MILE HIGH

Hey yall im new to this so be nice! I will be attending the Delta Connection Academy in June in Sanford Fl. and I was just wandering if anyone might have some advise for me like the do's and the dont's and some of the pro's and con's attending this academy. Any advise is welcome and I look forward to reading your responces.

ryane946

Don'ts: Don't go to Delta Connection Academy.
Do's: Go to an FBO, or go to a good airline academy.

I looked into Delta Connection Academy (DCA) very thoroughly. I also looked into the other good flight academies, and local FBO's. Delta Connection was the worst.

My recommendation would be to do your licenses and ratings at an FBO. It will save you at least $20,000 for the same training. At DCA, you will pay $55 an hour for instruction. At an FBO you will pay about $35 an hour for instruction. The flip side, when you want to instruct to timebuild, DCA will only pay you $14 an hour. The FBO will pay you $25-35 an hour. BIG DIFFERENCE! At DCA, you will pay $105 for an old cessna, while at an FBO you will pay $80-90 for an old cessna. At DCA you will pay over $200 an hour for a multi, while those cost about $150 at an FBO. As crazy as these prices are, the place where these academies make their money is ground school. If you take the hours of ground school divided by the total cost, it works out to like $20 an hour for a class of 10-20 people. That's too much!

That is why I recommend an FBO over an airline academy. It is much cheaper, you will make more money, and the training can be accomplished in the SAME amount of time.

If you want to go to an airline academy, Delta Connection is the worst. The major academies cost almost the same. But at DCA, you fly old cessna-172's instead of new cessna's or pipers at Pan Am or Flight Safety. At DCA, the only multi time you get is for your multi engine rating, and your MEI. So you get hardly any multi time. At flight safety, you do your instrument in a multi. At PanAm, you do a multi engine routes course, where you get 40hrs PIC ontop of your other ratings. Either way (Flight Safety or PanAm) you will be closer to your 100 Multi that you will NEED to go to an airline. You can't get that at DCA!

That is my advice from my research of all the options. Hope you can apply this somehow. Good luck.

MILE HIGH

well thank you very much for the responce you have given me a new perspective on DCA. Thank you again for responding.

Burt Reynolds

I attended FlightSafety, but before that I made a visit to Comair Academy, er uhh DCA. I left there feeling really dirty, as if they were trying to sell me a used car. Lots of bad marketing hype. If you really want to spend a bunch of money (and really, most if not all of the Academies are too expensive), I would suggest FlightSafety. Very good operation with solid maintenance and a large fleet. In the time that I was there between being a student and an instructor, I only canceled one flight because of maintenance. And really, that was just because we didn't feel like pre-flighting another airplane in the rain and it was getting late...

Now on the other hand... I am working as an FO at a regional making about 22k/year. Sure, it will go up to 35k or so next year, but with my loan coming due soon I'll be right back to poverty. Recently, I started thinking of trying to buy a house and now I'm coming to the realization that I might not be able to afford anything that is worth buying... That extra 20k or so that I spent on flight training sure would come in handy now.

So why did I do it? I'm of the "older" variety. When I started flight training I was 32 and I didn't have a "real" job per se, but great credit... I'm not sure that I could have trained as quickly at an FBO due to lack of funds. Add to that, these type of forums were in their infancy so there wasn't much information out there for somebody who had essentially no connection with aviation.

Did I make the right decision? Time will tell...

I would say that if it's an option, find an FBO with a good structured syllabus and train regularly. 2-3 times a week or more. Don't be afraid to switch instructors either. If you don't feel that you're getting good instruction, then ask to switch.

If you're in the New Orleans area, I can recommend a really good instructor. He's my former student! haha

Good luck with your decision.

Oh yeah, and make sure that you have or are getting a 4 year degree (not necessarily aviation).

KRAZO

Flight Safety is very expensive, but in my mind - it was worth EVERY PENNY. I wanted the best civilian training available and $$ for $$ it was the best value for me. However for most people, find a good local FBO with someone you enjoy learning from and go for it!

atpwannabe

MILE HIGH:

If you have your PPL, check out American Flyers. Their website is americanflyers.net. They have an Administrative Intern program. This is a solid 2yr commitment. I, too, have looked at the academies and when I came across AF, I decided to check them out.

YEAR 1:
1st 60 days - You're on probation and pd $1500/mo.
Next 10 mos - pd $1500/mo and rec 20K in flight training (up to CFII). It may include AMEL.

YEAR 2:
Either flight instruct and earn 24K - 36K
or become a Flight Mgr.

After the commitment, you have the same options as you would attending an academy.

IMO, you can't go wrong with AF. Not only do they train you and it takes the same amount of time as the flight academies, but they pay you as well . However, in the end my friend, the final decision is yours and you are the only one who can make that determination.

Hope to see you out there one day.
V1...rotate...gear up....blue skies

rickair7777

The AF internship can be a good deal (you will work your @ss off), but be VERY cautious of AF as a whole. The local manager is crucial to your success or failure. The SMO operation is trustworthy if you can get there.

de727ups

"Any advise is welcome and I look forward to reading your responces"

There are a lot of good reasons I don't like DCA. Their website and marketing is a bunch of BS, they only pay CFI's $10/hr, and the guaranteed interview is a waste of time in this day and age. Now, I've personally never visited the place, though I was invited to years ago, but there is a wealth of information on the web.

We used to have a pretty good forum at jetcareers with a few DCA guys who defended the place. Then, new management at DCA came along and demanded the webmaster pull all posts about DCA from the site. So now the DCA forum is gone. However, the mother of all DCA threads can be found at flightinfo. Do a search.

MILE HIGH

Wow thank all of you for your responces it looks like to me that I might have to do some more exploring. It only makes sense to me that finding the school that is right not only right for me but my bank account as well is going to take a little more time. I have read responces that support both FlightSafety and DCA so im in limbo. But thanks to you and your respones it is becoming more and more clear that there is more than one choice for flight tranning. I have just been so excited about starting my flight training and getting to the airlines that i only looked at a few and made a quick decision but in the long run is what im looking for and if FightSafety is the better bet in the long run then so be it but i have visited DCA and i liked it but then again how can i compare when thats the only place i went. You would think with the demand for pilots going up the airlines would find a better way for potential hires to train. But with limited funds i guess that makes it kinda hard but i mean damn its all a big marketing scheme out there for us pilots!

atpwannabe

rickair7777:

I picked up on that (The local manager is crucial to your success or failure) when I initially went to tour the place. You are so right.