68volksy

To link what I said above to the original post there's no point asking RA instructors to do a Cert IV at this stage. Get them up to GA standard and then impose a Cert IV at that level would me my advice. It's all going to lead to an increase in costs however which i think needs to happen in RA training in order to get qualified and experienced people out there throwing unknowing students into the sky. Peanuts = monkeys Coffee and chocolate biscuits = qualified instructors!

Sounds like it might be worthwhile splitting this discussion into "What makes a good RA instructor" and "What makes a good GA instructor"? Horses for courses in my book. I don't agree with the different standards for RA at all but that's an entirely different question! Judging a good GA instructor is really quite easy in my book. Firstly they have to be entirely focused on instructing and not just building hours to get themselves somewhere else. If they're low on hours then an instructors rating from a reputable school is an absolute necessity. There's only a few schools that the boss would hire instructors from - schools that have been around for a good while and have a very high reputation. Lastly a good instructor in my mind has some decent experience. If they're low on hours then some good life experience - enough to have put the ego in check and knocked the cowboy out of them. A good RA instructor is another thing altogether and I like to keep looking back at the whole point of RA - the simple and cheap way to fly. A good RA instructor is much harder to find in my mind as it's a very limited field. There's nowhere really to progress to or any extra challenges in the way of larger aircraft, charter flying etc. if you've committed to RA instructing. That and you can be quite limited financially. Any instructor looking to make a good bit of money out of RA should probably be avoided as it's not going to happen! I'd be looking for an RA instructor that's older, maybe recently retired as a good indicator. Someone doing it because they love it is the primary qualification. Someone not motivated by financial concerns would be the RA ideal to be sure the aircraft is getting the attention (dollars) it deserves. In Goulburn we've been hunting for RA instructors for several years but good quality ones just do not exist. The current instructors that have joint GA/RA qualifications have too much GA work to give much time to the RA side. The GA work is also much better paid. The RA industry has got too big is my basic view. When it was the rag and tube boys floating around there were enough enthusiastic souls out there to support the new pilots. Now with the GA-lite end of the spectrum being so huge its left a big gap in the training side. If RA was happy paying GA rates for training then there'd be a considerable increase in the amount of quality instructors as most instructors don't seem to bother with RA when they can earn almost twice as much training GA (plus have all the advantages of going on to other forms of flying and aircraft in GA). GA offers a career path and opportunities whilst RA offers a past-time or extremely rewarding hobby is the gross generalisation.

Just seen the map/layout for this years Natfly stalls and it's looking very good. They've condensed it all quite a bit so it should have a good vibe to it. Looking forward to heading out this year actually!

He doesn't supply any water or electricity at the airport - not sure where you got that from? The only water out there comes from tanks attached to the individual hangars and Country Energy supplies the electricity. The only thing he's tried to charge people with is for "access to the airport" from their hangar sites. There's been no need for a court case because he had no legal right to impose any charges to begin with. Just ask some of the guys out there with something against him why they feel the way they do. No-one's ever tried to screw him over - quite the opposite generally if you listen to the stories and do a little research. It is an airport though so try to squeeze through the immense damn egos that float around out there at times and get to the truth.

EDIT: I might also add that the green Gazelle at Goulburn ('5515') has done a few props due to pilot error. All props are replaced with the standard and approved type as specified by RAA to retain their 24- registration. John has been quite irritated by this. I personally saw one of these incidents and was thinking the fellow was quite close to the edge of the strip - obviously I saw the impact and radiocalled him. Couldn't believe it - I'm the one in a tailwheel and the bloody car-steering nosewheeler prop strikes? Nice one buddy. Hi Boingk, Sounds like John's sold you a pretty good story during your training . Let's just say that the only people that would go anywhere near one of his operations (let alone near one of his aircraft) are only those who've not known him for very long. I'd be quite curious to hear his version of why he really sold the GA school and why the purchasers changed their mind and ran so quickly? It's not the replacement of the prop that i was referring too but the requirement for an engine tear-down or at the very least removal and inspection of the gearbox and prop flange run-out check that is needed. If it's an older model 912 there is generally no escaping the engine tear-down to inspect the crankshaft. Hard to do any of that in a couple of hours...

