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Originally Posted by myron96  Would like to here from people who attended American Flyers CFI academy. Good and Bad..Thanks!! |
Do a search on "American Flyers". I did the CFI academy at Addison TX a little under 2 years ago, and posted a good deal about my experience.
Nutshell: AF front office guys (sales) are kind of smarmy. Expect to pay half again the advertised price -- you'll probably get out for something slightly less.
Of 12 in my class, 9 got both CFI and CFII in the advertised time, 1 ran out of money after the intial CFI and went home, 1 never did a lick of work and didn't get as far as passing a written and I left with my initial CFI only due to a death in the family. After taking care of my family business, I did about 3 hours with a local CFI and took my CFI-A add on, passing with no problem approximately 2 months from starting the program.
AF's planes are average or slightly better.
Plan to work 8 plus hours a day, studying, flying or in the sim.
The instructors I had at Addison were very good to excellent.
In hindsight it was worth the cost for my situation, but I would have prefered a better understanding of the cost up front.
Since graduating, I instructed for about a year, then got a contract position in technology development with the FAA. (I was 43 when I went to AF and didn't have plans for an airline career). The job at FAA provides the income I was used to from my previous career in Telco but is way more interesting.
I recently spoke to a few of my classmates; one is now flying King Airs in CA, one is a Lear instructor, one is a bush pilot in Alaska, one just got back from some time in the desert as a C130 navigator and will be trying to get on as a regional FO, one did a PFJ program and last I heard was flying 73's or some such. AF was the first step on all of our aviation career paths.
If you are the type that likes immersion type training and or have time constraints and don't mind paying a premimum for that type environment AF has a pretty good program in my opinion.