactly stellar if you're one of the "other" students.
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Rodz
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Re: Calgary-Okotoks flight school? (CFX2)

Post by Rodz »

The fixed price of $15k is not so bad. Most schools in the Toronto area charge per flight: aircraft $175 (fuel surcharge not included) + instructor $70 + pre-flight briefing on average $40. This total comes to $285 per hour. One flight usually lasts for 1.2 - 1.3 hrs. It means that one lesson cost is $350 - 370. And schools claim that very few students can be ready to take an exam after 45hrs of flight training. The most probable number of hours to calculate is 60. It comes to over $22k. If he offers for $15500 I would go for it and keep him responsible for his words.
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Posthumane
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Re: Calgary-Okotoks flight school? (CFX2)

Post by Posthumane »

While spending 15k on flight training is not outrageous, it is by no means a steal of a deal by south alberta prices. Comparing that to the flight school in my area, they charge $165/hr solo and $225 dual. Keep in mind not all training is dual time. Their estimate is 38.5 hr dual, 22 hr solo, 3 hours instrument sim time ($160/hr). Add about $1k for ground school, and another $1k for flight test and licencing fees, and you're still under $15k. That's for an average student taking 63.5 hours total time. He's advertising that price alongside his very optimistic claim that with his intensive and focused instruction, he can get most students through in 45 hours.

I think his "intensive" flight training program is based on a false premise. The key to getting through the training efficiently is not flying 2-4 hours a day. Two or three normal length flights per week are sufficient, and not having long lapses in training. The key is being thoroughly prepared for each flight. That means reading up and understanding all the principles that are going to be practiced, reviewing any material that isn't totally clear, and chair flying each lesson a couple times before getting to the airport. If the student is well prepared, the ground briefing for most lessons won't be more than 15-30min just to review/confirm the student's knowledge, and outline the flight.
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Squaretail
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Re: Calgary-Okotoks flight school? (CFX2)

Post by Squaretail »

On the subject of longer flight bookings, most people don’t really conceive of what they’re really asking to do. For the most part while I recommend flying frequently, I find many short lessons are more effective than fewer long lessons. First, 4 hours at a hop in a small plane stretches any levels of comfort, and with any sort of intense training, if you’re really being productive, you should be done after one hour, two would be tops. Many people think that lessons are more a Sunday stroll ( I have had students in the past under the impression that there is going to be time for a snack during flight lessons after all). If your lessons are like this, expect to have a protracted hour count at the end of your license. I will add to that the issue that I always run into that for every hour in the air during a license, a student should be expecting to spend two hours of student-effort on ground related items. So a four hour in the air day realistically to make expected progress on training, means a total of 12 hours of student-effort that should be used to make it worth while. Which of course in the decades of flight training I have given, has never happened when I have pushed students for their desired result.

On the other side, from a business perspective, it is more desirable for a school or instructor to have many students on the go as opposed to a few. If one limits the individual booking times, it means the service provider in this case can keep a constant turn over in customers, to stay in business. Consider that student-customers are a limited source of revenue if one considers only delivering license products. As the product provider, you don’t want all your eggs in one basket, especially given the uncertainty of student-customer revenue. As for let’s say an extreme example, if I give all my possible production hours to one student, and for whatever reason that one student ceases to be a source of revenue, I’m out of luck. I have found it bizarre that over the years that few students over the years seem to understand, or be understanding of, that they aren’t my only customer.

On the subject of a CFX2 school, I will believe it is running when I see it. In short, the economics of it are bad. While there is vast potential there, current management of the airport, local economy, and shortage of instructors present hurdles only dumping a lot of cash into such an enterprise could overcome, and that’s not a certainty. The same could be said of any school that would consider starting in CEN4. That said, good luck to the fellow, I hope he makes a go of it, the country needs more flight training options.
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I'm not sure what's more depressing: That everyone has a price, or how low the price always is.
C.W.E.
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Re: Calgary-Okotoks flight school? (CFX2)

Post by C.W.E. »

I will add to that the issue that I always run into that for every hour in the air during a license, a student should be expecting to spend two hours of student-effort on ground related items.
Interesting comment.

