Is this package/deal any good?

[The500man]

I've just tried to have a look at D&B for EFG Flying School ... can't find them. Are they a limited company?

They are part of the Falcon Flying Group Ltd.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

how many people really have access to credit reports, credit ratings and business accounts

Anyone can do that, just sign up to the right web sites and pay them some money. Provided you don't mind information that could easily be eighteen months out of date, which is, erm, quite a long time, really.

as well as knowing how to interpret them

That's another matter. Every now and then I check on a client and the credit advice is usually along the lines of "we suggest you do not lend these people more than [about two weeks' billings]". So I ignore this and invoice monthly anyway, and only once lost a couple of hundred quid.

[Whirlygig]

Anyone can do that, just sign up to the right web sites and pay them some money. Provided you don't mind information that could easily be eighteen months out of date, which is, erm, quite a long time, really.

True but some credit reference agencies operate a scheme whereby other subscribers can give feedback on a business's real payment history plus they detail up to date information on CCJs etc.

I paid in advance and now think, "There but for the grace of God ...." I wouldn't do it again.

Cheers

Whirls

[A and C]

Moving goalposts

As said above the CAA or EASA can move the goalposts at will, the latest example is the new maintenance program that will have to be written for and approved for each aircraft currently using LAMP.

At the moment the best guess is that it will cost about £400 per aircraft, I know that this is not a lot in the big picture but just another example of increasing costs that a flying club can't control.

[jollyrog]

If you give me £2,000, I'll let you fly my PA28 at £1/hour. Your £2,000 should keep you going for a while, eh?

Cash please, if you're interested.

[IanPZ]

MadJock, thanks for that. I am stunned that the margins would be so tiny, but I bow to far superior knowledge. It occurs to me that this is obviously a bit of a tightrope. If flying schools charged in line with a standard business model and the expected target profit margins, then they would lose clients due to cost.

Alternatively, if the charge a price that the market will bear, it may be that the business is just not viable.

I know its a huge difference, but I work in a business that provides space for IT systems, and although it seems unrelated, our biggest risk is the cost of electricity going up, after having agreed a cost with a client. We have an allowance to increase the cost of our service if we need to.

It seems that the best way for a flying school to charge up front, but cover themselves, is to separate out the fuel costs (wet) from the lesson costs. Maybe I am over-generous, but I accept that my instructor provides a service, and should get a fair wage for it. If they are willing to agree to a "bulk" discount for me buying multiple lessons up front, then I see no reason why I would expect fuel to be charged at anything other than the going rate.

All that said, my instructor was actually the person who advised me to pay by the lesson, if for no other reason than it tended to motivate people more. Paying up front, its easy (well, relatively) to forget the money in relation to the flying. Seeing the money go down in the account I have for flying pushes me to try harder, to make sure i get better quicker than the money runs out.

Or am I just incredibly naive?

Thanks...IPZ

[theapplepie]

For those who insist I don't pay upfront, what would you suggest otherwise? Wouldn't doing it by the lesson be around £2000 more expensive in the end?

I'm truly stuck for what to do because I'll be away at university for most of the year and I'd like to minimise the cost by as much as possible.

Is there a balance between the two I can reach?

I'd really rather not join the university air squadron because I used to be a member of the ATC and I despised it. It had absolutely nothing to do with flying whatsoever, it just consisted of endless drills and marching. Not my thing :P

[MFC_Fly]

I'd really rather not join the university air squadron because I used to be a member of the ATC and I despised it. It had absolutely nothing to do with flying whatsoever, it just consisted of endless drills and marching. Not my thing :P

Your call mate, but I'd strongly advise chatting to some of the other studes that are UAS members before dismissing it - UAS's are nothing like the ATC. However, your choice and your money (all headed outbound and nothing headed inbound!)

[mad_jock]

theapplepie it depends what you are going to do.

If say you were going to buy a 10hr block then fly it in 5 days to me personally thats acceptable. But to buy one and then fly every Saturday for 10 weeks is unacceptable risk, its all a matter of time scale. Although in the past there have been people pay up one day to fly the next and turn up to the school being closed (worst I heard was a commercial student who handed over 35k and the school shut its door two days later)

Basically if you can't afford to loose the money don't do it.

