Flight School Help Again......

[speedbird18]

I have now looked around but I am still finding difficulties. I am amazed at how much difference there is in prices. for instance,

American Flyers, have been recommended on forums as being very good. They say they can pass me in 4 weeks and provide me with a weekend ground school course. all this and charts books etc for $11,500. But accomodation is on top at $69 a night.

Orlando Flight Training (OFT) say they can pass me in 3 weeks, accomodate me in there own housing which looks good and give me the option of doing my PPL in either a Cessna 152, 172 or Piper cadet. for $6,200..

Pheonix east will do the ppl in 3-4 weeks with no ground school or accomodation for $4748....

So my questions are

1. Is there any benefit paying up to $6000 more to fly with american flyers having been told they are very good?
2. Coming from the Cayman Islands, Orlando Flight training would be the best option for me, being they do a one stop package, Does anybody know of this school and it's reputation????
3. I also think I would like to fly the low wing piper, does this have any advantages/disadvantages over a hi wing Cessna? and which is best for ppl?
4. I am looking at purchasing the Sporty's PPL dvd course and Jeppesen PPL book, will this be enough for me to learn the ground school and pass the written?

Lots of questions I know and all help is appriecated, this is a lot of money for me to spend so I want to make sure I get the best deal

Thanks

 

[DCAinstructor06]

Get your PPL wherever it is the cheapest. A formal ground school is NOT even required. I think however it will make it easier on you if you have no aviation experience. As far as an airplane goes, rent whatever is the cheapest. If you can fit in a c-152, fly that. Remember, when these guys quote you a price and you don't bother to show up for a flight or you braindump what you did the last time you flew, the price will go up. Something you might want to be asking these places is how many hours do you get for the money. Most of these schools will quote you prices for the 40hr regulation requirement. It has been my experience that VERY few actually do it in 40hours. I have seen it done, but the norm is actually around 54hours. So ask the schools, how much extra it will cost you when you go over the time alloted. And whatever you do, for God's sake, don't spend 10K like I did on my private ticket at DCA. A PPL should really only cost you about 4-5K these days.

 

[svcta]

A PPL should really only cost you about 4-5K these days.

This isn't a loaded question, I'm really asking. How can that be? WHen I was instructing 5 years ago it was $4-6K and that was when you could still rent a 172 for 70 bucks.

 

[pilotsh]

Doing it at American Flyers is a waste of money IMO. The only cost effective program they have there is their CFI-CFII course. All the other courses are a big waste of money.How bout you pay me to fly down there, and I'll get you done in 2.5 weeks I've never been to the Caymans. I'm surprised there isn't a single flight school there.As for piper vs. cessna, learn both. If you're gonna be a commercial pilot, you have a huge chance that you'll have to fly both at some point in your life. Even if you're doing this for fun, you'll prolly fly both types at some point. They both fly great, and either way you can't go wrong.

 

[Metro752]

Who said American Flyers was good? They lied! Extremely over priced, ratings for sale.

 

[ChiFlyer]

American Flyers... They say they can pass me in 4 weeks

Orlando Flight Training (OFT) say they can pass me in 3 weeks

Pheonix east will do the ppl in 3-4 weeks

Great, and then on the 5th week you'll crash the plane. There's a huge difference between passing a checkride and being a safe, proficient pilot. Look at the school that's going to give you real instruction instead of processing you through their meat grinder and taking your money.

 

[Tonala2k]

If you are doing it professionally, go to a college and take all those unnecesary courses that really make you a better pilot in the end. I wish I did. If you just want you PPC (not PPL) go to your local airport.

 

[beefcake33]

hey how's it going.... It really cost you that much for your ppl at DCA? you must suck, or had a really sh__ty instructor, but I was never one to believe it was the instructor's fault. I'm not trying to be mean to you just pointing out the obvious, like telling you to tell everyone there not to go to mesa, and then you telling me something to the effect of "I'm just pissed I never got the job there". I think, rather, I know who u r, and by god if you don't know who I am, well then I understand why you spent 10k on your ppl. If you aren't who I think you are, then I can safely say that I had something to do with you getting hired at that ********************ty ass pyramid scheme. Anyways, I promise not to be a d_ck when you're my FO at __(blank)_ regional. Unfortunately we are slated to take over the world right now, and I'm not comfortable with that, but then again I had SJS (shiny jet syndrome) once too.

