Good day guys and girls,
I am in winnipeg right now trying t do my flight training at St. Andrews Airport.
I am looking at moving into the Toronto, London area as Winnipeg s semi dead for networking and theres not much going on and i am looking for flight training schools that are cheap and the training is fantastic!!
any and all info will be highly appreciated.
You are going to spend a heck of a lot more time trying to make it in Toronto then you would in Winnipeg. 80% of the Pilots in Manitoba are FROM Toronto.
Find the least expensive rental and fly to Toronto for "networking" then you'll gain hours while you're at it. The Brandon flying club was run by good guys 15 years ago when I dropped in there.
Yeah, there's lots of 'networking' in the Big Smoke. Mostly by unemployed pilots trying to find that elusive entry-level job that doesn't involve going round in circles, throwing bags, or moving north of Lake Simcoe.
Instead, why don't you do your training in the Peg and start looking for jobs around your area? Very little networking happens next to the water cooler of a flight school. There are lots of operators in Manitoba and NWO is a short jaunt next door if you want to do a road trip that will actually get you somewhere.
I'd say about half the guys I flew with in Manitoba were from the Toronto area, mainly due to the fact that their isn't much for jobs down there. Perhaps you should check the yellow pages in Winnipeg and you'll find quite a few operators to "network" with, best suggestion I can give you if you ever have the chance to go out with beers with any other pilots in the area DO IT more than a few job offers in Winnipeg came about due to mutual drinking friends
Yup, I wouldn't come here to look for options. I'm in Toronto and have an upcoming road trip through Northern Ontario and MB to try and find something.
Being a large urban area, there isn't really much in the way of entry level carriers (Unless you count the TTC... haha), however you can always take a stab at being a flight instructor.
The problem is your living expenses will be at least 3x more than they will be in MB.... I may be wrong, but I doubt that the instructor salaries are equivalent in that respect, though from what I've heard, Toronto Airways pays fairly well, but they will be in limbo in the next couple years as their airport gets transformed into a shopping complex.
I moved here for other reasons, and did get the experience advantage of conducting my training in/around the the busy Toronto TCA. What I didn't like was paying 150 /hr for a C150 and 165 for a 172m (180 for a R/S!!)
I was paying 106 /hr for a PA-28 back in Windsor.... sigh....
Hey, I thank you guys for all the information and advice.
I was actually looking for cheap flight training options in the Ontario area and or any advice you guys may offer me!
If you’re looking to save money try out an uncontrolled flight school like Chatham, St. Thomas or Brantford. You may acquire more skills flying at a controlled airport like Windsor, London, Kitchener or Brampton. Flying out of Windsor will give you lots of experience dealing with both Windsor & Detroit. Windsor is also a pretty dead controlled airport so you may get the best of both worlds there.
