CAE Melbourne Flight Training

Matt McIntyre

4 weeks ago

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Excellent instructors, however let down significantly by awful management.

RT N

2 months ago

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CAE is good in the fact it has Airline partnerships. However the chances of you ending up in an airline as your first job are very slim unless you’re in a Cadetship especially in Australia. Additionally, CAE is good because they have modern fleet of aircraft, however it provides limited exposure to traditional six pack avionics, such as what your first job will be in. Unfortunately there are many lows with CAE. Anyone wishing to do the bachelor of aviation needs to do their research first. Do you want to be a pilot? If so, I wouldn’t recommend CAE. If you want the hecs and financial assistance, do a diploma. Otherwise if you can, do the PAYG pathway. A lot of the instructors are either too inexperienced or struggle to handle pressure of flying with a student who is new to the world of aviation at Moorabbin and its procedures, as well as trying to understand the complex Garmin G1000 avionics onboard. It often leads to poor instructional and flight training quality, which in turn sets you back when it comes closer to flight tests. Throughout my PPL, the instructor I had was rather aggressive towards me in flights and accused me of being “underprepared”. I’m a visual learner so to suggest that is quite unfair, and before the flights, I would always read over flight briefings. As the instructor, they too need to be prepared on their end, and be ready to guide and correct students, rather than responding with accusation and aggression at a student learning something in practice for the first time. Students are often expected to know the entire lesson before it occurs and if they do not, this can lead to instructor frustration where they tell you that they will “ground” you in the future if you’re not 100% ready for the lessons. Also you’ll end up in uncomfortable meetings with student services focused on your “professionalism” and “flight training standards” as a student. These meetings are not meetings, instead they negatively impact your confidence and focus heavily perceived deficiencies rather than constructive support. The meetings take away your passion for flying that you’ve always had further impacting your motivation whilst creating anxiety around attending flights due to aggressive instructional behaviour, despite their claims of being a “professional adult learning environment”. Furthermore, you ask for help after failing a particular exam twice. Expect nothing less than an email saying that “CAE are no obliged to offer supplementary assistance”, and to be told that the instructors have other duties to attend to rather than simply spend 30 minutes with you and help you out with some theory. The aggression from instructors, the poor instructional quality leading to failed flight tests and more hecs debt, the lack of support, they rush you though the syllabus, the poor communication, the bad booking times (you request later flights rather than early mornings because you’re busy studying for exams and need additional rest to conquer fatigue from study and workload as well as rest to ease the anxiety of being yelled at and attending flights with instructors who hurt you) and the excessively high training costs. These factors all add up and create an unhealthy environment and an unsatisfactory learning experience. CAE although have a good safety record. Some instructors are really good, however unfortunately many of them have left.

Mohammad

2 months ago

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It’s disappointing that this review even needs to be written. CAE has a strong global reputation and impressive facilities, with modern aircraft, advanced Garmin avionics, and simulators that are great learning tools if they are fully usable. However, my experience during the PPL phase of a university-integrated program highlighted several serious issues. Rigid KPIs and timelines: Students are expected to finish minimum flight hours within strict deadlines, regardless of weather, aircraft availability, instructor changes, or pending medicals. Falling behind can result in dismissal, as happened to me. Thrown in the deep end: First-year students are often expected to perform at a high level immediately, with minimal guidance. I flew with five different instructors, but only two were genuinely supportive, professional. and its a shame that i can no longer fly with them Instructor allocation issues: International cadets get priority with experienced instructors, while first-year students are often assigned whoever is available even if it’s a poor fit. Asking management to change instructors is a headache, as they prefer students to stick with the same instructor from day even if its at the cost of their learning. Poor communication, overcrowding of students and overinflated prices : Updates are rarely timely, early phases are crowded, support is limited, and minimum hours are difficult to achieve, often resulting in increased costs. While there are excellent instructors, management is horrible, cares about KPIs and revenue over student development, leaving many stressed, frustrated, and in debt Research carefully before enrolling.

