FAA report rips DuPage flight school (Passes failing students-Big School)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0311020421nov02,1,1068995.story?coll=chi-news-hed

A DuPage County-based flight school, one of the largest in the country, has falsified training records and issued pilot licenses to students who failed written exams and final cockpit "check rides," according to a Federal Aviation Administration report.

American Flyers Inc., which is headquartered at DuPage Airport in West Chicago and has 14 other facilities nationwide, "abuses its authority and constitutes an immediate threat to the public health and safety," said the FAA's report.

<snip>

The FAA report alleged more than 50 violations involving students awarded private pilot licenses or commercial pilot licenses at American Flyers schools at DuPage and Palwaukee Municipal Airport in Wheeling, as well as in Ft. Worth and Addison, Texas; Morristown, N.J.; and Islip and White Plains in N.Y.

The findings raise questions about the oversight of flight schools, which are producing a growing number of the nation's airline pilots.

[mhr]

1. Raw Graduates of These Flight Schools Will Never See

A commercial airline operations for many years, if ever. If they have not killed themselves flying night freight or some other low level aviation job, they will be probably be ok.

The real risk here is to the graduates not the public at large.

Secondly, because of 9/11, there are too many experienced furloughed pilots that need to be absorbed back into the industry. This will take several more years at least.

Need to keep things in perspective.

[RamboLiberal]

2. What about the commuter airlines

that pay Taco Bell wages - or the private charters like the one that flew Wellstone? That's where I'm thinking these people could show up. I seem to remember one of the Wellstone pilots just came off a night shift as a private nurse that day.

[mhr]

6. No Commuters Are Not Hiring Now, Regardless, The Commuters Have

very tough requirements. If you can't cut it in the simulator, you are gone. If these guys failed their flight tests, they would probably not make it in the simulator.

[karlschneider]

10. Wages for commuter/corporate pilots, teachers and cops. Sore spot 2 me

I have been at times all 3 of these. Not really a teacher as in public school, but as a flight and ground instructor and I worked my way through college as a cop in Tulsa. It is shameful that people who do these things are compensated so poorly. Teachers (real ones), who have so much influence on our children and policemen who are charged with the responsibility to "serve and protect" deserve far more than they get.

Not that I have any regrets about my own career, but there's a bit of disparity when someone is directly responsible for not only an aircraft that costs as much as a medium-sized company is worth, but several GIBs
(guys/girls in back) who are very likely to be extremely wealthy, powerful and influential, and receives a pittance. Not to speak for other pilots, but I'll say that I have done my job because I love it, I am good at it and it beats starving. Barely.

When I started flying for a major corporation back in the late 60s, I was shopping around for a co-pilot. Put up a little notice at Chapman Aviation in Tulsa and got over 40 calls in 2 days. Many of the applicants told me right up front that they would work for nothing.

The company president thought it would be great to get a free employee! I asked him "Are you willing to trust your own life and those of your executives and family to someone who thinks he isn't even worth a salary?" He thought about that WAY too long before admitting maybe that wasn't such a great idea. :eyes:

There are whores in professions that don't involve sex, never forget that. And the role of a corporate pilot,if allowed, can very easily morph into that of a pimp - we are intimately involved with rich men (usually) who expect their personal pilots to do ..."other things" not limited to dumping out the honey bucket. It ain't all strutting glamor.

Well, I think I am rambling. EOM here

[Don_G]

5. Are These The Same Pilots

We see on Faux and CNN as "experts" in their field or are they running large corporations on the basis of their greed and documentation from a laser printer?

[American Renaissance]

3. Cute,

I can't fly for a bullshit medical reason that is about as serious as carpal tunnel syndrome, and these idiots are letting these clowns fly who probably shouldn't be allowed to ride a bike?

[karlschneider]

12. I won't ask about your medical condition but you can look into a waiver.

I taught a fellow with no legs to fly 30 years ago. He still flies his own plane regularly. And there are lots of exemptions for various ailments. Find a FAA approved doctor and look into it. (Or maybe I am misreading you...have you had your medical yanked for something?) No need to reply here, pm or email me if you care to.

[Cooley Hurd]

4. Flight schools don't issue pilots' licenses...

however if they have examiners on staff (sometimes examiners do double duty as flight instructors, like mine), I could see this happening...

[karlschneider]

7. I quit instructing 20 years ago, and haven't paid much attention to flight

schools since, but in those days most all the larger ones had a "designee" (an employee certified by FAA to conduct flight checks), and I knew all of them in Tulsa very well. I can say with certainty that none of them would have EVER cut any inappropriate slack to an applicant.

When I was getting my "ratings", I always went directly to the FAA GADO
(General Aviation Dist. Office) to get check rides, because the main guy, Walt (Mac) McClain was a close personal friend of mine. He loved to fly my PT-22 and one time when I needed to renew my instructor's ticket he told me I had to bring it to the checkride. I thought he was kidding, it had no lights, radios etc., but he was actually serious, so I did, and he FLUNKED me! I screwed up an 'emergency landing'...tried to corkscrew it too quickly into a little field and was going too fast.

Came back the next day and passed. In any case, I find it a little hard to believe that any established flight school would allow, let alone condone that kind of funny business.

Something about this story is giving my smell test a serious trial.

[Don_G]

8. Same Here

I soloed the same day as my Dad in the early '70's and worked with the Civil Air Patrol for a few years.

Of course, that was before "Privaitzation" and the ideal that strict standards govern the Industry before they were allowed to regulate themselves and set the Insurance standards....

[karlschneider]

11. Did you have a free-lance instructor?...or was it a certified flightschool

I have mixed feelings on that question. Some of the best pilots I've ever known were taught by guys in the 'back 40', as it were, but other good ones went through the regimen of the formal setting. I think a lot depends on the individual student and instructor in either case. I had a student (free-lancing) who threw up every time we flew the first 5 or 6 times. I was about to tell him to forget about being a pilot. But he managed to get over whatever hangup it was and I let him solo, finally, and he improved a lot. Got him to private license, he joined the USAF and became an Air Force pilot. I often wondered if a big-time flight school would have had the patience to stick with the guy. Who knows?

[tsipple]

9. An American Flyers Customer Speaks

I took my private pilot ground school course and exam at American Flyers in Wheeling, Illinois. They were thoroughly professional and ran a careful testing operation.

Let's see how this investigation unfolds. In my experience, at least, American Flyers conducted itself ethically and professionally.

[tsipple]

13. Slightly Off Topic Here

I'm pleasantly surprised at how many fellow aviators we have here at Democratic Underground. (Hello, everybody! :-))

Anyway, if you'd like to get a "Bush Frightens Me!" button, there's still time left (as I write this). Just pledge 31 bucks or more before midnight tonight (your time zone) at the Pilots for Dean Contribution web site. Click here to go to the donation page, and you'll be recorded as a Pilots for Dean supporter.

Thanks, everybody.