This is not a good flight school for many reasons. I'll share my experience. I started my inital…read moreflight training in another state a few years ago and was post-solo and post-night cross country. After moving and a couple more years later, I was ready to get back into a plane to finish up my license. I chose Safety in Motion because they were the closest to where I live. After scheduling an enrollment meeting with one of the Chief Flight Instructors and another flight instructor (who ended up being my main instructor), we went over my syllabus and made an estimate of cost and hours needed to complete my license. It sounded good, so I enrolled. That week, I got my login for the flight schedule all set up, so I could schedule a plane and instructor based on availability of both. This was already an issue. This is a very busy school. Their schedule was generally booked out a month in advance, so that made it difficult to schedule one flight at a time. The first thing I noticed on my preflight was how dirty the plane was. I even mentioned it to the instructor, who brushed it off with, "well, they're SUPPPOSED to be doing it every once on a while, but I guess not." We got up in the air and did some basic stuff in the practice area - steep turns, stalls, the usual. One of the things that stuck out on my mind about this instructor was one - how young he was (i don't think he was older than 21), and how he told me he was only after "my 1500 hours so I can get to the airlines." I flew with this instructor 4 times and on at least 3 occassions, he made this very well-known to me. After not flying for a few years, I was excited to get to do some landings and get some pattern work in. My instructor, though, wanted to go the practice area more. So we did - for the first 3 flights. It wasn't until my 4th flight when we finally got to do pattern work. This would be my last flight with Safety in Motion. I logged 5 landings that day, but I couldn't tell you who landed the plane - because from about 600 feet all way to the ground, he'd be yanking and pushing on the yoke over me, making it very difficult to keep the plane flying in the direction I wanted it to go - for every single landing attempt. I can't even begin to tell you how awful those touchdowns were. I was literally fighting for control of the plane AGAINST the instructor who never once made the call to say, "my controls." It was just a fight the whole way down. Very frustrating and SCARY UNSAFE. I went home that day with a lot to process. As someone who likes to give people chances, I texted my instructor and asked him to call me regarding my training. He did, and I asked him if he had any confidence in my ability to safely land an airplane and he straight up said, "no, I don't." Please know that up until I started flying with this school I had almost 100 takeoffs and landings logged, unassisted. He then told me that he thought my additional training in simulators wasn't at all helpful and that my training was going to take along time. I explained my experience of our last flight which he admitted to being "a little" over-controlling when it came to landings. I even suggested doing some ground-effect center line excercises I did with my last instructor to make him more comfortable with my control in landings. He didn't sound too open to it. By this point, his energy had shifted to a negative one, so I knew I needed to ask for a new flight instructor, as this one was clearly not going to work for me. I then sent an email to the school asking for a new flight instructor. I was contacted by the Assistant Chief instructor to call him and let him know what happened. I let him know of my experience, the conversation with my instructor and how I'd like a new instructor. He told me, "it sounds to me like I've got an instructor who has lost track of your training, not realizing how far along you are, and is treating you like a new guy." He then told me that he'd take me on a student himself if he werent so booked up already with commercial students. He did say that he had an instructor for me who was older and would be a good fit (apparently another Marine). I asked if I needed to contact him and he told me, I didn't have to. That'd he'd have him call me. I never recieved a call from anyone. I did get an e-mail from one of the owners, asking me about what happened, which I copy-pasted to him. I did not receive a response from him, either. After not hearing anything from the school, it was pretty clear to me where they stood and the final nail in the coffin of my opinion of this school. Yelling staff, slamming doors, unfriendly front desk staff. The list goes on. Do not recommend.