CAW2023

Edited 2 months ago

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It’s disappointing that this review even needs to be written. However, there are numerous substantial issues that students could face when training with CAE which should be addressed. CAE has a fantastic, globally recognised name and is well regarded in the airline industry, however this positive narrative may be quite a different story should you speak to regional or general aviation operators in Australia. Complemented by modern training facilities, the fleet CAE use to train their students are well maintained, safe, and equipped with advanced Garmin avionics - a plus for students and instructors. Their large number of flight simulators and training devices are a fantastic tool to help further your learning and skills, should they actually be working. A few issues listed: - Expect a ‘1 way street’ when it comes to training deadlines. Events outside a students control are rarely taken into consideration when addressing slow training progress. CAE expects students to maintain a somewhat unattainable level of progression through the course. However, instructor shortages, poor weather, and unserviceable aircraft are common reasons for cancellation and are often not identified when falling behind the deadline. It’s not unusual for first year students to be asked to ‘politely’ leave the course as a result of these deadlines being missed. - Communication between, students, instructors and management is extremely substandard, especially considering the high standards CAE place on its students. little to no notice is given prior to ground school start dates, if your instructor changes, or updates to your course progression. Start dates for various programs/ courses may change without any notice and without explanation. Expect a poor level of communication. - Some instructors are clearly only there for their own hour building, this is often reflected in a students ability to feel confident and progress through the course at the aforementioned progression rate. The unusually high turnover rate of instructors reflects this. - CPL solo hour building routes are extremely restrictive, and can often inhibit learning, experience and freedom. Expect very little ‘away’ landings. - Instructor changes mid-way through training phases aren’t uncommon and often inhibit a students progression through a certain stage. it’s not conducive to learning having 5+ instructors for a training phase. Students learning styles, confidence and progression are all affected, you may be asked to repeat flights due to an instructor change which is out of your control. - Expect to come in during winter for flight bookings only to be turned away due to poor flying conditions. Even during subpar weather conditions such as storms etc, your attendance in-person is required to cancel the flight… The lack of communication between management, instructors and students is again highlighted. - Holidays, 'leave', or any period of time away from the flight school, including during winter, requires numerous approval forms between different levels of management and your instructors. Combined with the abysmal communication, this makes for a tiresome process. - Your level of training priority regularly depends on which stream you are enrolled in. University, airline cadetship, etc. Your availability might be high, but your training priority low, and hence your allocated bookings may be low to none per week, and may lead to a slow progression. - Training costs for some stages are comparatively extremely expensive. Take a moment to compare like-for-like costs at other organisations. Expect unit fees to increase as the FEE-HELP limit increases... It's a shame that genuinely positive experiences with a few instructors + staff is tarnished by so many shortfalls in fundamental business practices and unprofessional flight training standards.

DD MU

a year ago

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As one of the largest and most professional flight training school in Australia, CAE has a very mature system, and every staff member is very friendly and responsible. I am very honored and happy to learn flight skills here :)

Liu Alen

a year ago

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Do not hesitate to choose CAE, which has complete operation manual, SOPs, checklists, polite instructors, advanced aircrafts with G1000 and careful maintenance of the aircrafts to assure your safety and pave your way to the airline! Thanks to all of my instructors I’ve met and responsible staff in CAE.

Peter

a year ago

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One of the most professional flight training school.CAE can provide efficient and safe flight training.

Zhenghui Zhang

a year ago

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Amazing experience and enjoying every second at CAE. Nice environment and nice instructors make you easily get into this big family😃

CKK241

a year ago

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The largest flight training base in a busy airport, It's also good to have a variety of planes. The instructors here are patient and friendly

Daniel

2 years ago

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Please do your research and shop around before making such a large commitment to this flight school. When you're 18yo and freshly out of high school CAE may look like an amazing place to train; large shiny fleet of aircraft, modern classrooms, boasting their connection to airlines, etc etc. BUT this tends to present as a facade behind a less than ideal training environment. Major issues you may face (in no particular order: 1. Overcrowding of first year students, and forced dismissal of those who don't make their timeline KPIs (which oftentime are out control from students anyways). You will find that approximately half of your cohort has left by first year. 2. Poor professionalism from several flight instructors and their general ethos of just building hours to get a better job. 3. Price! The hours they quote for course completion is ridiculously inadequate. You will have your HECS debt increased by tens of thousands of dollars, and/or out of pocket by thousands extra. 4. CAEs pseudo-airline bureaucracy style of operation. Example: Taking a few weeks off from flying during the winter break (when you have a 75% flight weather cancellation rate) becomes a nonsense hassle of forms and approval applications. 5. Extraordinary restrictive CPL hour building freedom. Almost NO LANDINGS at airports that aren't Moorabbin, no diversity of experiences, few predetermined routes, lack of airmanship and common sense taught. 6. I'll save you reading an ongoing thesis, please just speak to other flight schools and see what they have to say about CAE, I promise you that you should see a common theme. Overall key point to remember: IT'S YOUR TIME AND MONEY. Do not accept getting pushed around and hassled. You would almost be led to believe that they are paying YOU with their list of demands. Common responses from the academy: "But this is how things will be in the airlines, so we're only preparing you!" - Okay, but I am paying for a comprehensive, extraordinarily expensive, multi-year training program. It shouldn't be unreasonable to have a basic level of flexibility, a more holistic level of training, and to not be systematically pushed around. 2 Stars simple due to the fact that I technically did receive a qualification after my training.