What does " student-effort on ground related items. " involve?
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TT1900
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Re: Calgary-Okotoks flight school? (CFX2)

Post by TT1900 »

C.W.E. wrote: Thu Oct 04, 2018 5:29 pm
I will add to that the issue that I always run into that for every hour in the air during a license, a student should be expecting to spend two hours of student-effort on ground related items.
Interesting comment.

What does " student-effort on ground related items. " involve?
Pilot stuff.
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C.W.E.
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Re: Calgary-Okotoks flight school? (CFX2)

Post by C.W.E. »

Pilot stuff.
Such as?
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TT1900
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Re: Calgary-Okotoks flight school? (CFX2)

Post by TT1900 »

Stuff pilots do.
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C.W.E.
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Re: Calgary-Okotoks flight school? (CFX2)

Post by C.W.E. »

Stuff pilots do.
Thanks, that is very enlightening and I will try and remember it.

Maybe some day I will know enough about being a pilot to be as helpful as you are.

I still would like to know what exactly one needs to do on the ground , to spend twice the flight time on when learning to fly.
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TT1900
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Re: Calgary-Okotoks flight school? (CFX2)

Post by TT1900 »

You taught for decades and you can’t figure that out? Here’s a start:

- Basic Knowledge: Reading about aircraft manoeuvres, systems, limitations, emergency procedures. Aerodynamics, weather, navigation procedures, local area procedures. Etc.

- Flight planning: Wx, NOTAMs, route study, map prep, documentation.

- Briefing & debriefing.


It’s not an instructors job to teach the book. It’s the instructors job to provide “how to’s” and create a self-reliant thinking pilot. If my student can’t brief the book we don’t go; shitty prep, no step. My .02.
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Re: Calgary-Okotoks flight school? (CFX2)

Post by C.W.E. »

You taught for decades and you can’t figure that out? Here’s a start:
That is correct I taught for decades I received my flight instructors rating in the mid 1950's and quit teaching in 2005.
- Basic Knowledge: Reading about aircraft manoeuvres, systems, limitations, emergency procedures. Aerodynamics, weather, navigation procedures,
Is that not covered in ground school?
- Flight planning: Wx, NOTAMs, route study, map prep, documentation.
That is hardly a time consuming list of tasks, especially " documentation " a so loved issue by T.C, and flying school instructors.
- Briefing & debriefing.
I agree that briefing and debriefing is very important and I saved ground time by using the video of the flight to debrief the student.

It was probably the best teaching tool I used.
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TT1900
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Re: Calgary-Okotoks flight school? (CFX2)

Post by TT1900 »

A lot of information is covered in ground school. I can’t speak for you, but my retention of information certainly isn’t 100%, not even close, but that’s not an excuse to not know the information. Continual study is required for top performance. I’ve been flying the same aircraft twice a day for a few years now, have over 1000hrs in it, and I’m still in the books nearly every day and learning/re-learning.

Yes, flight planning can be very quick, or not, depends on the complexity of the trip and experience level of the person doing it. Think of it from our side; a new instructor, on average, will spend more time on lesson prep than someone who’s been at it for decades. Wx & NOTAM’s to you and me is simple. To a new student it’s cumbersome.

Documentation adds up; 5min here, 5min there.

Yes, briefing & debriefing is key to ensuring learning and improvement. 20-40min brief and 10-20min debrief isn’t unreasonable in my mind. Video can certainly be a valuable tool and with the advent of GoPro I’m surprised more people aren’t using it.
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Re: Calgary-Okotoks flight school? (CFX2)

Post by Squaretail »

C.W.E. wrote: Thu Oct 04, 2018 5:29 pm
I will add to that the issue that I always run into that for every hour in the air during a license, a student should be expecting to spend two hours of student-effort on ground related items.
Interesting comment.