IanPZ I have in the past suggested your method of costing, having a dry rate with a variable fuel rate on the day. Nobody has gone for it due to admin burden. It also screws up trial lessons which have a pretty huge markup over normal lessons to begin with. But punters want to gift them and you can't really have a surcharge when they turn up. And trial lessons are a huge part of most schools. I may be wrong but I believe Highland Flying school had something like 40k's worth of trial flights still valid when it went bust.

[IanPZ]

Fair comment. Madjock. Shame though, really.

Theapplepie. How to pay up front? Well, the only thing you will see people advising is that you use a credit card. As long as the spend is over £100, and under £30,000 (I think) then they are legally involved in the transaction, and you have a claim against them if things go wrong.

That doesn't mean that they will guarantee to refund any lost amount, and there are lots of extra rules around it. However, I have found in general that if you use a reputable credit (not debit) card company, then they will pay you back for your loss, and then deal with the claim against the business.

To stand a chance, you need to pay on the card, keep receipts, keep proof of the proportion of the service you have received (log book should count for this) and make very sure that you did some kind of due diligence. If the card company thinks that you knew the company you were making a purchase from was about to go under, they will push back, and even more so if you appear to have opened the card account just to pay for the lessons.

All said and done though, I believe EFG have a good reputation, so if you go for it with a credit card, it does reduce the risk from just handing over the cash.

Just one question though. Are you absolutely committed to learning? If you are going to put £2000 up front, you need to be sure you want to. A lot of people who do pay up front, or by the lesson, will still take the first bunch of lessons as pay-per-lesson, just to be sure that 5 lessons in, they don't hate it, but suddenly still have a bill hanging over them, so have to carry on or lose out!!

Good luck whatever you do, and hope you do love it.....I do!

This makes useful reading

Section 75 refunds: Free protection for ALL spending...

[gasax]

Comparing the 'cost' of getting a PPL by the hourly rates is generally only a partial answer.

Getting to and from the place, cancelled lessons, 'tech' aircraft, missing instructors and all the bits and pieces you tend to buy over the length of a course are all costs which are not covered - like landing fees! So unless you're cycling to the airfield and given the books and all the rest of the stuff these things all add up and can really change the difference - especially with landing fees in some places over £20.

And of course how long will it take you? Back in the day with a 43 hr course I got my brown 'poo' in 47 hours - calendar time? Just over 2 years - with no real issues on finding the money but a change of clubs. That should be regarded as 'fairly quick' unless you're really committed and doing not much else - like working.

My local flying club has since then (1985) been through at least 10 different manifestations that I can remember - so it is probably more! One year it went 'bust' twice! And yet this is in an area of comparative affluence with little competition.

Paying up front can be an indication of underlying financial issues - depending on how hard the club pushes it. At the end of the day buying 10 hrs may not represent much of a risk - so long as you fly it off quickly.

But I've seen my local club tottering on the brink (whilst I was firendly with the then proprietor) because during a good period of weather a load of the 'trial lesson' vouchers were booked. Unfortunately the money from them had already been spent by the previous 'owner'! This guy who was moderately successful in other businesses, lasted less than 2 years. He sold the club on, saying to me he could see no point in subsiding other peoples' flying!

[talkpedlar]

Breathtaking!

Long-term lurker here prompted to submit first Pprune reply by feelings of total despair!

1: Pprune No 1 House-Rule: Read other relevant threads before posting.

2: If you pay large-sums upfront and you may save some money...

3: ... but you may lose the lot!

4: No-brainer here.. which is more sensible.. to spend a few £ hundred
more... or to lose a few £ thousand?

5: Also, if you lose interest or your medical, before you've flown your pre-
paid hours, what is your contractual situation regrading a refund?
(Under contract law, the moment you commit to (say) ten hours, the
club/school is most likely entitled to the profit from 10 hours.. whether
you fly them or not!)

(Just finished reading the Cumbernauld Flying Club thread... £50,000 of students' upfront fees just gone down the pan... how much money have those s saved exactly?)

I despair... seems like no amount of red-ink will ever get through to some folk. Good luck all the same. TP

[The500man]

I'm truly stuck for what to do because I'll be away at university for most of the year and I'd like to minimise the cost by as much as possible.

The simplest way to not have to pay upfront but still keep costs down is to save your money while you are at university (Sept - Aug) and then fly the entire course over a month during the summer holidays.

