I thought about this for a long time in the past, and I agree completely with Peter. I was always sure that a good high-end flight school could work in the rich Munich area. Before I really calculated it that is …
But then, when you really CALCULATE it … the result will be that there’s better ways to invest a lot of money. Three SR22’s even if they’re six or seven years old, will be a million Euros. Without the maintenance, the hangar … then you need rooms, a lot of equipment, and if you want to make it really nice that’s quite an investment.
In the end my money will work much better for me if I leave it where it is now … in my own company, far away from aviation.
At our airport a Royal Thai Princess did her PPL – ATPL all the last years. She flies to Munich in their own 737, bought a big flat in Munich downtown and comes to the airport in Maseratis, AMGs, Porsches .. and with an entourgae of 12 bodyguards in black suits and several assistants. She did her whole PPL in the old Cessnas of our school, and later flew the old Seneca I and the 35 year old Mooney TLS … and when she landed an assistant with white gloves would serve her a cool drink from a golden tray right at the airplane … I always wondered why she doesn’t do her PPL in a new Cirrus (… but her bodyguards wouldn’t let me ask her ;-))
Probably you’d open such a school and when the first Munich lawyer saw that you’d charge him 500 Euros per hour he’d go next door and fly the old 150 …
It has been claimed that one cannot legally train ab initio in VPs/retractables but I don’t think that’s true.
It isn’t. When I was instructing, one of my students – who literally had just done his first solo in a PA28 – bought an Arrrow IV, so we did the differences training, I soloed him in his own aircraft, and he went on to do the skill test in his own aircraft.
It created a few challenges – all the training routes we normally used for the PA28 were too short to teach anything, he ended up doing his solo cross-country Biggin – Norwich – Lydd – Biggin or somesuch, and I had to teach him proper use of the installed autopilot – it was very enjoyable for both him and myself.
I just wonder whether he now needs differences training for a fixed-pitch, fixed-gear aircraft (just kidding – I know he doesn’t)
Cobalt wrote:
bought an Arrrow IV, so we did the differences training, I soloed him in his own aircraft, and he went on to do the skill test in his own aircraft.
That is a good point. If someone has the budget to spend €200K on a plane, why would he spend an extra 30K on his high-end ppl when he can buy the plane, get an instructor and learn in it?
Because it is not THAT easy with EASA. The plane has to be registered in the school, be maintained by a CAMO, have an engine not older than 12 years, have the right insurance …
And how can a layman who knows NEXT TO ZERO buy a € 200 K airplane? I mean I deal with that stuff for 21 years now and I grew up in a family with airplanes .. and I’d stil be very careful when I buy a plane. But after all this I would at least know what to look for …
Sure, if you have a company in the Silicon Valley and enough money to burn, you just order a new SR22T online in the color you like and hire an instructor. Movie stars and (high end) millionaires do that kind of stuff …
Flyer59 wrote:
The plane has to be registered in the school, be maintained by a CAMO, have an engine not older than 12 years, have the right insurance …
That’s absolutely no problem at all and can be arranged in a couple of hours. Apart from the 12 years engine life of course, but then, someone who wants to get the kind of high-end training we are talking about here will certainly buy himself a fairly new plane.
I know it can be done – because I HAVE done it – but you will pay a higher insurance, and with the CAMO etc. you will have higher maintenance cost.
Air & Complications came in at the end of my two-day CBIR course for a sales pitch. When I contacted them while I was looking for a school to do the practical part, they acted too arrogant for me. It felt like they wanted to avoid getting my business at all cost. My questions were met with minute-long ramblings of how it is done there is the only way. For example, they would start with 35 hours of (paid) ground instruction before they would let me touch a simulator. When I asked if they could train on a Cirrus in Basel/Bâle, I was told “we don’t work abroad”. EIR? We don’t do it because it’s useless. It seemed like everything was impossible and even asking how to accommodate my wishes was an offense.
By the way, if you are in Paris and looking to do an IR, I recommend the ACOP at Toussus. They’ve been doing IR instruction for ages.
Flyer59 wrote:
but you will pay a higher insurance, and with the CAMO etc. you will have higher maintenance cost.
Yes, sure. But only for the half year or whatever it takes to get your license. Thereafter, you can go back to your old insurance and maintenance conditions.
flybymike wrote:
Multiflight at Leeds … are probably as elitist an outfit as you will find
Why do you say that, and do you mean it in a positive or negative way? Does “elitist” refer to high quality training, or to a bad attitude?!
