Decent Flight school in Edmonton?

[trey kule]

First of all. If your flight instructor is checking emails, texting , or anything else on their phone while instructing, wait until the flight is over, and then refuse to pay for the entire flight! Talking to these kind of idiot instructors will do no good..they will say it just took a couple of seconds, it was important...etc etc...talking to the right CFI might do some good...might.....but it will poison the relationship with your instructor, so if you go this route, ask for a new instructor up front...and explain why however, refuse to pay for an entire flight lesson and you will get everyone's undivided attention. You can negotiate the final details, but the message is pretty loud and clear.
Instructors that text or check facebook etc during a flight lesson should be fired. No mulligans.
If allstudents get this message, instructors will also. It is harsh, but it really the only way to get through to these unprofessional, useless pieces of garbage that you are paying $70 a hour so they can put hours in their log books.

Now, to the original question.
My advice is that visiting flight schools is a good idea, it does not necessarily give you a good picture of their training.
So....first of all. ask to see your instructor's training syllabus. Doesnt have one..needs to go and get it, gives you some clap trap like we follow the TC mandated flight training guide ....find another school.
This syllabus is super important, and should be in your hands. Otherwise you will find more than the odd instructor who will jump around on the training,do it fragmented, or is just unorganized.
Feeling good, your my best buddy is a poor way to determine which flight school to go to.

I have had the opportunity to review the flight training of many students in the last while after they have completed training. The abuses by instructors and the poor quality of management is blatent...and, no, I do not enjoy bashing...It is just a fact.
But there are great instructors out there. And some good schools. The trick is to find one, when you are relatively unknowledgable, and relying on feelings and trust....

Good luck with the training...enjoy

[justwanttofly]

Very good advice Trey Kule!! I have seen this too many times in my days as an instructor/student.

[Oxi]

In regards to the instructors training syllabus, you're saying that following the TC guide and suggested lesson plan flow is grounds to find another instructor? Curious what you would like to see or suggest modified instead.

[trey kule]

I did not say that...what I said was if you ask them for a syllabus, and instead of providing one, they blow you off by answering that they follow the TC guidelines, it is not satisfactory.
I hope that makes it a bit clearer.
One of the major errors I see flight instructors have is they can not put the whole training plan in context. It is, to them, it seems, a collection of exercises to be gone through. An instructor that has a syllabus they can give you will accomplish two things. You , as a prospective student can actually see the flow, and, more importantly, can monitor it, so you do not have an instructor not doing what is relevant. I have seen so many out of sequence ground briefings it is incredable. And, surprisingly it seems to be related to the weather...cant fly..must make money....student not important.

A perspective student simply does not know what they need to know to assess a flight school or an instructor. So they fall back on feel good and trust. Asking questions is only a good evaluation tool if you are able to assess the answers.

For example, I do not feel that a student should have to pay for the pre solo , pre x country, or pre flight test check ride because they have a class 4 instructor. That is a training cost to the school, regardless if they sell it to the poor student as valuable or not. Class 4 instructors do not typically get paid as much as higher classes. But students get charged the same! So the difference the FTU gets is not applied to extra training and monitoring of the class 4, but just kept, and the extra costs dropped on the student.
Now ask youself. How many prospective students are going to know about these extra little check rides, or know that they will be paying for them. Or will believe it when they are told that the check ride is logable time ( which it is, but the primary objective is to confirm the class 4 did their job correctly, not teach anything to the student)
If an instructor provides a syllabus, thos check rides should show up on it...and a prospective student doing a bit of research can assess the value themselves. On the other a generic ...we follow TC guidelines kind of omits little things like that..

We need more students. Flight schools need to make money. But they also have a responsability to provide good quality training...not milk the students....

The new prospective student is a lamb going to meet the tiger