Does the classroom PfCO offer anything more than is available with online courses? I have done training for various qualifications in the past by both methods and, for me, online is more convenient.
What is the opinion of those of you who have actually gone through the training?
I am doing a course that is online which has a half day classroom. The online portion has been awesome I actually previously started an all online course but I got so little support I got a partial refund so do your research and donāt go for the cheapest
I have heard that some of the Online Courses do not keep things up to date.
Have bad/old documentation, and when you need to contact someone to talk about it, thereās no one who comes forward, and will answer your query, that may be sometime/anytime amounting from minutes to days !..
I may be the old scenario of āYou get what you pay forā
Not the sort of thing that I would want for any amount of money for.
At least if you are in a classroom with a bunch of other Guys there is now way of evading the issues above.
Not only that, it is always better to be able to have experts right in front of you that you can question and get direct answers from there and then !.
In a nutshell, It must be better to know that you are getting it right āfrom the beginningā and not just relying on a chance that you are āsomewhere near itā.
In the end you cannot beat recommendations (from off here) from People who have already done the PfCO !.
Itās funny?, you always hear of the good courses for PfCo Training here.
Perhaps we should start to āName And Shameā the crappy ones !.
Thatās the problem I had
I would have kicked the shit out of them if they had offered me a āpartial refundā , I would have been banging the door of the local Trading Standards Office down after that !.
Not giving a customer what he/she has paid for is not cricket, !.
Companies like that should be taken to task by the Regulatory authority and have any NQE certification removed (I assume that the Regulatory body would be the CAA)
I donāt want to start a long court battle.
So, you want them to continue trading so they can rip off many other unsuspecting customers?.
I am considering doing the pfco, not immediately as I will wait and see what changes happen from the caa first.
I am considering doing the Icarus online course based on reviews and they are not to far away for the class work and tests.
It would indeed be good to here others thoughts on who to use.
Of course not but if I loose the case it could cost me thousands all I can do is tell people on forums like this and warn them
So, who is the Company we all have to avoid?.
3ic
First one for the āShame Listā
Good to know ,we should have a āshame and avoid listā for everyoneās benefitā¦ I am also thinking about doing my PFCO,but like others have said,i think i will wait to see what changes are likely to happen over the next few months,yearā¦
I think an āAvoid Listā sounds better.
Would be interesting to know of other Members on GADC who are doing
there course with them are getting on?.
Seeing as they had a moan about them back in the early part of the year.
Well?
@JoeC
@GTMonster
Huh??
Ok, Iāll re-phrase that !.
What are their impressions of them?.
Not me, Guvānor! Iām innocent, I tells ya!
I did do my PfCO online but it was with Uplift Drones not 3ic, and I didnāt have any cause to moan. In fact, Iād happily recommend themā¦ with the caveat that it is an online course delivered through a combination of short videos, animations and text interspersed with short quizzes. That kind of training works for me, but it doesnāt suit everybody.
Not my experience with Uplift. The course was updated for the 2019 ANO amendments very quickly. The changes were clearly marked, and it was mandatory that I go back and re-do any changed sections Iād already done before I could proceed to newer content.
Also, the day after the new edition of CAP722 came out last month I got an email from them with the details. They also run a facebook group for anybody who has done training with them, and they announced it there.
One thing the online PfCO has (well, the one I did anyway) that a classroom doesnāt is that I get ālifetime accessā. I can go back and dip into the course whenever I want to refresh my understanding of a topic, and as new content is added I can log in and do the lesson. My experience of professional classroom training (mostly IT related) is that the course material you get given to take away with you is usually just a printout of the slides, plus whatever cryptic notes you scribble in the margins (which will make zero sense a year down the road).
It does take longer though. Your classroom course will probably (?) last a week, and on the last day youāll likely have your theory exam, and possibly your flight test. With the online course you do it at your own pace - for me that was a few months fitting in around work and other things - and then when youāre ready you need to schedule your exam & test.
I could have travelled to Newcastle and done mine within a few weeks of finishing the course, but I knew they came to Glasgow a couple of times a year (itās why I signed up with them in the first place) so I chose to wait. It ended up being nearly three months from finishing the course until I actually took the exam and did my flight test (I used the time to practice, and redid the entire course as revision).
At the end of the day, everybody learns differently. If face-to-face in a classroom works for you, and you can spare the time, go fo it. If it doesnāt, or you canāt, then online is a perfectly acceptable alternative.
For both, there will be unscrupulous (or just plain incompetent) companies out there. So like @chrisjohnbaker says - look for recommendations! 
Okā¦ Iām slow to this party. Most of my time is spent trying to sort my home while the weather doesnāt totally suckā¦ I finally have a garden with grass in itā¦ woo hoo!
I did mine over a year back with 3iC. I got through the course and got my PfCOā¦ The course info was ridiculously out of date. When I mentioned this to 3iC, I was fobbed off with that they were going to sort it in the next month or so. Joe however said they were still peddling the same now even more out of date info a few months back. That really annoys me to be honest. Itās like being taught 1900s medicine in 2019! They also didnāt advise me that some of the course was out of date, so if I didnāt know better, I could be breaking the law right now!
What annoyed me even more is that once done, I asked 3iC for advice on what to change in my operations manual to renew my PfCO and was offered assistance for Ā£150. Really!
While the people on the course weāre friendly, I couldnt recommend a course that is out of date by 3-4 years.