Tower vs Uncontrolled Airport

[Bill Greenwood]

If a student has the choice, you can save a lot of money by learning at an uncontrolled field, vs a big, busy, airport with a control tower.
At the big one, you will need controller permission to taxi, to take off, and directions on how to enter the pattern and land and taxi back. The longer runway will take more taxi time and there are likely more traffic delays, and if there are airlines or corporate jets, they are going to get priority over a student pilot in a piston trainer.
How much time and how much $$ does this delay amount to?
Let's say each flight at the tower airport takes 10 min more than the smaller uncontrolled field. Assume 50 flights of an hour each to get a private pilot rating.
Thus you spend 500 min or 8.33 hours more at the tower field basically just waiting in line. Assume a flight cost of $140 for airplane rental and instructor, so you would spend $1167 MORE at the tower airport just because there is more time wasted. Not anything to do with learning better.
Now all other factors may not be equal, but then again you may well waste more than 10 minutes each way per flight going in or out at the big airport. At 15 min more it would amount to $1750 wasted.
This is something to consider especially for so many on this forum that write that shortage of money is their biggest obstacle to learning to fly.

[FlyingRon]

But arguably the quality of training might be better. Of course, your generalities aren not always true. I learned at BJC (towered field with three runways). More often than not you'd be give the smaller parallel runway to do your work and you'd have it by yourself at your own discretion or perhaps with one other plane. Of course my wife learned at IAD and that begins to border on the absurd, she'd fly to FDK to do landing practice. Her radio work is amazing though.

[Jim Heffelfinger]

Bill, I also add that practice is imperative and the more per lesson the better. At a small airport/field the student might be the only one in the pattern for hours. Lots of hours spent in close pattern doing lots of landings. Taxi from mid field right to the departure end, radio on the fly and off you go for another circuit.

[Bill Greenwood]

Ron I often fly into BJC. I get my avionics work done there. And yes it often is less busy and has less delays than APA ( Centennial) which is really awful.But still it takes more time to get in and out there than at Boulder.
BJC used to have a branch of the flight school which is now at Boulder mostly because the cost is less at Boulder even for the school. I can directly compare the quaility of the instruction at BDU to when it was at BJC and it is better at Boulder as well as busier.There is another flight school which is still at BJC and it is fairly busy, but doesn't have a very good reputation.

[martymayes]

I have instructed extensively at both and the difference isn't worth mentioning. Capitalize on what you have.

[rwanttaja]

I tend to think learning, from the start, from a controlled field, would be a better way to go. Build the radio management and working-with-ATC skills right from the start, rather than having it hanging over them like some sort of boogy-man. I learned at a controlled field, ~43 years ago, but haven't visited one more than four times in the past 25 years (two of those were NORDO). I figure I could get back in to a controlled field if I had to.

The CFIs based at the local controlled fields tend to bring their students down to the uncontrolled field I'm based out of, for intensive touch-and-go training. Well... as intensive as you get when you mix with 747s when at your own base....:-)

Ron Wanttaja

[FlyingRon]

Admittedly, I learned to fly at BJC in 1981 it was a lot different back then.

I'm thinking more of places like SBY, FDK, HKY, CHO etc... which really have no business having a tower to begin with.

[Bill Greenwood]

Ron, if you learned at BJC in 1981, you must be a vintage pilot. I got my private at a tower airport MYF, San Diego Montgomery Field, began in summer of 78, finished in Jan of 79. Moving back to Colorado in 79, I went to rent a plane at BJC. I got a real lesson in density altitude affect, the Piper Tomahawk that I had flown my first lesson in at sea level needed most of a 6000 foot runway to really fly. I then flew a C172 into Leadville at 9900 feet and it would barely get out of ground effect. They ought to call it "tree affect" since the pine trees at the end of the runway sure get bigger and bigger as they get closer and affect how hard the pilot is breathing.

[Bill Greenwood]

Ron, I don't think you learn better at a tower airport, all other things being equal. Talking on the radio is a small part of being a pilot, not hard to learn. Like a used car salesman or a stockbroker trying to sell you a load fund, it doesn't really matter how much babel a pilot hears, what counts is can he fly the plane? Can he fly the pattern, do his check list each time (GEAR DOWN) and slow to the right approach speed, when there is no controller or even in spite of controllers who mostly are not pilots.Also if you take your lessons at Boulder for instance, they do go down to BJC or even APA to experience landing at a tower airport.

The only almost for sure thing at a tower airport is that there are going to be delays that will cost a student some time and money. By the way I used $140 in my estimate, and it is now $146 per hour for a 172 and $181 per hour for a Diamond DA 20 with CFI at Boulder. So every 10 minutes extra that you spend at BJC or APA which is really bad for delays, while waiting for a corporate jet is $30 from the students budget that is not going directly to flying.

[jedi]

IMHO - The ideal is a controled field with limited traffic so the radio work is learned along with the flying skills. You will always be more comfortable going into hegh density traffic areas with that experiance and it takes time and repition to get used to the radio. It is good to have a smaller field close by to get small field practice.