What does " student-effort on ground related items. " involve?
Well with some basic math, if we tally up that a minimal PPL is 45 hours of flight time, already a student is required to put in 40 hours of ground school. If we add say the bare minimum to write the PSTAR, and all the time allotted for a written test, we can tack on another 3.5 hours or so. Already there we're talking that we've spent almost a 1:1 ratio of non-flying student-hours towards a license. Now I would add that per hour of instruction flight we probably spend an hour of PGI, pre-flight briefing, airplane prep, debriefing, all said and done, we've now doubled said time. And that's assuming the student has done nothing outside of the bare minimum time requirement. If the student was like me, I probably spent at home studying my notes, as much time as I spent in ground school, the doubling time now seems pretty low.

One of the chief problems I would have with a "go-go-go/ lets get this done fast student" would be that they would prioritize airplane time over all other considerations, which frequently ended up at road blocks later in their training, which overall negatively impacted the efficiency of it, if we consider the end goal is to be come a licensed pilot. You would maybe be shocked at how many people I know who have done flight tests, then somehow suddenly just were "too busy" to write a written test, and thus have never gotten licensed. Seems a little silly to spend all the money and trouble to let a bit of paper hold you up.
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I'm not sure what's more depressing: That everyone has a price, or how low the price always is.
Diadem
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Re: Calgary-Okotoks flight school? (CFX2)

Post by Diadem »

"What are you interested in?
Private Pilot's License
Recreational License
Commercial License
Nate Rating
Other…"
Who's Nate?
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FreelanceInstructor
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Re: Calgary-Okotoks flight school? (CFX2)

Post by FreelanceInstructor »

"... And if you fail the test? We will provide an additional 3 hours of dual instruction at no extra cost to get you ready to re-take the test."

If my memory serves me correct, was this statement not previously advertised as something to the sorts of "if you don't finish your license by 50 hours we are going to give you the rest of the hours you need to pass the test for free"? Why the change in tone?
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Zaibatsu
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Re: Calgary-Okotoks flight school? (CFX2)

Post by Zaibatsu »

Double the flight time on the ground is easily achievable for a switched on student.

In addition to ground school, brief, and debrief... there is hours of self-study, pre-flight preparation, and armchair flying.

The ones who don't do that much on the ground at a minimum wind up paying for a half hour of review they should already know and getting behind on lessons as more practice is required each time they fly.

I fly 80 hours a month on a plane I have years of experience and thousands of hours on.. and I still hit the books nearly every day to better understand systems or procedures or emergencies. A student should be doing the same thing all the more so.
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beltrix
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Re: Calgary-Okotoks flight school? (CFX2)

Post by beltrix »

Any updates on this? I am putting together information on Flight Instructor's training and checked with CFC to no avail as they want me to fly 150 hrs before transferring from a different school and was looking at this school as option.
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wingover
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Re: Calgary-Okotoks flight school? (CFX2)

Post by wingover »

IF you want to learn more about the school in Okotoks, get their airplane registrations and do a CADORs search on them. Also, talk to students who have left there and gone to other schools. Talk to pilots in the south Calgary area and ask them their experiences with their school. Heck, even talk to the people living at the Air Ranch in Okotoks. You might learn a lot!
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FlyingCaper
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Re: Calgary-Okotoks flight school? (CFX2)

Post by FlyingCaper »

It's close to Calgary and outside the YYC terminal Control area. You can fire up and be in the air inside of 10 minutes most days. The dispatch is horrible, can't respond to text, voicemail or email. They often double book aircraft and they lost a few great instructors. Once Daryl and Mohammed left, there is very little organization or communication. There are a fly by night outfit and operate by the seat of their pants. After trying this school out for a short bit I have since taken my flight training to Calgary Flying Club in Springbank. Yeah it's a busier airport and you have up your communications game, at least they answer their phones and respond to email. If there is an issue with the aircraft, they'll let you know before you drive all the way out there. Okatoks has potential, but until they they get a a decent dispatch in place that cares and drastically improves their communication, they will continue to operate in disarray and chaos.
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