Advice please on route to Mimizan / a free CPL/IR in France

Peter wrote:

With 20 people a year getting this scholarship, it’s not a big thing, is it?

The scholarship itself isn’t.
But the school itself is quite big. We are talking about 130 aircraft (TB10, TB20, BE58, DA 40, DA42, CAP 10, BE200) spread other 8 different airports.
It is sized for the “good old days” ~2007, when they trained maybe 250 DGAC students (pilot, atc, civil servant engineers…) per year.
But in 2009, after the economic downturn, the DGAC cut this number by 3.
So the school was oversized.
In order to keep a constant number of students the school became slightly independent from the DGAC and made private contract with foreign airlines to train their students.
Needless to say that the other private French ATO are unhappy about it !

I am saying that the additional cost to ENAC of running a scholarship for 20 people a year is not much more than the avgas. It certainly won’t be 20 x €100k or so which is what an outsider would pay elsewhere.

Peter wrote:

Also, from the POV of the state-owned institution doing it, the cost to them is just the marginal cost, which is nil for the classroom, almost nil for a sim (just the money paid to the IRI), and just the DOC for the aircraft.

You mean that there are no fixed costs in a state-owned institution??

With 20 people a year getting this scholarship, it’s not a big thing, is it? How many CPL/IRs train in France each year? Also, from the POV of the state-owned institution doing it, the cost to them is just the marginal cost, which is nil for the classroom, almost nil for a sim (just the money paid to the IRI), and just the DOC for the aircraft. It will be only a fraction of the money paid to the typical ATPL FTO by an ab initio customer.

Piotr_Szut wrote:

It’s just paid by other people than the students.

About 80% of the money comes from en-route and terminal charges.

It’s NOT free. It’s just paid by other people than the students.

Bordeaux_Jim wrote:

I think I must just be incredible lucky to have met only polite and courteous people throughout my aviation “career” in France….

All jokes aside, I have mostly met some very nice people in French aviation too, many who I now call friends.

I think I must just be incredible lucky to have met only polite and courteous people throughout my aviation “career” in France….

Yes, towards a “compatriote” AND a designated student. That would twice override the default “imbécile” …

Bordeaux_Jim wrote:

ENAC also trains all french controllers

I did my flying module at Biscarosse.

We flew the TB20’s IFR with state of the art avionics in 2012.

The instructors I met there were far from thinking they taught the birds how to fly…