Northern Rivers Aero Club

trument Rating, using our IFR aircraft or your own, and our synthetic trainer. Why train with us?

1) Unlike most Flying Training Organisations we offer a fixed price for most of the qualifications we train for. This fixed block fee can be paid in instalments as your training progresses. We have access to bank finance packages if required, at interest rates that are far lower than those of the VET FEE-HELP system.

2) Our GA instructors are all senior commercial and air transport pilots, each with thousands of hours of experience in operations ranging from the military to the airlines to the RFDS, GA charter and even agricultural flying. Unlike at the big city schools, our GA students do not learn to fly with low hour junior instructors. Our RAAUS students also benefit by being trained by very experienced and highly qualified GA instructors, rather than RAAUS qualified only instructors who receive much less training before qualifying as instructors, and who often have a much narrower breadth and depth of aeronautical training and experience.

3) We are ideally located close to the controlled airspace training environments of South East Queensland. As such, these environments are easily available for training if needed, while at the same time the costs and inconveniences associated with training in these environments full time can be avoided unless they are needed. If you train at places like Archerfield or the Gold Coast, you will spend many hours of your training taxiing and waiting on the ground, and you will be paying the hourly training rate for this time. You will also be paying for the time taken to transit to and from the training area (at Lismore, our training area is immediately adjacent), as well as the expensive rents and landing & airways charges paid by these schools. On top of all of that, you will pay for the infrastructure required to pay for programs such as VET FEE-HELP. For those who need assistance with finance, the attraction of VET FEE-HELP can be hard to ignore - before signing up to these schemes remember that this system is a loan (not free money) provided at a significantly higher rate of interest than that available from a bank, and it will cost you much more (possibly twice as much) for the same qualification as you will have to pay for the infrastructure which supports this system and the other extra costs outlined above. It really isn't as good as it seems. Many of our CPL students have come to us after they have started their training at big city schools. They each came to the realisation that we offered more personalised, better quality and more cost effective training solutions.

4) We train on industry-relevant aircraft, and have access to a large selection of aircraft types. For the entry level commercial pilot looking for their first job, experience on aircraft types such as the C172RG and C182 (both available at NRAC) will put you ahead of those who trained on aircraft such as Diamonds.

5) NRAC-trained PPLs who are proceeding to CPL and have demonstrated high levels of aptitude and commitment have an opportunity to polish their skills and build experience (and just as importantly, be paid) as an RAAUS instructor, closely supervised and mentored by their senior colleagues, while they train for their CPL. Leaving NRAC with a few hundreds hours or more in your logbook, and a higher level of skill as a result of ongoing practice of all aspects of flying, will put you well ahead of those bare CPLs with 150-200 hrs when you apply for your first charter job. One of our instructors is also the Senior Base Pilot for the Lismore base of Macquarie Air, and manages the single engine VFR & multi-engine IFR charter and aerial work undertaken by the Lismore base. Our CPL students are able to benefit from exposure to this operation, and may also be given an opportunity to work within it as a line pilot on completion of their training.

6) The success of our graduates speaks for itself. Over the last few years, we have trained CPLs who are currently -
1) Flying Cessna Caravans on charter in Indonesia
2) Flying Piper Chieftains on charter around NSW
3) Training as a Second Officer for Cathay Pacific, after flying Piper Cheftains on charter around NSW
4) Flying Cessna Caravans on charter in Botswana
Over the last few years we have also trained four students who have subsequently been accepted into military pilot training, including one who has recently competed training on fast jets. Some of our recent PPL & NVFR graduates include -
1) A group of flying vet surgeons working in the NT
2) A flying obstetrician working in PNG
3) Two flying conservationists working around Australia for a conservation society
4) A flying grazier from western QLD
5) A mechanical engineer from Sydney
6) An electrician from Brisbane
7) A medical professional from Newcastle

7) We have on-site accommodation if required for those students who travel to train at NRAC.