I am an ERAU grad and I love my time spent in DAB, but PERDUE has as good or better reputation out there and it sounds like it would have been as much or more fun then I had in Daytona beach.

Is this what you mean?

yeah exactly. LOL

It is not Riddle that gets the bad rap, it is the attitude of the product it produces. I went there and most of the ppl I went with though that they were head and shoulders better than the other flight farms.

That said, if you can go there for free, do it. It is a good education. It has a great reputation, and will open doors for you with its internship department. I also suggest a degree with Business or the like in it. A aeronautics degree is great, but it is better to have a back up. I also suggest the one extra class for a dispatchers license.

Their flight like is actually a seprate corporation, but it appears to work seamlessly with the university. Also, their training is great. Just understand that you can go in with all of your basic ratings and save a ton of money. It is not cheap to get a Private, MEL, Commercial, Instrument there. You can get credit for that somewhere else and not pay the money. Now if they will cover the total cost, do it. Just understand that a SAT is a SAT and a FAA License is the same no matter where you get it.

Im in a very similar position as a lot of the ex or soon to be ex military guys on here. I have a visit scheduled this october at ERAU Prescott as its close to the fiance's family (KBOI). Would like to be back in the midwest. Its more familiar territory for me. Has any one heard anything about Ohio States Flight program? Is there a way to get a degree in engineering at Purdue or OSU but incorporate flight training into it so its covered underr Gi Bill and Yellow Ribbon??

let me know how the interview, campus, and everything else goes please! you can PM me

i spent a half hour on the phone with their VA guy and cleared alot of questions i had. things are looking good, the BAH in the area is awesome, and i can submit my admissions application no earlier than a year before my start date, so january 2012 i will be submitting my app!

Heres my thing, I went to Riddle, graduated in business and flew a bit there but I did most of my flying before I got there and did it out West in the mountains but I worked the ramp in DAB for years and learned why Riddle pilots are usually retarted when first out of school and need their hands held.

Riddle Pilots are very book smart but when it comes to stick and rudder and actual flying experience, well I would rather trust my dog in the cockpit then the rest of the kids I went to school with. The school does NOT let their pilots fly in any kind of "Bad" weather and when I say bad I mean like 2,000 foot ceilings and a 10 kt cross wind. They are babied their entire career there and when an FAA inspector would checkout a student by suprise well, they would fail a lot. Because as long as you can fly how Riddle wants you too then you are good in their books and their checkairmen sign you off, but common sense they lack. Give a student a plane and tell them to go to Flagler and get fuel they would be doing circles in the airplane on the ground because they would typically have no idea what to do. Neither do alot of the instructors since they only have 200 hours and never flew outside of DAB.

Riddle is a great school with great programs and I would go back for another degree if I could but if you fly there, go rent a plane somewhere else and get some acutal experience or work at one of the FBO's so you can learn what not too do. Riddle students always pulled this, "Can you put 7 qts of oil in the in the engine? I think its out of oil" when its full and just had an oil change or "I need it filled a little more than full" "How do I check my oil" and these are commericial/CFI students no joke, not private. Its scares me sometimes, but its a good school just watch out for the flight program because it gives a lot of us a bad name.

izanti

Thanks for the post, this is the first thread i have read where some one actually gave facts as to why they are for/against Riddle. Most just complain about the money. I am scheduled to take a trip down there for a visit this fall to determine if i like the campus and area (Prescott not Daytona however). I was looking at either the Business Admin or Aero Engineer degrees with the flight minor of course.

the reason i am interested is because:

the riddle yellow ribbon program provides the aeronautical sciences pilot program for free, less the cost of books. the program, tuition, and flight hours/fuel and instruction are FREE. period. i am not interested in fixed wing, so im not sure how different their rotary wing program is.

also, by the time i will get out of the coast guard, i will be an FAA certified A+P mechanic with 3 years of actual experience maintaining CG aircraft, so i am hoping that this might give me a bit of a one up when ive got my commercial and all my ratings and i begin trying to break into the industry as a helo pilot. even if that means i have to turn wrenches to get my foot in the door.

if you had this opportunity would you do it with riddle? im gonna be paid to be there for 3 years by the VA, who pays for housing in the area......

No Problem man, I went and flew up to PRC when I was living in Arizona and to tell you the truth I wasnt too impressed with it up there. The school is kind of far away from the airport, unlike DAB where the school is directly on the airport. Daytona seems to get a lot more funding for buildings and stuff. They just finished the business building a year or two ago and its really nice so is the engineering building. The new flight department building is supposed to be insane! They are still building it and I think it might be done in a year or two. Daytona is isnt too great but it sticks to you eventually with the beach and all but flying in prescott is definitly way better because you get mountain flying experience and more diverse weather situations.

I dont know your current financial status or how you plan on paying for riddle but the one suggestion I can make to anyone who wants to go there is go to community college or a state university for the first 2 years of school then transfer over. Get your Gen Ed out of the way and save about 40-50 thousand dollars. I wish I did that and so does a lot of people. It also gives you time to think about what you really want to do and stuff.

Business or Engineering huh? Two very different degrees haha, Both are very well known in the industry from Riddle but I would suggest having your decision made before you get there. Swapping majors can really set you back depending on how far in you are into your degree.