Farmingdale's Republic Airport (FRG)

[turpentyine]

god bless you.

care to elaborate?

 

[BoDEAN]

Does anyone on here take lessons at this airport or am i the only one?

Off topic. Have to fly in next Wednesday to meet someone in Queens. Would Republic or Teteroborro be closer drive? Flushings is closed so that isn't an option

 

[tathepilot]

care to elaborate?

From a comment like that I figure you haven't been around there too long. I'm not into bashing in public. Just make the a/c you fly are safe.

 

[dondk]

Don... What do you mean by "student stealing"? Do you mean instructors pilfering students from their fellow instructors or do you mean pilfering from other SCHOOLS?

Both actually.. some schools (at the time) would send an instructor or two over to "offer" deals to current students at other schools.. As for some of the individual schools, 2 that I worked for you had to "watch" your students like a hawk. More than once another instructor would arrange for my student to fly with him. You had to be careful on the scheduling too.. Your student got there early and you were #8 in the pattern.. By the time you hit the ground "your" student was #5 for t/o...

All I will say it was an eye-opening experience on all accounts.

And as for how expensive it is at FRG, it's one of the most expensive areas of the country out there, even at the dividing line between Nassau County and "Cow Country". You have to go out past Coram to find housing, for instance, that most of the country would find acceptably priced. Of course I am consistently amazed that people freak out about how expensive the instructors' time is... They'll gladly pay $2/bottle for water that's no better than what you can get out of the tap, spend $50k on a truck that slurps $2/gal gasoline at the rate of one every ten miles, pay the lawn guys $50/hr+ to cut the grass, pay $80 for a half-hour massage, yet grumble at paying $40 an hour for a flight instructor. If you ask me, that's a STEAL.

Since I "use" to live there.. your on the money for all the comments above... It is expensive to live there and to train there.. Combined cost of an hour in the aircraft of $100-110 per hour for a 152 is painful, but if they have the money.. so be it.. $10 grand for a private is considered a decent deal... You forgot to mention though.. some of those flight schools on or at FRG were still paying thier own instructors less than $10/hr though.. Try to survive in LI on a flight instructors salary...

 

[I.P. Freley]

Hmmm, that's a new one to me. I taught at NFI for over two years and was never aware of any student-stealing, either from within or from without.

I can think of exactly two students of mine that left my school to go elsewhere. One just stopped flying one day, and about a year later I heard him on the radio in another school's airplane. Another finished his PVT with me and told me he was going to go to one of the freelancers for his INST.

In the former case, I was bummed cuz the guy was rich as heck and would take his poor CFI out to dinner or lunch on occasion, and sometimes just wanted to fly around with his wife and her hot friend. Easy money and very little teaching, plus I got to fly to Atlantic City one night and he bought dinner (and I mean the little airport by the strip, not the bigger airport inland). The latter student, I didn't much care as I already knew this guy was going to be a difficult INST student and it was going to take a LOOOONG time.

And yes, I started at under $10/hr. In 1997, that was about average of the places I interviewed at (in TX, MD, VA, NY, FL, OH). Thankfully that starting rate was adjusted upwards in a year or so and I was making $16/hr by the time I left. Thankfully I found some relatively affordable living circumstances through contacts at work, it sure as heck beat the 70mi commute from Westchester I dealt with when I first started... That's 70mi from Westchester, over the Whitestone, and down the LIE or the SoState, then back again, six days a week. Talk about a way to lose your mind... At least gasoline was cheaper then.

 

[Dominicinco]

Any flight instructors

Are there any flight instructors out there who teach at Republic Airport with their own airplane? Please PM me with your rates and availabitlity.

 

[minitour]

...They'll gladly pay $2/bottle for water that's no better than what you can get out of the tap, spend $50k on a truck that slurps $2/gal gasoline at the rate of one every ten miles, pay the lawn guys $50/hr+ to cut the grass, pay $80 for a half-hour massage, yet grumble at paying $40 an hour for a flight instructor. If you ask me, that's a STEAL.

It's amazing what junk people will pay out the butt for, but complain about paying for something else that's quality..
-mini

 

[Tags68]

CFI76.. is that you doug?

CFI76 - Is that you doug. there was an instructor who left Air East to i think fly for American Eagle (after the FAA grounded Air East's jets) Is that you?