In my mind the fact you're asking the question means you've been trained quite well. I believe a large part of a pilots training should definitely consist of an ability to question yourself and your abilities in order to truly understand what you should be attempting. We've had quite a few guys come through the school lately that have started their training elsewhere. Two of them on the phone stated they were told by their previous school they were "almost ready for solo". Their records indicated a similar assessment and they truly believed they were. Suffice to say they were a little bit concerned after a few circuits when the new instructor said to them kindly and honestly that they had quite some way to go... As for how long is too long it really comes down to the individual. If you manage to dismiss any ego that may arise (harder for some pilots than others) then it's simply a matter of self-assessing your abilities and competence. My advice is that if you're even a little bit doubtful then jump in with an instructor for a couple of circuits and ask them to give you an honest assessment. If they tell you they see no issues then you will gain a little confidence. If they tell you that you've got some issues then you were extremely smart in getting them to come along. Keep doing this and slowly you'll become confident you can truly self-assess your abilities.

The school in Goulburn is answering that call at the moment but it always comes down to the aircraft that are available for cross-hire really. Cross-hire is a great way to expand a fleet I must say. The school has had several students finish their training lately who've gone on to purchase their own aircraft. They are also good enough to cross-hire them back to the school so the school now has for hire a Gazelle ($135/hour), J170 ($150/hour), Sportstar ($160/hour), Warrior II ($200/hour), Cessna 172XP ($300/hour) and Cirrus SR20 ($400/hour). Quite the range! If only they could get a factory-built X-Air...

There has been no escalation in activity at the school next door as they're booked solid in both Canberra and Goulburn until late April. The CFI will not hire junior instructors (especially young ones) as they do not put out good students - she makes that very clear. There's no shortage to the amount of young kids just out of school with their shiny new CPL who are not good enough to get an airline or charter job sending in resumes and calling her up. If a quality instructor comes along she'll interview them, fly with them and employ them only if they're good enough (not just because they've paid her several thousand dollars for an instructors rating). As such the instructors are generally a few years older and a lot more experienced. I think at last count they were talking of well over 100,000 hours of training experience between them. No doubt the hiring of 100 hour instructors who've been trained by 100 hour instructors is one way of making a quick dollar but it's certainly at the expense of safety and quality in my view.

Thanks for the clarification Diddy. The fact that the owner of that school also leases the airport and does not pay the $20/session landing fees and $8/day parking that he charges the other school at the airport is a very sore point. Especially when he's only leasing the airport from Council for $250 per year. We're all actually getting a little tired of him telling everyone he owns the airport when he's only leasing it at the moment. He has had an option for 18 months now to buy it and has not stumped up with the funds. The lease runs out in September so we're all holding our breath hoping he can't find the cash as he's made it quite clear that unless you fly with him or hire his aircraft you're off the airport if he buys it. "maintenance on a Gazelle is not too much" is very true for the manner in which the operation appears to be run. The green gazelle out there has had two prop strikes and was flying again in a couple of hours on both occasions. From what we observers can figure it's the only reason he keeps buying new aircraft. He's already written off one in a crash and had two prop strikes - he needs the spare parts !

I agree very much with Poteroo's cost break-downs and 500 hour minimums. I also love the way that Gentreau has displayed it graphically. There is a fixed cost to opening the door of a flying school. There are also a relatively fixed number of hours available in any market place. As such there is always a pricing sweet spot for every marketplace and school in the country. There is also the simple fact that people prefer to fly nice shiny looking aircraft and will generally pay a little more for the privelege. A very interesting case study is actually underway at the local airport at the moment. One of the schools has been selling $49 TIF's by the hundreds on those online "bargain" websites. They've been very busy indeed flying these TIF's for well over 6 months now. If you break it down they'd pay 20% (minimum from what i've heard) to the discount website leaving $39.20. Take $20 for landing fees at the airport leaves $19.20. Take $25 for fuel in a Gazelle which leaves -$5.80. Pay an instructor a pittance leaving a net loss on each flight of say -$15.80. Who now pays for aircraft maintenance? The business case seems to be built on less than half of the vouchers actually being redeemed. The customer base is wildly different to what you'd usually expect to see at a flying school. I must say they're doing the other schools around the region a great benefit as once people have done their TIF if they're actually keen to fly they seem to look around and every other school within 200km's is cheaper on an hourly basis...