PS. SORRY FOR THE THREAD HIJACK, RETURN TO USUAL PROGRAMMING NOW. I WILL BE BACK IN A COUPLE OF WEEKS TO RESPOND..............

 

[RipCurl]

Great, and then on the 5th week you'll crash the plane. There's a huge difference between passing a checkride and being a safe, proficient pilot. Look at the school that's going to give you real instruction instead of processing you through their meat grinder and taking your money.

Honestly. Study your ass off on your own, sit in your room by yourself and chair fly all of the maneuvers a hundred times, and fly the airplane EVERY SINGLE DAY (even if that means finding an instructor who is not afraid to file to get on top and back down again). Find an fbo that seems to care about your training as much as your wallet. You get what you pay for in aviation. The cost really comes down to how much effort you put into it. If they have to drag you through it the way college professors have to drag most of their students through their curriculum, it's going to be expensive. I'm not going to lie to you, getting a private in 4 weeks is a pretty lofty goal, and places huge demand on the student to perform both with stick and rudder skills and also upstairs. Study study study and chair fly, it'll save you money. Whatever you decide to do, good luck.

 

[Inconceivable]

Hey Speedbird,

I live in ORL and have been a CFI for about a dozen years now. I would strongly advise you avoid all three of the schools listed. Every one of them is a "pilot mill" that pushes students through as quickly as possible. If you need more than the minimum time, and YOU WILL, because everyone does, you will find the per hour rates very, very expensive at American Flyers. Phoenix East is a nightmare that is best avoided at all costs. Keyword: Nightmare.

Two places that I do recommend are Air Orlando at ORL and Falcon Flight at SFB. Air Orlando is somewhat pricey, but it is where the local Feds rent planes on their own dime. That should say something. I rent occasionaly from Falcon Flight, very laid-back and convenient for me. YMMV.

A four week private is near-impossible--and a dozen years ago I worked at a school that had a program like that. Simple fact: you can't fly VFR every day. It's just not going to happen. You can take steps to train efficiently and quickly. Here are some ideas that have worked for me:

1. STUDY! Take your written test before you start flying. Shoot for 100% on your test prep. Life is so much better when that is not hanging over you.

2. Read everything. FAR Part 61/91, AIM, Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge. Don't understand something? put a post it flag on the page and then ask your instructor later. A few hours of ground instruction on those points can make all the difference.

3. Make a budget. Plan on needing 20 hours to get to solo. This is the most important period for frequent lessons: to build your basic skills and reinforce them. If you can't make a budget that will allow for 20+ hours of dual all at once, wait until you can. Trust me, it will be more cost effective. When you do solo, make sure you come back to fly at least once a week even if cash is tight while trying to get money for your cross countries and to finish your rating.

4. Have a plan. Take charge of YOUR training. Decide where you want to fly your cross countries, look at Part 61 and see what you need to do for your ratings. Example: Do your night flight all at once, make it a 3 hour cross country with lots of landings, make some of the enroute time under the hood--satisfying multiple requirements with the same hours of flight time. Cheaper for you, leaves more time and money to focus on making a good landing or steep turns or whatever you might need help with.

5. Don't hesitate to change instuctors if yours isn't working out for you. This is too important and you are spending too much money to "be nice about it". Fact: some instructors aren't that great. Most haven't been flying that long themselves. Remember, this is about you. ANother reason to avoid the big institutional pilot schools.

6. Don't kill yourself. I went through 3 instructrs at 2 FBOs when I did my private--all young time builders. My fourth was an older guy and we knocked it out in five weeks. He was also a firefighter, so we flew 2 days on 1 day off, based on his schedule. I don't recommend going more frequently than that. You need to stop and think about what is going on in between flights. Also, never fly more than 2.0 for a lesson unless it is a cross country and never fly more than two lessons in a day--and don't do that very often. You WILL get tired and you WON'T learn. With lessons costing between $2-2.50 per minute, don't waste it.

Hope that wasn't too preachy. I hate seeing new folks get burned by salespeople (b/c that's what they really are) who will promise the world just to get you locked down. PM me if you have any other questions.

 

[SAAB Driver]

Fact 1. A rating is a rating regardless of what you pay.

Fact 2. First year F.O. pay is $17,000 to $22,000

Fact 3 Second year F.O. pay is only somewhat better.

Fact 4. If you borrow between $30,000 and $45,000 for all your flight training, your payment will be between $300 and $400.

