To Be A Good School Or Not To Be?

[ATA_victim]

Whats everyone's view on this school? I like King Air's...

[Hollywood]

i definatley would not recommend this place. it's outrageously expensive and you don't get any of your cfi certs. i think you end up with around 300TT with around 100TT in the king air and no cfi assuming your starting from scratch. that king air time won't do much for the 300hr pilot. your left having to go else where for your cfi's and to build time. they require really high times to instruct in their cessnas and senecas (which are broke down all the time). last i knew to get into a twin there you had to 1500TT, 500 in type OR an ATP. i can't remember exactley what it was for the cessna's but it was way too high for a newbie instructor. if you went through their program then went off and got your cfi they might hire you for the cessna's but it's unlikey. king airs are all taught by current or retired airline pilots. mostly retired i believe. plus the owners are VERY shady. i know quite a few people at the regional level and none of them had any turbine time going in so i don't think that turbine time is all that important.

[DE727UPS]

PFT is bad. Their new ads say they are starting an airline and you can pay to be an F/O for them. It's an embarrassment for the career...

[EatSleepFly]

[ QUOTE ]
Whats everyone's view on this school? I like King Air's...

[/ QUOTE ]

I like King Airs too, but I wouldn't pay one red cent to fly one.

Besides, their King Airs used to try to splatter me when I used to jump at DeLand.

[NC_BE300]

The way that they fly scares me. I backseated on one of their training flights in a king air. The experienced airline pilot sits in the front left seat during taxi and takeoff. After takeoff, he gets up and trades seats with the second student in the cabin. During the climb, cruise, descent, and approach there are two students sitting up front. Then once on a extended final, the student sitting in the left seat, gets up, trades with the pilot, and the aircraft lands. Then they taxi back, and the student in the right seat, gets up during the taxi, and trades with the other student. And the process repeats. This, among other things scared me about the flight and the way the flight school operates. I worry when I hear a "Tab Express/International" or a King Air around Deland on the radio. I would advise anyone around their activitys to be extremely careful.

[ATA_victim]

Than is soo sketchy!!!!!

I would never go there!!!!!!!!

hahahaha

[ERfly]

I figured it was time for me to respond.

I just finished up a program at Tab. I came in with all my ratings, so I did a less expensive program, which got me King Air time. Needless to say, it was enough, so at 400 hours, I'm now in ground school for an airline.

On the truthful side, the training department is one the best around. You won't find a better group of instructors. The experience they have is second to none. The ground schools there are also excellent. The final ground school you take is exactly what I just finished covering in basic indoc. The final sim session was a big help, too. It exposed me to what I can expect and it was nice to experience it and mess up there than at the airline.

My problem with Tab, however, is the management. Their practices are shady. That is the only thing I have detering me from recommending Tab to anyone.

If anyone has any further questions, PM me and I'll answer them.

[flyallday]

what airline did you go to?

[ERfly]

I'm in ground school with Colgan right now on the Saab 340.

[Jester1092]

ERfly,

Did you have to pay for your training with them? (Last I heard it was 18k).

[ERfly]

Nothing so far has been mentioned about paying for training. However, that's not say that nothing will be mentioned. They might be going through TAB directly for that. I'm not really sure.

[Jester1092]

Thanks, just was wondering. Didn't know what sort of relationship TAB had with Colgan. Buddy of mine was an instructor at Regional Airline Academy and was hired by Colgan but then had to pay 18K for training. Was told that Colgan is all "pay for training".

Goodluck! Wish you the best.

[DE727UPS]

I would hope that if they were going to bill you for 18K, they would have told you by now.

[kellwolf]

I was looking into TAB a while ago, and for those of you that went to ATA, there are some familiar faces over there. Most of them jump before ATA went under, but I know most of their recruiting people are ex-ATA.

[ATA_victim]

yeah...ERJ-135 signed me up for the school!!!!!...I'll never forget his name.....I still think the employee's knew that the school was closing.....I was at the school when they shut down..and some of the staff already had their offices cleared out....AND there was alot of sketchy statements that CFI's were saying at all of our "what the hell are we gonna do?" meetings.

[Mr_Creepy]

Well I didn't know. We had a big CRJ meeting the day before and it was all forward looking plans. I was really disappointed. We were going to knock that CRJ program into shape!

[ATA_victim]

i just want my loan to be wiped out....when i win the lottery im gonna have a CRJ level D sim in my "simulator" wing of my house

[Mr_Creepy]

hey count me in on that! I'll help you set it up

[ATA_victim]

how much are they??? I got about 35 bucks in my wallet..

[JDMcFly]

[ QUOTE ]
i just want my loan to be wiped out....when i win the lottery im gonna have a CRJ level D sim in my "simulator" wing of my house

[/ QUOTE ]

When I win the lotto, we can go halves on the sim!

[ATA_victim]

yeah we could go halves......have your people talk to my people

[ERJ-135]

ATA_victim,

This is a TAB Express forum, but since you brought up the ATA issue, here is my reply. You can read more reply info in the “Get your money back from ATA” forum.

We (management office staff) knew absolutely nothing about the school closing until that Friday morning. There was an announcement made the night before around 5:30 or 6:00 of the closing, but most of the office staff had left for the day. Those who where there, Thursday night, had time to clean out and hit the road. When I first had sight of the ATA building, Friday morning, because of the police cars and milling students outside the gate, I thought we had a fire or bomb threat. To this day, I and the other Training Coordinator had no knowledge of the pending closing. I guess you can believe what you want, but we had no inside information. Monday of the same week, we had hired, and started training, a new Training Coordinator. He would not have started if the William’s family had intent of closing the place down on Friday. Something in the finance department, a possible bail out loan, fell through, and the funding just was not there to continue the operations. More than anything, Discover Air is more to blame for ATA closing, than not enough new students enrolling per month. Discover Air sucked ATA dry and was just a foolish ego trip “We own an airline” the owners had. I found out later that our medical insurance was not paid in January and the policy was canceled. We lost two weeks salary and had no insurance. You, on the other side, lost big money and a possible career in the airlines as a pilot. I talked with the attorney’s about our role, and evidently they were satisfied. You need to not blame the Coordinator’s. We only did out job.

Believe me when I say there was no hidden agenda for us to bring in new students, knowing that ATA was about to close.

You know my name, what is your name?

[JJPilot]

Ok, ERJ, I can appreciate your lack of knowlege about the impending closure. HOWEVER, why were the recruiters still telling the potential students that people were being/about to be hired. I was there for about 9 months of a 10-12 month program and completed my Private and instrument. And I talked to a few people of the new January and February classes and they told me about the stories of people being hired. I remember 1 group interviewing and a couple of people that were to be hired but sat and waited, for how long I dont know...

[Tim]

Checkout there site now..They are offering to refund you your training cost if you will give them a 3 yr commitment to fly for their airline.

[shooter13]

Holy Cow!!!

There has to be some sorta catch to it. Otherwise you are talking about a regional hiring you and essentially teaching you to fly. Don't know what to say.