Agree that it's an important aspect to learn but it's the queuing up waiting for the idiots who seem to have taken a liking to parking their aircraft in front of the bowserwhilst you run around the airport looking for them for 20 minutes that's the major pain. Your instructor should have you fly in the last flying slot of the day at least once in your training also so you will get a chance to refuel the aircraft and put it into the hanger then in my view.

Bring it on! Best news i've heard for a while. It's such a strong and forgiving airframe with so few and minor faults it's great to hear they're coming back. So long as the improvements don't alter the basic formula they'll have an order or two from down our way. They just supplied us with a couple of shiny new props which was great as we were about to write an aircraft off or sell it to a private pilot as there were no certified props available anywhere to allow its continued use in the school.

To me the castoring nosewheel just adds an extra complication for the ab-initio pilot with no gain to the quality of training. If that castoring nosewheel is offline the slightest bit on touch down your low-hour student is in the ditch before they've got time to know what's happened. Can be just a plain pain when it comes to pushing things into and out of and around the hangers too. Good trainer needs at least 6 hours endurance - too many need refuelling half-way through the day which cuts a huge chunk out of productive time - especially at busy airports. I don't rate the need for spinning or adverse yaw very highly - there's a lot of good aircraft out there that do not possess these characteristics. Good 200kg usable load with full fuel would be great as there are plenty of guys in the 90-130 kg range nowadays. Both my favourites have now been mentioned - the Gazelle and the good old Airtourer! Love the Airtourer - a proper "sports aircraft" which could cruise at 100 knots for hours and then when you strapped things down you could have a heck of a lot of fun up there doing some simple aerobatics! I love the idea of planning a nav and along the way thinking "i'll just do a quick loop":)

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Best RA-Aus aircraft i've ever come across that works in flying schools is the good old Gazelle. They were all Australian owned and built - does that count? Alternatively get the guys at Jabiru to stop thinking up new designs and focus on improving the current designs for 12 months would create some real nice aircraft in my view. If someone started pumping Gazelle's out again in Australia i'd buy a couple in an instant. Not interested in the Eurofox - no steerable nosewheel. No reason you can't tweak things a little and maybe hang the new baby LSA lycoming engine off the front either - 2400 TBO and great fuel usage!

The cost of maintaining an RA-Aus aircraft is really no different to the cost of maintaining a GA aircraft if you're paying someone else to do the work. Also need to factor in depreciation on RA-Aus aircraft which many schools are only just figuring out. The GA aircraft used in most schools do not depreciate. RA-Aus aircraft also do not stand up to the beating of flying school use that the older GA aircraft can. If you could spend $60k on an RA-Aus aircraft (what a half-decent Warrior costs) and expect it to last 15-20 years and 20,000 hours then it would be great but there's not a single RA-Aus aircraft i've ever seen that would take that beating... I still maintain it's an inexpensive hobby but keep in mind that RA-Aus is really setup for owner-flyers. My view is that people should stump up the funds to get their licence with a reputable school then go and grab themselves an X-Air kit or find a couple of mates to throw in and you're flying for $40 an hour. That's the beauty of RA-Aus and what it was all about in my view.

Apologies Don. It must be the other school at Goulburn then - where I fly (Goulburn Aviation) does not charge for briefings. Not sure how the other school justifies charging - all my briefings were no longer than 10 minutes on the ground with further explanations whilst taxiing or whilst flying. I've trained with 3 different instructors whilst i've been there (been stopping and starting a bit too often over the years!) and they've always taken as much time (and drank as much tea) as possible with me to make sure I grasp concepts fully.