 

[Tags68]

I train out of air east. So far its going well. Took the summer off for the most part and didn’t fly. Although i did study for and aced the written exam. Just started to get back into it again after a few months off. As far as the school goes, i do like it there, i like the people there and feel they have gone out of their way to accommodate me at times. Sometimes i worry about the cfi's there and if they are getting the money they deserve. For example, a friend flies out of Nassau flyers, and the instructor charges him for almost every minute they are together, which makes sense.. With my instructor, i don’t get changed anything except what’s on the hobbs. So 1.0 on the hobbs, is 1.0 instructor fee. However, there was a flight not long ago, that we went to do pattern work. got about 800 feet, and we were in the clouds, and some how the airport was still VFR. Both the instructor and I agreed that we didn’t feel safe being in and out of the clouds, so went landed next time around. The instructor didn’t charge me. Said he didn’t teach me anything. Well i think he did as now i know what its like to be in the clouds and how i didn’t like it! I don’t know if this is air east policy or my instructor, but there are times where he spent time explaining concepts and i wasn’t charged.

Other then that air east has ok planes, seems the ugly planes have most of the components working while the nicer looking ones are a bitty ratty. "This plane has always been like that" is a term i don’t like, but am getting used to. I will say that one plane i like to fly in had a dg going out on it and it was fixed with in a week or so, so that was nice to see.

As far as the airport - dont train on sunday, or on the weekend in the afternoon. Train weekdays or very early or late at night on weekends. Busy airport, but ya see some pretty neat planes and ya get experience in a busy airport. Definitely learn to be quick on the mic.

Caelim tranquilities, or however you spell it. Didnt they go out of business , or was that BK aviation, or did they merge.. something happened don’t remember what.. whole lot of construction going on where they were located.

 

[I.P. Freley]

For example, a friend flies out of Nassau flyers, and the instructor charges him for almost every minute they are together, which makes sense..

...and as you say, it DEFINITELY makes sense.

Dare I ask if they charge for ground lessons? You know, wx is cruddy so you do two hours in the classroom, instead?

Schools that don't charge for the instructors pre/post briefings do their staff a gross disservice. You shouldn't charge students for nothing, but the instructor's time is valuable and you should be charged (and the CFI should be paid) accordingly. And doing a lap of the pattern and then suspending the lesson doesn't count as "nothing"... Your CFI not charging you because you "didn't learn anything" may seem noble, but as you pointed out you definitely learned something. Learning costs money.

 

[cfi76]

Hey Tags,

yeah, PM me if see this.

 

[Tags68]

While im not really early in my training I haven’t yet done my x-country training. So sitting down for a extended period of time hasn’t happened yet. So far its only to chat about procedures on either the pattern, emergency procedures, stalls.. etc.. This doesn’t take much time. So my instructor has only needed to say, hey, read up on ‘x’, x being what ever I needed to work on for the next lesson. A few things like vor’s and ils approaches I kind already knew how to do, so not much teaching had to be done on that. For the most part, ground school at air east taught me how to do those, as well as just playing around coming into land. I’m sure come x-country planning time, I will pay for ground instruction. I have no problem with that at all.

There’s an old saying, which I think someone on this board had as a signature. ‘Student pilots teach themselves how to fly, instructors keep them alive long enough to do it’. Or something like that.. im sure you know what I mean..

It still amazes me, when my company sends me out to do consulting (im a computer tech), how much they charge the company compared to how much cfi’s make. My company has charged over $200 bucks an hour to make sure someone’s email gets out as soon as possible in case of primary email server failure (just one example), and a cfi only makes 30-40 bucks an hours to keep someone alive?? Hehe.

That example is an extreme. When I set my prices - Im very greedy, I demand beer and pizza. If it’s a big job, I demand lots of beer and pizza! Hehe. Hell there are still a few police departments on long island who still owe me pizza! Hehe.

Im one of those people who have a hard time asking money for help people with computer work. It’s a computer, if it blows up and catches fire, its just a computer big deal. Nobody gets hurt… if in flight something goes wrong people die…and that’s why cfi’s should be paid better, because they save lives.. if im not mistaken, wasn’t duel instruction the safest way to fly.. I think that was in the latest study by the aopa.. or something like that.

Well anyway, I got way too chatty (getting tired, and I just type away when im chatty!).. anyway.. point being cfi’s should probably be paid more as they keep people from killing themselves!

And flying in FRG is pretty cool.. Good Year blimp landed there today. Kinda cool to see.. I have my digital camera in my flight bag, I should take more pics when I fly!.