Rishi: Flying With Melbourne Flight Training (MFT)

As some of you might know, i have been living in Australia for about 10 months now. I came to Australia originally to attain my flying license and degree with RMIT university. Unfortunately, RMIT's flight training school was not providing adequate training to gain the license as promised. As such, my other international friends and myself decided to leave and went off to another private flying school to carry on with our flight training.

When we joined RMIT, we were given acceptance to the flight training course and the degree course. However, when we left the flight training course, RMIT cancelled our degree course as well. Thats what RMIT did to us international students. Now i'm not saying that RMIT university is a bad university. They are really good when it comes to their degrees but their flight training school is equipped with staff from another flying school and they don provide for us international students properly. RMIT basically owns the flight training program but they get the services of another flying school to conduct the program. Anyway that was in the first 2 months of my stay here.

Melbourne Flight Training

After leaving RMIT, my international friends and i joined a private flying school known as, Melbourne Flight Training (MFT). MFT, in my point of view, is one fine flying school! MFT is a school where there are good, friendly and very helpful staff. The instructors over there are so patient when it comes to flight training. They make sure the students are adequately trained before they send them out for any form of solo flights. Though they only have got one simulator, i feel that their simulator is far better than the one that RMIT has. MFT also makes sure that they are not overcrowded with students. They make sure that their instructor to student ratio is at the most 1:4. Over at RMIT, the ratio could be 1:6 or 1:7 and thats quite overcrowded. At RMIT, because of this overcrowding problem, the international students got very little flight time. In 2 months, i had only accumalated 7 hours of flight time. Over at MFT, i accumulated 7 hours of flight time in 2 weeks. Thats how much of a difference there was in the standard of training between the schools. Now you would imagine that an internationally recognised school like RMIT would deliver good standards but over here, it was the other way round. A private school's standard was far better than that of an internationally recognised instituition.

Cessna 172R

At MFT, i flew the Cessna 172R plane. Its a single engine propellor driven plane which can only take 4 people one of whom is obviously the pilot. I progressed real fast with my training at MFT. My flight hours started increasing rapidly. My instructor Ben Topp was an excellent instructor, he still is. He helped me quite a bit and improved my flying skills. One thing which i really liked about Ben was, he was very thorough. He would empasize on the most minute of details, which is rather important because when it comes to flying, you have to remember everything. Not remembering one thing could result in something critical. With Ben's help, i acheived my First Solo flight and my General Flying Progress Test (GFPT). Most people would be able to achieve their GFPT within a month or two after their First Solo, but i took about 4 months mainly because of bad weather and plane availability. MFT is only about 1.5 years old so they have only got a small fleet of planes. Even though i took a slightly longer time, i still managed to pass the test the first time round and achived it at the end of the day. When i was sent out to do my First Solo flight test, I was quite scared because I was all on my own and I had to handle the situation all by myself. In the event of an emergency, the presence of an instructor would reassure me that someone more competent than me is next to me and would be able to help me deal with the situation. However, I was all on my own and if there really was an emergency, I had to deal with it all by myself. The reality of that scared me. But, it was a good experience which greatly improved my confidence. On my GFPT, i had the same fear, but not of being alone but that of being able to pass the test. It was a little pressurizing but i told myself that, ill just think that the person next to me was my instructor and not a test officer. That helped and i passed the test without any problems.

First Solo Flight

At MFT, it was not just All Work and No Play. MFT always believed that once its 5pm, everyone should just sit down, relax and have a nice cold beer aftera hard day's work. Instructors and students would chill and relax together without having any instructor superiority and student inferiority. Everyone was an equal over there! Everyone was treated fairly! At MFT, we have a Happy Hour every friday night. The Chief Flying Instructor (CFI) buys heaps of sausages and beer for all to enjoy. Now i don think you can ever find such a CFI anywhere. He is such an amazing person! He's go out of his way at times to help students. Whether a CFI or not, i don think you can find a person of this nature very often. Recently, the CFI held a dinner party called the "Wings" Dinner for all students and staff. The "Wings" Dinner was held to commemorate the achivements of the school and the students. The CFI had prepared certificates of achievements for students and certificates of contributions for the instructors. It was a wonderful night and everyone had heaps of fun. Infact right after the dinner, we had an after-party back at our school. Now, which CFI would actually do such things for the school, students and instructors. It was a night to remember!

Third Solo Video

All in all, my flying times in Australia have been wonderful because of MFT. I don think i would have been able to gain all these achievements and friends if i was not part of MFT. I would like to say, Well done MFT for all that you have done and congratulations for all that you have achieved in such a short period of time! I would also like to thank the CFI, Glen Buckley and my instructor, Ben Topp for all their help and contributions to my achievements. Thank You Very Much!