This all sounds very simply like the whole "quantity versus quality" argument to me. Those arguing for lower costs keep talking about reducing the maintenance expenses, paying instructors less and using cheaper aircraft. Each one of those things are going to decrease the quality of the training provided - not to mention the safety issues! There is a minimum safe cost of operating a flying school and I think the vast majority of RA-Aus schools are currently run at or slightly above this cost. It's worth noting that the more expensive ones are often being run by a "businessman" with a clear view of an established profit margin. This motive sits outside of the vast majority of RA-Aus schools which are run to pay the bills and because it really is such a damn cool job. Aviation is not an expensive undertaking. I was recently talking to a client who was spending $6000 a year for her childs sport - the sport was swimming! I rent an aircraft for a few hours each month and don't even pay that much!!!! Compare our sport to any other sport and it will soon amaze you how cheap it is. I know of bushwalkers who would easily spend $6000 per year on travelling, accommodation and gear. I've got mates who are builders who throw away $100 every Friday night at the pub and the pokies.

I very much agree with this. The guy with the big smile on his face that slaps you on the back when you enter his school would make it seem like a great business on first impressions. Especially when you look over at the old guy sitting behind his run-down desk in the back of the hanger at the school next door. It's not until your quite a way into the training that you realise that the 250-hour Grade 3 Instructors (who've been trained primarily by 250-hour Grade 3 instructors themselves) that have done the majority of your training in the shiny-man school may not actually have the same level of knowledge to pass on and attention to safety that the 30,000-hour old guy who has been sitting behind his desk next door for the last 20 years might have. It's a tough industry where what you see is quite often not what you get. The best way I feel is to "hang around" a couple of schools/clubs for a while. Talk to the instructors, join the club, talk to past students to see how they were treated. Try to ascertain the attitude of the business owner and the CFI to safety and maintenance issues. Even good old Google might give you some indication (taken with a tablespoon of salt of course).

That's damn expensive for a Gazelle! He should try driving out to Goulburn - $170 an hour dual for the Gazelle (plus $20 bloody landing fee per session but that's a whinge for another thread). $30/hour is a big difference! Goulburn also has the J170 for $190/hour dual and the Sportstar for $200/hour dual (again - plus landing fees). Main variations in costs between schools is who maintains the aircraft, how much they pay their instructors and the depreciation/loan repayments of the aircraft used. Going rate for paid senior RA-Aus instructors is $40-50 an hour for someone of decent quality. There is a massive variation in the running costs of aircraft between schools also - some schools do all their own maintenance whilst others employ external LAME's or L2's. Basically some schools are run for profit, some for love and some for a happy middle-ground...

Mr Coates has got the dealers market cornered for a great deal of great aircraft - I often wonder how many more would be sold if there was a different dealer in the country. I'm one of a few I know that won't deal with him in any way...

Hi, Just a quick query. Love the Savage line of aircraft (always loved the Cub style). How many Savage aircraft are out there? Does anyone own one or know of one?

Interesting point to note actually. Originally the case seemed to be building against Mr Coates. It would seem though that proceedings were halted effectively by the "Everyone flies at their own risk" legalities in the setup of RA-Aus. If a case could have been made against the aircraft importer and seller it certainly would have been but there is no legal link that can be made due to every RA-Aus aircraft being "Fly at own risk". There is effectively no recourse for any liability in RA-Aus. As such the case was turned to RA-Aus and CASA for allowing such a state of affairs to occur. That's my interpretation of the goings on anyway...

Australian Flying for me. Thinking of changing though as the new editor seems very anti-CASA. Drags the whole mood of the thing down - I hate making my coffee of a Saturday morning and starting my fresh new flying magazine with "why I hate the world" crap. I buy it for the articles and flight reviews (especially the Jim Davis flying reviews!) not for detailed commentary on the everyday workings of a bureaucracy...

Quite an easy process. I believe it's a 5 hour minimum conversion if you already have enough GA hours up your sleeve. Another good option for you will be the new Recreational Pilots Licence (RPL) that's replacing the GFPT later in the year. Will have all the same qualities as the RA-Aus Pilots certificate however it will allow flight in aircraft up to 1500kg. To the RPL you will be able to add a controlled airspace endorsement also. If you're interested in the top-end RA-Aus aircraft then you're a perfect candidate for the RPL. The only thing you might miss is the ability to do your own maintenance although not everyone (i'm a good example) is interested in doing that.