Skydive Toronto sells C182 type ratings-SCAM!

[Blueontop]

Skydive Toronto is looking for pilots to “hire” for a space limited parapilot course to develop skills and “maintain currency”? How is this even legal? Is it basically operating a FTU? The ad on the employment forum is so disingenuous it’s disgusting.

Don’t fall for this new pilots! It’s a scam to take your money and then have 1 or 2 “lucky pilots” buy a job skydiving. The rest just buy a fake C182 “type rating” and are sent home.

[piperdriver]

Skydive Toronto also used to advertise on the Pilot Career Centre website. PCC then learned pilots were paying for training and the job posting was promptly removed.

[rookiepilot]

What is a C182 type rating?

Should I report myself for flying a 182 without one, or Skydive Toronto for claiming there is one?

Please advise.

[StrayPilot]

Wow thanks for this warning, I had sent this opening to few newbie pilots I know as a nice opportunity. Didn't know there was a fine print.

[DanWEC]

They've been doing this for decades. They've always been a shady operation. I thought they stopped the practice a while ago- very disappointed to hear they're still doing it, and that people are still paying for it.

[shamrock104]

They should be paying the new employee to take this course.

[kingbear]

They just advertised on here. From all the other threads it seems like it's unpaid flying? Even worse since you have to pay for a course?

[porcsord]

They used to advertise that it was a "wide-bodied" Cessna. I'm a little disappointed they don't anymore.

[Keppen]

Suprising they are still doing this. Back a while ago they would make you pay for the training and possibly you wouldn't get a flying spot depending on what they thought of you. They treated it like a trial that you paid for.

[tsgarp]

I reported their ad as fraud.

[DEL]

I applied years ago when I didn't know better. Paid for the C-182 course, passed and was told I was good to go. I'm still waiting for a call from Joe.

Moral of the story never pay for any coarse and get paid to fly. Too many pilots are too hungry to get into the industry and screw it up. Use your common sense and if you have questions, ask a senior pilots opinion.

[rookiepilot]

I applied years ago when I didn't know better. Paid for the C-182 course, passed and was told I was good to go. I'm still waiting for a call from Joe.

Moral of the story never pay for any coarse and get paid to fly. Too many pilots are too hungry to get into the industry and screw it up. Use your common sense and if you have questions, ask a senior pilots opinion.

What did they promise you for this course? A rating of any kind?

Someone otta have a chat with Enforcement

[DEL]

I applied years ago when I didn't know better. Paid for the C-182 course, passed and was told I was good to go. I'm still waiting for a call from Joe.

Moral of the story never pay for any coarse and get paid to fly. Too many pilots are too hungry to get into the industry and screw it up. Use your common sense and if you have questions, ask a senior pilots opinion.

What did they promise you for this course? A rating of any kind?

Someone otta have a chat with Enforcement

It was and still is a scam!!
To fly for them you had to pay for the coarse. If I remember correctly there were 10 of us. No rating as you get the honour of flying for them as pilot, not getting paid but logging time in the C-182.
No honest company does that. They hire you based on your time and experience or works with you to get it. They pay you too.

[Reinhard]

I responded to their job ad a few years ago. This is what he sent back:

[Cessna 180]

Wow, 2000 hours flying experience. Where do I sign up?

[piperdriver]

Wow Joe seems like quite the reputable character lol. Av Canada moderators please remove the job advertisement immediately!!!

[khedrei]

A quick Google search shows that there were 2 fatalities at that facility. 2021 and 2022.

Maybe that's the reason for the insurance comment in the pamphlet above.

[Blueontop]

Cessna 182
Sent: Sat Dec 14, 2024 1:18 pm
From: redlaser
Recipient: Blueontop

“Why should Joe pay for training pilots on his aircraft. If you want the job then pay for the training or just shut up”

Apparently redlaser is such a tough keyboard warrior he had to PM this to me

I don’t need a job like this nor have I ever sunk that low in my career. Simply a PSA to unsuspecting low time pilots as I was lucky to have such mentors when I was starting out.

You are a joke redlaser

[Rooster69]

Maybe redlaser’s first name is Joe?

[cdnavater]

This is ridiculous, the training is not transportable to another company, it might give you a slight advantage to other skydive operators.
I was quite involved in an operation and never hired a pilot because he/she had trained here, all pilots hired had to go through the company training regardless of previous experience. Non of them had to pay for that!
It seems this guys is running a flight school, is there a separate operating certificate to run a flight school?

[khedrei]

He sent me this....

User avatarredlaser
Rank 6
Rank 6
Complain
Sent: Sat Dec 14, 2024 12:45 pm
From: redlaser
Recipient: khedrei

And what are you complaining about.dipstick

[bodyflyer2]

Nothing new here; it is the way the DZ has operated for many many years.

My comments are as a skydiver (& PPL) who has jumped at Skydive Toronto among other DZ's, for many years.

Certainly OK to bring the topic up again though; it has come up on AvCan a few times over the years. Joe Chow even wrote a long response to the same criticism back in 2002, when the course was $850. Basically Joe said it was a bit like a flight school: you pay, and the company will offer the best students a position. One question of course is what course takers' expectations are, and what proportion actually get hired after shelling out money.

