Professional Pilot Programs - 10kt wind limit / 5000 feet ?

[Shiny Side Up]

SSU: You're being silly.

I wish. When it comes to placing monetary value on my time I'm as serious as cancer.

Everyone expects to pay for their groceries. Everyone expects to pay for their gasoline. But imagine you drove through a town, and the only gas station sold fuel at $10 a litre, and you had to buy some. To make matters worse, their pumps are calibrated to rip you off - instead of getting 40 litres, you only get 30.

You'd probably be pretty upset. You would probably think that you had been ripped off by an opportunistic retailer. And you'd be right.

If this was the case, I'd be in full agreement with you, aviation and flight training in particular seems to be that odd exception. The problem is public perception. To the public, little airplanes they still view as if its 1956. To use you analogy, everyone expects to pay for their groceries, but get pissed off when a loaf of bread isn't only a dime. This actually extends though out aviation, when you talk to Joe Q. Public who somehow has this notion that a seven hour trip across this country in an airliner shouldn't cost more than a hundred bucks. Everyone's heard that story from their Grampa or Uncle it seems about getting a pilot's license for around six hundred bucks and the government refunded half of it. To the public, what we do is a hobby, its not serious business, they don't connect ab initio flight training in the big picture of how aviation works in Canada.

For example I had the unenviable task of doing some dream shattering. Fellow wanted to become a flight instructor - and here's the best part - already held a CPL. "It seems like fun, I can sometimes hang out at the airport and get some flying in." I'm not sure what he determined he actually did as an instructor. Either way, the best bit of the story was how I was going to help him achieve this dream, on his schedule, when he wanted - for free. I sort of wish I had a camera ready when I started talking money for this endeavor. He said he had to do some further thinking on it.

This is one of those things again where you have the luxury of not having to deal with the public. I would say on average I have one of these talks with someone to whom it seems like a shock that they have to pay for the instructor, or they have some concept that because they are a really good guy that I am going to take pity on them to help them with their dream.

Notably its interesting you used a fuel price analogy, since this has been one of my big evil acts in running an FTU. One of our big losses used to be fuel sales, largely because the honor system was horribly abused by the local GA crowd. I was a pretty unpopular guy for closing it down, but I don't know what company could sustain an average loss of about 600 litres of avgas a month (and the last straw was when 4000 litres went missing in one month). I think I was even the subject of a newsletter at one time and a hate mail campaign. Did I mention the use of my heated hangar isn't free either? Some people seem shocked by that notion too.

Now, can you see any parallels of the above, with flight training? The problem with flight training is that like any specialized service - eg a building contractor - you don't know who you're dealing with until it's too late. He might be a good guy, he might be incompetent, he might be a crook. It's very possible that you might pay an awful lot of money and not get much in return.

There are surely some crooked FTU's around. At least, I know of some in Ontario. It's possible that there are no crooked FTU's in any other province, but somehow I doubt it. And, the crooked FTU's give everyone in flight training a bad name, like it or not.

Not debating the point that there are bad instructors or bad FTUs out there. There are bad stereo salesmen and auto mechanics too. Like with everything in life, shop around if you are really interested in quality. In reality though, the price point of flight training is pretty constant through out this country, varying mostly depending on the tax burden of your chosen province. Since I'm intensely interested in making money at what I do, I've bothered to research what people are charging and keep tabs on it. With a very few exceptions, planes and instructors go for a pretty constant rate through out this country. The only difference is in quality of product. Here at the school, we have a very good record of delivering the product we promise, but that rarely is recognized by the customer. Its to the point where when I quote someone I keep track of it, since its turns into a fight in the future. Takes the wind out of their sales when those numbers match, doesn't make them happy though.

It is of little wonder good instructors like Burninggoats don't stay with it.

there are no not-for-profit FTUs

Nope. At least around here, many "flying clubs" which have transformed into full-blown FTU's over the decades, are not-for-profit corporations.

Arguably, as soon as a "flying club" engages in flight training they cease to be "not for profit" since the only purpose to start dealing with the outside public is to turn revenue for some purpose. A flying club that starts training new people - even if they are to be club members - does it to profit the club's activities. Whether as an entity it profits financially is irrelevant. Even the few schools who do it under the guise of "free training" have some motive which they are benefitting from.

[burninggoats]

I have to say, I have worked a good deal of time at both a for-profit and "not-for-profit" flight schools, 3 years at each all told, and the latter, despite the title, is far more interested in profit. They have thousands of "owners" all whining about the declining quality of equipment, thinking that their opinion should be heard. You also have to please a board of directors who hardly know the flight training at all. The not-for-profit was definitely more money hungry. The only differents is the profits, if there is any, don't go to one or two owners, they are re-invested into the business, which from what I can tell is usually paying off debt, or trying to buy new airplanes to appease members.

[Diadem]

The only differents is the profits, if there is any, don't go to one or two owners, they are re-invested into the business, which from what I can tell is usually paying off debt, or trying to buy new airplanes to appease members.

The flying club where I did my training (in association with a college) was supposedly non-profit, but the managers paid themselves ridiculous salaries and went on expensive vacations numerous times a year. Rentals cost as much as at the for-profit schools, plus members had to pay a membership fee, but instead of using the profits to bring down the cost of renting and make training cheaper, they purchased and leased expensive new aircraft and simulators. Unfortunately, rather than purchase more twins and other in-demand planes, they got equipment which was so newfangled and fancy that it cost 50% more than the standard aircraft that performed exactly the same, and no one was willing to pay the higher rates. After sitting on the ramp without flying once in months, one of the leased planes was returned to the owner, and the one which was purchased did nothing more than waste money on insurance payments. Did management learn from the experience? Of course not. They went ahead and bought a full-motion sim and an aircraft with a glass cockpit that adds nothing to the training, but costs the students an extra $50 per hour. I wouldn't be surprised if the managers gave themselves big bonuses and a well-deserved vacation for all their hard work.