Fact 5. F.O. pay, after taxes, after medical deductions is around $1000 - $1200 a month.

Fact 6. If your pay is $1200 (high end) minus $350(mid) for loans, minus $200 for food, minus $200 crash pad, you see where I am going.

Overall, First and Possibly second year F.O. pay are low, and the more you spend on flight training the less you get to keep.

 

[JediNein]

Best investment to make: MS flight sim and a yoke. Go home after each lesson and repeat the lesson. MSFS won't work too well for day landings, but it's excellent for learning night landings. Navigation, cross country flight planning, practicing maneuvers, all of it works very nicely. You can get an older edition that works fine on older computers really cheap.

 

[jagmagic]

If you want to make the trip try regional airline academy in Deland. Went there for my cmx and had a good experience. It has been about 4 years since I was there, so things could have changed but I am sure they changed for the better. There are tons of flight school in your neck of the woods so go visit as many as you can and get a feel for what they are all about.

P.S I was a instructor at American Flyers for 3 years and you should stay as far away as you can. If you are going to do your CFI's then they are they place to go, but for everything else they are overpriced and not worth it!! And from what I here stay away from Daytona!!!!

 

[unreal]

American Flyers, have been recommended on forums as being very good. They say they can pass me in 4 weeks and provide me with a weekend ground school course. all this and charts books etc for $11,500. But accomodation is on top at $69 a night.

Orlando Flight Training (OFT) say they can pass me in 3 weeks, accomodate me in there own housing which looks good and give me the option of doing my PPL in either a Cessna 152, 172 or Piper cadet. for $6,200..

Pheonix east will do the ppl in 3-4 weeks with no ground school or accomodation for $4748....

I really hate when schools promise to have you done within a certain timeframe. Honestly, it's not that simple. Yes, you could theoretically get through all of the lessons in 3-4 weeks, but that's ignoring the fact that you're not a robot, and flight training isn't conducted in a vacuum.

Let me share a story: I have a pre-solo who was assigned to me in late August. Basically, all we had to do was get him through his solo. He studied, worked hard, came prepared, and even flew pretty well. In fact, all of his maneuvers were pretty on the ball, and he was showing good progress. Then, we hit a brick wall. He couldn't land. We went up over and over to try to get him to see the sight picture, but he wasn't getting it. I even put him up with a much more experienced instructor, and while that helped, it didn't fix the problem. Unfortunately he just didn't have the aptitude for it, it seemed.

Well, now it's coming up on January, and he's still not done. We're almost there, but not quite. Theoretically the course can be completed in a much shorter time than that, but his progress was slowed when we hit that wall. On top of that, he had some personal obligations like school and work that most people will have when they're going through training. That can contribute to a slowdown in training, as well.

Point is, don't be in a rush to pass the checkride. I've seen quite a few fresh private pilots who were *just* able to pass the checkride, and they're scary. Completely unable to be self-reliant, and really unable to fly effectively or make decisions without an instructor. You don't want to be like that, trust me.

 

[Swass]

Google "Prairie Air Service".

 

[FlyingToIST]

I love it when people say 'we will pass you in 2-3 weeks'. Last time i checked it was a check ride, not a pass-ride.

 

[taters]

MPP aviation in LNK.....$3800 to get a private Cessna 150 $67/hr

 

[craftkeeper2001]

Why do you dump on DCA , If you don`t like it get out . Some of us enjoy it and it`s people like you that give us a bad name

 

[acpilot]

find a local flight school with a cheap two seater and an instructor you like and get your PPL there. playing dress-up with a pilot uniform at some big expensive 141 school paying +$100/hr for a plane and +$50/hr for an instructor won't make you a better pilot. you may as well save as much as you can now, you'll need A LOT of money down the road (if you plan to "go pro").

 

[Flying Ninja]

Lots of very valuable information on this thread. I agree with what SAAB Driver posted on his "facts". As for promised time frames, I'll just say that I got promised 10-12 months, budgeted for 12 months, and the actual training took over 17 months. Those extra months translated to extra expenses that was not in my original budget and that translated to additional loans, which translated to higher monthly paments, which, when added to FTSI/CAPT's total lack of professionalism, total disregard for ethics, irresponsibility, and lack of honor, resulted in no job and high debt. And now they want $100k for 225 hours of loggable time. Totally ridiculous.

So pay attention if you're shopping for flight training. This thread has some great advice for people looking into aviation.