Also at issue is the fact that while 182 pilots are needed, they aren't needed nearly as much as they were years back before the DZ had any Cessna Caravans (1 in 2009, a 2nd in 2018). Giving (as far as I know as just a jumper) far less opportunity to rack up hours as one could in compensation, years back.

In the old days one might have 4 182's at a time flying loads most of the day on a nice summer weekend. Now there are only a couple 182's, and they don't get a whole lot of use on weekends. Useful for occasional low jumps by experienced jumpers and static line progression students (who only jump from the 182's at lower altitudes, but are relatively fewer in number than tandem and PFF students these days). The 182's are also quite useful at times during the week when things are slower, before there are enough jumpers & students around to make a Caravan load worthwhile. Still, Skydive Toronto is the busiest Ontario dropzone, and operates much more during the week in summer than most do.

Retaining 182 pilots is a difficulty some other DZ's have too, if they have a big plane, but want to keep at least one economical small plane going at times when there aren't enough jumpers to use the big plane.

Other comments:

- I think in recent years pilot do get a little pay per load. Not sure of details (like how little!) but at least it can be gas & food money.

- Skydive Toronto operated for like 40 years without a fatality. Had some bad luck in recent years with 2 fatalities. One suicide by a newer jumper, and one fatality by a first jump student who had a malfunction (descending under a spinning parachute) and didn't react properly (for at least a minute or two) and indeed then did about the worst possible thing (waiting until very near the ground and then jettisoning the main parachute). It is a very safety oriented DZ, indeed to the point where jumpers often consider the DZ overly restrictive.

In any case the C-182 course there has always gotten a lot of heavy criticism.

[cdnavater]

Nothing new here; it is the way the DZ has operated for many many years.

My comments are as a skydiver (& PPL) who has jumped at Skydive Toronto among other DZ's, for many years.

Certainly OK to bring the topic up again though; it has come up on AvCan a few times over the years. Joe Chow even wrote a long response to the same criticism back in 2002, when the course was $850. Basically Joe said it was a bit like a flight school: you pay, and the company will offer the best students a position. One question of course is what course takers' expectations are, and what proportion actually get hired after shelling out money.

Also at issue is the fact that while 182 pilots are needed, they aren't needed nearly as much as they were years back before the DZ had any Cessna Caravans (1 in 2009, a 2nd in 2018). Giving (as far as I know as just a jumper) far less opportunity to rack up hours as one could in compensation, years back.

In the old days one might have 4 182's at a time flying loads most of the day on a nice summer weekend. Now there are only a couple 182's, and they don't get a whole lot of use on weekends. Useful for occasional low jumps by experienced jumpers and static line progression students (who only jump from the 182's at lower altitudes, but are relatively fewer in number than tandem and PFF students these days). The 182's are also quite useful at times during the week when things are slower, before there are enough jumpers & students around to make a Caravan load worthwhile. Still, Skydive Toronto is the busiest Ontario dropzone, and operates much more during the week in summer than most do.

Retaining 182 pilots is a difficulty some other DZ's have too, if they have a big plane, but want to keep at least one economical small plane going at times when there aren't enough jumpers to use the big plane.

Other comments:

- I think in recent years pilot do get a little pay per load. Not sure of details (like how little!) but at least it can be gas & food money.

- Skydive Toronto operated for like 40 years without a fatality. Had some bad luck in recent years with 2 fatalities. One suicide by a newer jumper, and one fatality by a first jump student who had a malfunction (descending under a spinning parachute) and didn't react properly (for at least a minute or two) and indeed then did about the worst possible thing (waiting until very near the ground and then jettisoning the main parachute). It is a very safety oriented DZ, indeed to the point where jumpers often consider the DZ overly restrictive.

In any case the C-182 course there has always gotten a lot of heavy criticism.

I don’t think your response is doing the favour you may have intended, pilots paying for their training and then the lucky ones(best students) get the privilege of working for food and gas money, are you kidding me!
First, that’s illegal, they have to be an employee in order for operating the aircraft on the operating certificate. Therefore at the very minimum, minimum wages is applicable, despicable but nonetheless applicable!
In order for him to do this training, he either needs to be an FTU or each of these pilots needs to be an employee and anything other than that is not legal!
Next, this scheme(scam) puts other drop zones at a disadvantage, if they pay properly they have a cost disadvantage over their competition, no wonder he’s the busiest drop zone.
As I said, I was quite involved in this type of operation in a different province, how he is getting away with this is beyond me, I guess our T.C designate was bored, we had a few audits without any incident to trigger such audits, never had any problem with the audits, just time consuming and perhaps a waste of time for all involved, yet this clown continues to exploit young pilots, despicable!

[‘Bob’]

A company has to provide initial training to an employee. This is usually 3-4 hours paid by the company.

Making it a “flight school” means the “students” pay this.

Sure… offer specialized training under Part VI. Perfectly legal for a flight school or even an individual to offer—even for endorsements if you have 50 hours in class (seaplane, multi engine, etc).

But company training has to be under Part VII as a paid employee.

[rookiepilot]

What is a C182 type rating?

Should I report myself for flying a 182 without one, or Skydive Toronto for claiming there is one?

Please advise.

Still waiting. Depending on you guys!