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Thread: Getting Started Flying

  1. #11

    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Posts
    302
    Quote Originally Posted by lindaybuenrostro View Post
    .........It would be extremely unfortunate if your efforts to become a private pilot are delayed or even completely spoilt because you enrolled in a flight school that was not recognized by the FAA. .........
    Not many schools that do not have the required certificates. There are however some schools that encourage you to pay a large sum of $$ in advance then go out of business. If you purchase block time or pay in advance, be very cautious in the background and financial condition of the school. Silver State took thousands of students flying money and ran with it, and it was thousands of $$ per student. Sucks big time!!

  2. #12

    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Posts
    2,575
    Tony, don't be so sensitive about this sport vs. private thing. I'm glad you or anyone is flying in any way, but for many people sport is not all they want. If sport gets some people started that might not have otherwise, that's great, but another way of looking at it is that many people may not want to decide to only go part way at the start. I was reading a summary of LSA planes in Av Consumer and the head of a major flight school said that 70 % of his students that began as a sport pilot path later went on the be private pilot.
    If I am correct sport pilot only leaves out instrument and night. I do think sport requires less,maybe a lot less hours. But what if you want to fly many airplanes you need to be private at least. If you look at Oshkosh how many of the planes there are soley LSA?
    If I was a CFI and had a student that had just gotten his sport pilot, I'd beg him to get an hour or two of inst practice. You may not always fly on a perfectly CAVU day, and if you want to fly cross country say to EAA, it helps to have the inst navigation knowledge. If the pane is equiped with basic ifr instruments, which means above all an attitude indicator ( artififcial horizon) and some type of vor or gps, then I would sneak in a little ifr training as part of the sport pilot training. I am not a CFI, (about half way there) but I think I could do that. I could have the student put on a hood when flying to or from the practice area for instance. Now learning a full instrument rating is not easy, and no one should be overconfident after an hour or two of practice, but once given the basics by the CFI which is flying by reference to the att indicator, the student can have that in mind and use it when he flies even vmc, and he can certainly add and use some form of instrument navigation im addition to pilotage and ded reckoning ( NOT IN PLACE OF).

    As I understand it, the best of both worlds may be to take your lessons, even for sport pilot from a full CFI so that if and when you want to add on the private, that the 20 plus hours and what is learned in them will count toward the private. If the student is lucky enough to find a Cub or Champ to start in, it is both a plane for sport and private, best of both worlds. Obviously, as many students may and do run short of money, being a 25 hour fully certificated sport pilot may be better than being half or 2/3 of a private pilot, but only if you are going to quit your training once and for all right there and never go farther.

    And let's say a student flys a simple plane, doesn't have, need, or want a medical, but he has an open and curious mind, as well as some money. There is absolutely nothing( short of stubborness or lack of money) that prevents him from going to take a glider lesson or an acro or instrument lesson. I think aviation is best done as a lifelong learning process with the only limits being time and money. Tell you what, if you come to Boulder, and buy the gas, I'll give you a session of inst practice under the hood in my Bonanza, and I'll bet in a half hour you can fly soley on the att ind. And we won't tell anyone so you can keep your mantra of ("only sport pilots and not one iota past there").

    I would almost never pay for my full training up front, unless I was certain I was going to do my lessons full time non stop AND the school offered a Big discount with a written contract. Too many FBOs or flight schools are on shaky financial grounds and may and do close overnight and leave with the student's money. The student may sue and even win a judgement ,but if there are no assets the judgement is not worth anything.
    I don't think a reputable school would ask you to pay all up front, if they do it is likely a sign that they are in trouble and in debt and living day to day cash wise.
    And by the way, even if you are a sport pilot, nothing prevents you from learning more, or taking a lesson for inst flying, even in a simulator which can be cheaper than a plane, ( ie $25 hour).
    Last edited by Bill Greenwood; 03-13-2014 at 06:40 PM.

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