Airline Pilot Central Forums - View Single Post - Best Flight Schools in New Mexico?

06-16-2023 | 07:50 AM

#2

Duke Silver

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Escandalo

I'm interested if anyone has recommendations for flight schools in New Mexico?

It seems like an interesting place to study. Lots of sunny days, low cost of living, etc. I'm interested in relatively accelerated training. I've looked at Del Sol (if anyone has experience with them, I'm all ears) but I wanted to know if there are any places I'm missing. TIA

I'm from New Mexico originally and I've lived here a good part of my life. I did my primary training here (although that school no longer exists) and as you said, the weather is pretty nice most of the year. Albuquerque is (in my opinion) not a great place to live anymore, though. Over the last ten or fifteen years the crime, homelessness and drugs/trafficking have gotten wildly out of control. I read an article the other day that said (if I recall correctly) Albuquerque has become the second most dangerous city in the U.S. per capita in terms of violent crime. There's a lot of cool things in/about Albuquerque too, but definitely something to consider.

As far as Del Sol goes, I had some limited interaction with them a few years back and I wasn't impressed. Over the course of a couple of weeks I tried to get the chief flight instructor to communicate with me pretty unsuccessfully. I'm a former part 121 guy who was looking to get current/proficient and maybe start working towards my CFI ticket (in other words, I wasn't just someone looking for a discovery flight. I knew what I wanted and I was ready to pay for it). I requested that we sit down and discuss my goals, choose an instructor that would be a good fit for me, availability, etc. Reasonable, right?

Over those two weeks or so, I physically went in to their office, called and left multiple messages and sent multiple emails, all with no response at all. I sent a final email basically saying that I wasn't going to bust their door down trying to get them to take my money and after the total lack of communication, I was just going to look somewhere else. Chief finally emailed me back a very passive and unapologetic message saying he had given my information to an instructor that had quit. I don't even know where to start with everything that's wrong with that. He clearly didn't care enough to engage with me or care about my business, so I gave them the official "whatever".

After that I went to Bode Aviation at AEG (which is west of ABQ proper). I liked Bode quite a bit better. They had good communication, were friendly and professional and treated me like they actually wanted my business (imagine that!). Of course, that's just my experience and I'm a sample set of one. This was also in the 2019ish time frame, so there may well be a new regime at Del Sol for all I know. Having said all of that, I would definitely recommend Bode over Del Sol, though. As far as I know, neither one offers any kind of an accelerated program.

Again, just my experience and my .02

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