When to change schools
 

I am becoming ever more "alarmed" with the maintenance division of my flight school, to the point I'm seriously considering quitting, and moving on elsewhere (to be undecided at this time). I choose here because my FBO doesn't have a multi-engine airplane.

Most all the 14 (Really 13 as one aircraft had "no" engines) twin engine a/c are down most all the time.....On average only 2-4 up at one time.

Friday morning I lost all hydraulics, gear fell out, massive chemical smell, and burning smell, lost Com 2, oil slung on the bottom of the left engine, and the VOR's off by 6. Declared the emergency, landed safely. They ask me to fly the plane (gear down) back to base (about 2 hr flight), I refused so they waited about 15hours till they found an instructor who agreed to come get the airplane.

Saturday morning, roomate in a plane just returned to service, takes off, loud nosie from tail and control issues, circle to land, paint shop forgot to "put the screws in, or tighten the screws, or something with making sure the elevator was secure in place"

Sunday nite, while doing running up loose 100% oil pressure on the left engine, oil slung all over the cowling.

Today, plane just "released to line" guys take off, nose gear won't come down, long story short, it never came down, and they did a nose gear up landing (congrats to both pilots for a positive outcome). My aircraft the left engine RPM gauge won't work, and HSI won't allow you to adjust it (non-slaved).

3 a/c are VFR only as the altitude encoding is inop on the transpoders (and have been for about 1-2 weeks now and no fix in sight).

1 a/c down (student's fault) landing without putting the gear down.

This doesn't include any of the regular small minor issues like (DME's not working, dash lights, taxi/landing lights inop, oil slung on the cowlings of every airplane, alternators inop.......the are the "usual" write ups that are "no big deal" and ignored). This also doesn't include they usual going out of service for 100 hour service.

Now those are just a few examples, that I'm experiencing, and please note these are all DIFFERENT airplanes. My situation, I'm at around 245 hours, just trying to get up to the 250 then taking the commercial check ride. I was going to stay for other time building and possible CFI/II/MEI, but I am thinking "hard" of as soon as I get my commercial check ride, leaving. Oh yeah, my instructor is not taking on anymore students and leaving as soon as he's done with the ones he has now.

Here's my question, is this "normal" with a flight school with such a large amount (14) of airplanes flown 24/7, or does it sound like there are alot of issuse not being address......some of you at ATP, DCA, UND, MESA is this similar at your school.....I know at my FBO where I did my Single/Inst, this was "never" the case.

Normal? The place I go to has over 30 aircraft (only one twin), and I have never heard of this happening. I'd get out ASAP.

Not the same where I am. Get out. There's a difference between heavily-used aircraft breaking down and them not being fixed when they come out of maintenance.

Personally, I wouldn't consider oil-covered cowlings or inop. alternators to be note and RTS issues. It's hard to know if an engine is bleeding oil if no one's bothered to wipe off the cowling and flying with inop. alts.... man, I just wouldn't do it.

I'd get out for another reason, too. Judging by the amount and types of things not getting fixed, they may be trying to save money whilst bleeding red ink. Flight schools have a nasty habit of up and disappearing overnight with their students' flight accounts when things get bad.:eek:

I would get out, now. My school has a pretty sizable fleet (29 152's, 10 172's, 5 172RG's, and 3 Seminoles) and yeah, they get used and abused and they all have their quirks but I have never, ever, felt unsafe. Nor have I felt like maintenance was ever returning aircraft to service that shouldn't be. I don't think I could handle that as a student, probably a good idea to jump ship.

Thanks for your input, I just flew one tonight, and the "door" pops, not completely open, but enough the seal doesn't hold.....was told "no big deal it's been that way for a long time". We were in actual IFR with rain and it was coming inside along with a freezing cold breeze.

The plane we were originally,scheduled in, was just up from it's 100 hour return to service, it has 99.9 available hours, as the instructor and student grounded it for right magnetos inop....

Oh and the plane mentioned above in the original post, that did the nose gear up landing today, just came out from it's fresh 100 hours check too....that was it's first flight today.

Sorry to keep providing actual experiences, I just wanted to make sure you got the big picture....I'm going to try and get my comm check ride this week (I'm about 5-6 hours from it), then be done here, I just don't feel safe here. I think they need a "spot ramp check" by the FAA badly.

This is what i would do, seriously.

First, find another school that is willing to work with you.

Second, once you pack your $hit and leave this joke of a flight school you are at, talk to the owner on the way out. Tell him / her / them that you are leaving their flight school because of ****-poor maintenance and shoddy airplanes and that you are going to file a report with the FAA. Here's the kicker, ACTUALLY DO IT. Now that you know that there is a problem you have an ethical responsibility to report it. If someone gets hurt because of a problem you were aware of and did nothing to help solve, you are just as responsible as the school.

Hearing about this kind of poor maintenance standards/habits makes me feel very proud of the aircraft maintainers serving in the military, especially the Navy. Some of the young men and women that volunteer for service have absolutely no chance of getting invited to attend a college other than a community college for a variety of reasons. I don't think poorly of my fellow service members but lets face it, none of us were recruited by MIT. I'm a GSE maintainer and don't work on the AC but I see what kind of people walk through the doors at bootcamp and walk out of the training pipeline as AC maintainers. We turn otherwise low achievers into Jet AC mechanics graduating extremely high standards and skill in a very short amount of time. The maintainers at your FBO may very well be experienced mechanics but appear to maintain no personal quality standards or they lack to moral courage to face management of the FBO in the event this is a policy problem more than a maintenance problem (I can explain if need be).

If you think I'm saying ANYTHING derogatory towards my brothers and sisters serving in the military take a step back, exhale, and read again. I'm an NCO through and though with nothing but love for my service brothers and sisters!

I worked at three schools, and trained at two. I've never heard of such a thing. At two of the three schools the entire fleet was flown a bunch. Our twins were going through a 100 hour every three weeks. However there were never any maintenance issues like this. If something was broken that constituted a safety issue, the plane was taken out of service until it was fixed.

I'd find a new place to train.

BELIEVE IT....I've seen it first hand....get out, report them, and share your experiences with everyone else.

Most of the mechanics I've known have been really good at what they do. But all it takes is one or two that don't give a crap and they can bring the whole shop down. If the DOM has a bad attitude the shop is toast.

Hopefully the pilot group is keeping the pressure on the MX group by not flying marginal planes. If it gets into the company culture that pilots will fly them with known problems, you'll be in a world of hurt when the hammer eventually falls.

Good luck....there are tons of quality schools out there, find one your willing to trust.

Make a call to the local FSDO...encourage your friends to do the same.

Try to be around when the FSDO then calls the owner of the flight school, the look on their face when the person on the other end of the phone introduces themselves is priceless!

...and no I'm not the narc type, I just really hate scumbag flightschools that put lives in danger.