Looking for a flight school

[woofer_77]

Hi everyone,

I am looking for some help from the members of this board. I'll give you some background on my situation first. I am 28 years-old, and I have already graduated from a really good school with a non-aviation degree. Last year, I burned out of my job of 5 years, and I don't want to go back into the field. (At least it paid off my school loans.) After some soul searching, I have decided to pursue a lingering dream of an aviation career. For the last two months, I have been researching some schools and studying material for the written PPL exam. (I can pass the practice tests on Sporty's website.)

I am looking for some options on the places I have listed below and for places that I have not heard of. I am currently in southern FL, and I am considering places in the Southeast. I don't want to move back to the West Coast, and the Northeast winters probably aren't helpful to training. Also, before I found this site, I was heavily leaning towards instructing, but after reading the things here, I am definitely going to instruct, plus I am very open-minded to doing some of the other things people have mentioned to build time, such as Skydiving flights, freight, etc.

I have already visited FlightSafety and Regional Airline Academy. Tuesday, I am visiting SunState Aviation and Air Orlando. I have also heard of NAIA in SC; I am researching it and may visit there. Before reading many of the posts here, I was leaning towards FlightSafety. Some of the Pros for it that I see are: generally good instruction, well-maintained planes, them paying for you CFII and MEI after you instruct for 800 hours (@$14/hour, I believe), and getting a good bit of multi time when instructing. The major Con is $$$. I haven't visited the other places yet, so I won't make any assumptions right now. However, NAIA intrigues me because I think you would get better IMC conditions for instrument flying in SC than FL, plus mountains are closer by.

Thank you to everyone who posts for their help. I am definitely willing to look into other places that anybody suggests. I look forward to the day when I can post that I soloed.

 

[NW_Pilot]

Go to your local airport and hook up with a flight instructor don't waste your money on them over priced schools that look good in a magazine they treat you like crap after they get your money!

 

[woofer_77]

Does anyone know if you can get a loan for local FBO training? I want to train full-time, and I am starting at 28, hence I want to start ASAP. Also, a small flight school at the F45 FBO, which is near me, is about the same price as SunState.

 

[giantfan]

I go to A.T.A. Flight School at KHWO. They are a part 61 school, have financing available and work with my schedule. I can fly everyday, 2 times a day, or just once a week if I want to. You can't beat that. Everything is up to me.

 

[Kream926]

Hi everyone,
NAIA intrigues me because I think you would get better IMC conditions for instrument flying in SC than FL, plus mountains are closer by.

dude

i would much rather go somewhere you can fly almost everyday. why would you wanna fly near mountains? is it because of shooting instrument approaches? remember that you will be a student, you are learning you werent born to do this. you will make mistakes especially leaning for your IR.

unless of course this is some flame and you wanna see another one of those "my fliht school is better threads"

 

[jeff99gr]

Sunstate is a great place, great instructors and new planes - including G1000 172's and 182's. I think that having glass experience will help very much in the long run.

 

[jaxpilot]

Find a small flight school and get your just get your Comm. single, instrument, and CFI-A. You can get it done in 6 months flying 4-5 times a week. Start Instructing for that school and get your Comm MEL, CFII and MEI with that school. Usually they will heavily discount the price for those ratings if you instruct for them. A year after your first flight, you should have at least 500 hours and all your ratings and then just continue to instruct.

 

[woofer_77]

Well, I checked out and flew a lesson at both Sunstate and Air Orlando on Tuesday. Both places were pretty good with new and well-maintained planes. Steve Graham, co-owner of Sunstate, did my lesson. It was normal simple first lesson with some straight-and-level flight, turns, climbs, and descents. For the Air Orlando lesson, we flew out to Space Coast Airport, did a touch-and-go, and came back. As we were entering a wide downwind requested by the controller, we had a Gulfstream take off and turn left towards us. For about 15 seconds both my instructor and I started to get worried, even causing him to descend the plane a little. It passed withing a mile ahead of us, I believe, and a few hundred feet above. We continued around the pattern and landed without a problem. It was a gorgeous fun day of flying.

I'm definitely going to stay away from the larger academies now. It's not worth the extra 20K or so.

dude

i would much rather go somewhere you can fly almost everyday. why would you wanna fly near mountains? is it because of shooting instrument approaches? remember that you will be a student, you are learning you werent born to do this. you will make mistakes especially leaning for your IR.

unless of course this is some flame and you wanna see another one of those "my fliht school is better threads"

Honestly, I did not do this for flame. I'm just trying to make sure that I don't miss a good place to train. Regarding the instrument rating, once you get it, what is your opinion of being somewhere to use it? I do want to be a pilot that can handle the weather. Is it better to get the experience during training or after you get a job? One of the drawbacks of FL is that most of the clouds around here, especially in the summer, are not ones that you want to be in or around.

Sunstate is a great place, great instructors and new planes - including G1000 172's and 182's. I think that having glass experience will help very much in the long run.

What training did you do at Sunstate? Did you do any accelerated training? Does it actually work? The state that you can go from 0 time to MEI in about 18 weeks. I'm pretty skeptical of this claim.

Thanks everyone for the responses. Keep it coming!

 

[mddg3581]

Who was your II instructor for ground?

 

[jeff99gr]

I did my CFII and MEI at Sunstate. I did all my other ratings at WMU. I went down to Sunstate to do my CFII and MEI and ended up staying for 8 months. No, the training didn't take that long, I stayed on and instructed. It was a great place to instruct, plenty of work. As far as going from 0 to instructor its soley on the student. There will always be a quality instructor and new plane to get the job done. While I was there a student went from 0 to comm'multi in 6 weeks, 250 total hrs. I my self had students that did ppl in 19 days and others who took 40 days. It really depends on the student, if you can handle learning at a rapid pace then it will be no problem. If you have any more questions about Sunstate or any other Orlando area schools PM me.