The benefit to this is you will be flying at the best time of year in terms of weather, and will likely complete in close to minimum hours because you will have less time between lessons in which to forget what you'd have previously learned.

Completing in minimum time paying hourly, will possibly cost about the same as paying for the whole course and then flying over several years and more likely completing in 50-60 hours.

Somehow I doubt you will want to wait though!

[theapplepie]

That is what I was planning to do this summer actually, but the weather doesn't seem to be very reliable (the last two weeks were either rain or low cloud) and I have another commitment this summer too so I thought I'd be impractical to try that. I have two months left now and I have only done 5 hours. How about doing another 25 hours this summer and the last 25 hours next summer?

Do you think I could at least complete all the ground exams this summer? Would EFG allow me to just book the ground exams and not do any flying?

[IanPZ]

theapplepie. Best advice is don't do exams until the instructor says so. They have a shelf life, and also make a lot more sense once you have been flying a little.

If you are in such a rush to get your ppl, and you want to do it in a summer, then why not read the sticky thread at the beginning of this about learning in florida. From what I understand, as long as you take certain precautions and overbook the amount of time you need, its a quick way to get your ppl, for a reasonable price.....

Then all you need to do is learn how to translate the skills of flying in clear airspace, sunny climate and minimal radio traffic to a UK environment....simples (NOT, as I understand it!)

[The500man]

How about doing another 25 hours this summer and the last 25 hours next summer?

You could do that if it suits you. Maybe just fly upto going solo in the circuit this summer and then leave navigation and the test until next year. You can expect to regress slightly whle not flying, but next summer heading straight into circuit revision to get back to solo standard and building a few hours of P1 time would lead nicely into the navigation element.

You will only need to have passed Air Law for solo circuits. I would advise you to leave the navigation exam until you start flying navigation, and I would leave the communications exam until last or at least until just before you are going to do the practical r/t test. For the other exams it doesn't really matter too much when you do them. They are pretty simple.

I don't think EFG charges for the exams but check with Anoop. He'll do his best to help you out I'm sure.

[mad_jock]

Don't bother with Florida I did a PPL course in 2 weeks up in inverness once. The guy turned up with all the exams passed and booked in for 2 hours a day one at 8:30 am and one at 12:30. But when the rest of the work was done and he and I reckoned were were both up for it we quite often went for a 3rd in the evening. Got towards the end of the second week and it was hells bells were nearly done.

And you don't need airlaw for solo. I have sent a few without it.

[RTN11]

I'm surprised to hear you be down on ATC and UAS. I was a member, and had at least 8 flights in a bulldog, followed by a gliding scholarship to first solo, then a powered flight scholarship to first solo. All in, I guess around £4000 worth of flying at today's rates.

Admittedly I did turn up every week, work hard, polish my boots, do hours and hours of drills and plenty of activities not even remotely related to flying. I guess you have to look at the bigger picture and work hard, especially in a competitive environment like a UAS.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Getting to and from the place, cancelled lessons, 'tech' aircraft, missing instructors and all the bits and pieces you tend to buy over the length of a course are all costs which are not covered - like landing fees!

Well, that depends, doesn't it. Landing fees are included at some schools ... but of course this is reflected in the hourly rate. So, a more expensive hourly rate doesn't necessarily mean a more expensive PPL.

[Contacttower]

I'd really rather not join the university air squadron because I used to be a member of the ATC and I despised it. It had absolutely nothing to do with flying whatsoever, it just consisted of endless drills and marching. Not my thing :P

UAS is not really like ATC at all; they hardly ever do drill and most of the emphasis is on adventurous training, sport and of course flying. Its not like was 10-20 years ago by any stretch of the imagination but when I was in ESUAS (based at Leuchars in Scotland) a few years ago you could still get some significant flying in; a few of my friends I knew reached something close to PPL standards in a two years of doing it I think and there is of course opportunity to do aerobatics, formation flying etc so it might be worth trying if money is an issue.

As for paying up front I did pay initially to what was then Old Sarum Flying Club a few installments of money which on reflection was a bad idea and low and behold they went bust a few years later, thankfully after I had long finished my training.

As others have mentioned though if you use a credit card and make sure you are covered you should be able to take advantage of the saving without the risk.