Re: Is it best to do the purchase the PPL as a package or seperate courses?

PPL Training

Is it best to do the purchase the PPL as a package or seperate courses?

Flyman 24/07/2003, 1:43 PM
Hi all

Is it best to purchase the PPL training as a package or as seperate items, i.e ground studies etc.
Thanks,
Aaron

Re: Is it best to do the purchase the PPL as a package or seperate courses?

Mike Combes 24/07/2003, 3:50 PM
Aaron,

It's really up to yourself which way you want to go about it. From personal experience you really want 'continuity' of training, therefore you want to be learning as frequently as possible. If your only gonna manage an hour here and there then unfortunately your not going to progress very quickly. Then again, it depends on how much time and importantly, money you have!! If you can manage to get yourself a full time course(month or similar) and can afford to pay for it that way then I would suggest that would be the best way forward. Be careful though if your going to fork out all that cash at once, shop around and check out whichever school you choose properly. For example, a school that advertises a PPL for £3000 sounds great but you MUST make sure you know what your getting for your money!! What does the £3000 include, or more importantly, what does it NOT include!!? Theres lot's of other fee's applicable that they might not tell you about - e.g. medical, licence fee, RT licence fee, exam application fee's etc etc......the list goes on! Shop around and make sure you know what your paying for!!!

Mike

Re: Is it best to do the purchase the PPL as a package or seperate courses?

Andrew Sinclair 24/07/2003, 6:26 PM
I agree with Michael's advice concerning continuity of training and I would like to add just a small word of warning.

If you intend to purchase a complete flight training package make sure that the company you are giving your money to is financially solvent and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. Aviation training has it's fair share of commercial casualties, there was one recently at Blackbushe.

The reason I mention it is because if you hand over £5000 to a company in all good faith to obtain flight training up to and including you skill test and then the company goes into liquidation (i.e. goes bust and stops trading) then you are very likely to be at the end of a very long list of creditors and you may not (I am tempted to say WILL not) see any of your money again.

If a school offers training in blocks then it might be worth considering this because a block might be say £1800 and if you lose this then it is very much better than losing £5000.

Just a thought!

Re: Is it best to do the purchase the PPL as a package or seperate courses?

Flyman 25/07/2003, 9:47 AM
Thanks all for the information.

Re: Is it best to do the purchase the PPL as a package or seperate courses?

David May 25/07/2003, 11:32 AM
Another way of doing it is by 'flying account'. I'm with Willowair in Southend and whilst I didn't look into a package as I didn't have that much money lying around, they do a deal whereby if you give them £1000 up front you'll get 10% discount on your lessons (not landing fees etc, just the hire of the plane) as long as your balance stays over £500.

So you're getting a reasonable discount for a relatively small risk.

Works for me.

Another thing to bear in mind is where you actually fly. As I said I'm flying out of Southend which is a proper airport with full ATC so landing fees are correspondingly higher than somewhere that's just a club field with a grass strip.

I actually did it all wrong and got started through a cheap trial flight deal from the social club a work and stuck with the club they'd done the deal through. Having said that I'm very happy with them and having subsequently had a look round they appear to be better than average on the cost front.

I would certainly backup comments that have been put on this and other forums over the last few weeks on this general subject. Shop around, speak to the people, find out the detail so that you know exactly what you're getting for the money. Don't think that cheapest is going to be best or worst. You have to balance the different components, for example you could find a school offering £95 per hour and another one £100, but if the school that offers £95 is at a strip with a £10 landing fee and the £100 one is at a strip where landing is free you're actually going to save yourself a few quid by going with the deal that looks more expensive on the surface. Then you've got to bear in mind travel to the airfield, don't forget to add your travel costs as this can be very different depending on where you go.

As with most things in life there's not an easy answer and you really just have to look into it.

Re: Is it best to do the purchase the PPL as a package or seperate courses?

Leland Vandervort 25/07/2003, 12:27 PM
There are a couple of conflicting arguments (commercially speaking) on this very point.

There is the school of thought that up-front payment secures you a course with a given school and more or less guarantees you continuity of training (as well as some very small discounts, by comparison). Yes, this is technically a good thing, but due consideration must be given to the other school of thought.

The other school of thought is that if a flying school tries to either force you (either through commercial manipulation, so-called "requirements", or a very strongly-laced sales pitch) to pay up-front, then chances are you should probably stay away from them. All too often such tactics are used to maintain some semblance of bank balance, even if using the "use Mary to pay Paul" syndrome. (Cabair are infamous for this... by the way... but more for commercial training).

There is a local flying school at Cranfield (Taylor Aviation) who do not accept up-front payments at all.. it's all done "pay as you fly". Dave Tayor's reasoning for this is aligned with the second "school of thought" already mentioned. For this I admire his spirit and candour.

Some FTOs are after nothing more than to grab as much money as possible, but there are others which are backed financially by individuals and can thus put the actual "making money" more as a secondary aspect to the business.

Good luck in whatever you decide!

Leland