Pan Am Academy CFI's must PFT ($7K)

[hyper]

I'll stay away from the actual question regarding the program, but I will pass on some first hand insight to Pan Am (at least the Ft. Pierce site). I have no personal experience but I do have a previous student that I trained from private through CPL ME-Inst. We became pretty close friends on a personal basis, so I keep up with his progress. After getting on with a 135 outfit, I was unable to complete his instructor ratings. I have no intentioned on denouncing any company undeserving, but scams like this are a festering wound on our industry and too many are getting away with the equivalent of robbery.

Long story-short, he and a friend chose Pan Am. He was less concerned about the extra money and more about getting away from home, focusing , and wrapping up all of his instructor ratings in a class environment. In the three weeks they were there, he was scheduled for multiple flights and eeked out only one. The schedule was a mess, always changing with no notification. Their frustration with the lack of scheduling organization and their personal experience with CFI's that could care less what, or if they learned anything, was nothing more than a very expensive lesson on what Pan Am did NOT have to offer. They were even charging for post flight briefings that weren't conducted (CFI would disappear after the flight). 3 Meetings were scheduled with the admin. to talk about his lack of progress (whilst paying for accommodations mind you) and not one person showed at the time agreed. Out of those three only one showed at all and that was an hour late.

Finally after a meeting with whoever the head honcho is there, he dared them to challenge him, thinking that might get a fired started on his progress. 3 days later, still same old same old.

Bottom line is he cut his losses and left, $7k poorer, but much wiser.

No ulterior motive, just a story followed first hand.

 

[bobbysamd]

Flight School BS

Good story. Sometimes, instructors get the short end of the stick as well.

I remember that very early in my tour at FlightSafety I scheduled a student and took my days off. I returned to work, only to find nothing on my schedule at all. I went to an Assistant Chief Pilot, who told me that he unilaterally pulled the student from my student load. He said this student was having trouble deciding what kind of program to pursue. This Assistant Chief felt that someone "more experienced" was needed to handle this student. The student and I were getting along fine. I asked why I wasn't called at home about this. He said he didn't want to bother me on my days off. I told him I would have appreciated a call.

I didn't understand this at all because this same Assistant Chief Pilot had flown with me during my interview and was familiar with my experience and quals, as stated above. I had similar instances of students being pulled from my schedule (and money pulled from my wallet). These instances really turned me off to the place as an instructor, and as an adult. I still would recommend FSI to students for great training.

 

[Wiggums]

The ACE program is an absolute requirement to get hired. If you look at the link above, you'll see that the Director of Training at Pan Am made that very clear.

Look, at any big school there will be lots of people that are "directors" that sound important. However, this guy was probably giving you the standard answer to questions posed multiple times each day. He had no excuse to be rude to a potential customer. However, you really need to talk to the person who is making the hiring decisions, probably the chief pilot. Even if the ACE program deal is supposed to be the rule there can always be exceptions. In the end it'll probably come down to who you know and who's butt you've kissed. If the chief pilot was your college roommate, you'd be working there now.

If you can get a 727 type rating for $8,000, it seems that they must be profiting a great deal from the ACE program. Even if they do offer to refund the money if you don't get another job at 1200, it still seems as though you are just giving them some extra cash flow.

Has anyone here gone through the $7,000 ACE program? What did you think?

Yes, being a private company I'm sure Pan Am is making money on the ACE program, as they try to do on everything else. I think the price isn't to out of line considering the cost of the equipment.

Based on the little I know about the whole ACE situation I would say it's not worth it. Why spend $15k when you could spend $5k for the same thing somewhere else?

 

[canosoup]

We eat our own

I remember when PAIFA took over my school in Vero Beach afew years ago..one instructor made an innocuous comment about something on the uniforms during a CFI meeting and they fired him on the spot!

 

[sharpeye]

Just realized something, the subject of this ACE program at the academy was brought up in the original post and a few after stating they were getting trained in an RJ sim. I just wanted to make sure you all knew it isn't an RJ sim, it is an RF FTD, there's a big difference. One you just get to flip the switches, the other (if it's level C or D, you can actually fly and almost be the same as flying the plane. $7,000 for FTD time? You have to be kidding.

 

[turtlboy]

Just to clarify... It's $4860 for a combined CFII/MEI, all in a Seminole and an ME FTD.

 

[Bluto]

Sharpeye,
sorry to nitpick, but you can't "fly" a sim any more than you can fly an FTD. I agree, however, that a sim is more realistic than the FTD. The FTD is a useful training tool. By the way, the FTD has full color visuals, you can do substantially more than just flip switches. You can "fly" it. It just doesn't move. It sounds like you are talking about a CPT or cockpit procedures trainer.