Cargair Mirabel

Super école!

J'ai recu en cadeau ''pilote d'un jour''. J'ai adoré mon expérience. Ce qui me donne le gout de prendre mon cour de pilote privé chez Cargair. Au telephone le monsieur tres gentil et il a repondu a toutes mes questions. Acceuil symphatique. Le formateur jeune et dynamique. Vraiment ruen a dire sauf que ca passer trop vite! Au plaisir de se revoir!

Expensive. And for the price I was expecting a more client oriented care for scheduling and aircraft availability. Not much difference than smaller schools where they take care of you. Except the price which they argue that it's because of the C172 instead if C150.

Brace yourselves, this is a long post. 100% Worth reading though! No such thing as bilingual education! I did most of my PPL licence with Cargair Mirabel, and all I can say is that the only person I was thankful for was my instructor, who made the effort to speak and to teach me in English. They have no other English speaking or bilingual instructors for that matter. They are all French, and when you ask for someone who can teach you radio calls and ground school in English, or print English documents, it’s like pulling teeth! Don’t get me wrong, I speak fluently in french, and learnt all the French radio calls and aviation terminology, but seeing as the rest of the world demands English speaking pilots, it’s great to learn the English aviation vocabulary and terminology right from the start. Bookings are pretty much ALWAYS LATE! I would always show up early to prepare for my flight, only to find out that my flight was delayed by 2-3 hours! I am there to study, and learn, and I am a patient person, but when I expect to fly at a specific time, (especially working a full time job on the side), a 2-3 hour delay is NOT OK! They don’t say sorry, don’t offer compensation, don’t have any reasons as to why things got pushed back, they just let you sit down not even say a word! Poorly managed! You cannot make a booking longer than 2 hours unless you get consent from the CFI to do so, and unless it’s for a specific flight exercise! After completing my PPL, I had booked many SOLO flights to gain more experience and to bring my family up flying with me. I had also had tried to book a 4 hour flight to be able to do longer cross country that was a little farther away from my departure Aerodrome to get variety and not always fly to the same places. When the 4 hour flights were all denied, I called and asked why, and they said it was because “I can’t take the plane for that long unless I am doing my 300 NM for CPL and they need the plane for all other students.” He said he would book me in, but then said “Don’t be surprised if we cancel your flight to give your spot to a dual flight who needs the plane”. WOW! Turns out that I never got ANY done!!! They all got canceled!!! The reason? Either Weather (which is understandable) but mostly because of maintenance being done on another plane and needing my plane to give priority to DUAL students. Big problem with that school is that they only have 4 C172 and they accept every single student who drops in! They accept everyone and don’t have enough planes for us all and we are all given a mediocre education and fight for spots with your instructor to be able to fly. NOT COOL! Again, poorly managed! Also, things were done in an odd way! For example, they never tested their fuel prior to their flight departure, students would sign themselves out on a computer prior to leaving without dispatch consent or supervision, they didn’t hand out all the documents to read, sign, and pay unless they remembered one day to give it to you, the weight and balance sheet was never done and was never filed for not one of the flights I have been on, simply because there was no system in place for one to be made. The environment was nothing like a school. It was more like a “hang out” spot for buddies to catch up and chat about their weekend. You couldn’t truly sit down and prep for a flight or study material in a good study environment. I honestly have no one else to thank for my success from that school other than my instructor, who was absolutely amazing and was truly a passionate instructor who actually cared about his student’s individual performance and success! He took the time to teach me all that wasn’t being done to ensure I learn proper habits rather than the ones adapted by that school. He unfortunately left that school right after I finished. Overall, it is a bad school, poorly managed, unprofessional environment, and not a place I would recommend.