TG Aviation

[ppljames]

HI, I am just wondering whether anyone has completed their ppl at tg aviation at manston and if so any detail would be much appreciated, Prices, what their teaching is like and anything else of use.

[nigelisom]

Yes I did my ppl there.
Good facilities, good standards, friendly, decent aircraft.
May not be the cheapest but hey, you get what you pay for in this life (or at least you rarely get what you want if you don't pay for it).
I presume you have already looked at their web site and know prices, if not google works.
Anything else you need to know pick up the phone and talk to Gina.
All in all I am very happy to recommend them.

Hope this helps

Nigel

[Tall Boy]

Hi, just finished doing my PPL at Manston and I have to say it was an absolute pleasure. A little bit more expensive than some other outfits maybe but they are very professional and go out of their way to make things go as smoothly as possible for you. Very much recommended,

Tallboy

[Bahn-Jeaux]

Looked at the site out of curiosity (I am miles away from there) and think the price quoted is a fair one when compared to others.
It might seem higher on the rental cosots but the addon costs such as exams etc are very good and make it a very reasonable package in my opinion.

[nigelisom]

Just to clarify, before anyone else gets the wrong impression, I also think that the prices charged are fair.
Please read the rest of my comments in this light.
My appologies if I lead anyone to think otherwise.

Nigel

[ppljames]

Thanks for the info everyone. What sort of hours did it take you, i am quite young so dont have the best of incomes(well at the moment) so i am trying to look around and average prices and average amounts of hours people have put in to complete their PPL.

[TheKentishFledgling]

ppljames - I started my PPL at TG when I was 15...soloed on my 16th, licence gained on my 17th - hopefully then you can tell I am a fan!

I am now doing my ATPL, still flying with TG and hoping to do my commercials there (flying later today, in fact...).

Feel free to PM and get the view "of a youngster".

tKF

[Tall Boy]

Did my PPL start to finish at a real cost of around £5500 including exams and license fees (should have been £6000 but you get £500 extra for every £5000 you credit to your account). Very reasonable price imho. Total hours to complete were 46h20m but I did an hour long revision flight due to a one month break after christmas. However, I did do it intensively so if you choose to spread your training out it may take more hours I guess.

[ppljames]

Thanks for the info everyone any more would be much aprreciated, tallboy im looking to do a quite intensive course too, how long did it take you from start to finish, and would it be worthwile doing it on a piper warrior to take extra passengers or just stick to cessna 152

[AerBabe]

If money is a huge issue, then learn on whatever is cheaper. It'll only take you a few hours, once you have your PPL, to convert onto the PA28 in order to take more friends.

[ppljames]

Thanks for the info, im still in two minds trying to weigh up the options as to whethe i should go to manston which i know could take a while or go to OBA and get it done in a motnh hopefully, any help with this would be good thanks.

[BRL]

A thread and some posts have been moved and ppljames was informed of this earlier explaining why.

[Tall Boy]

Well, I did mine effectively full-time. It took me a little over thirty flying days (about 45 days total) due to a lot of really poor weather as well as early sunsets. TG is busy enough that the guys know what they are doing but quiet enough that you can effectively just dictate when you want to fly. I aimed to fly for 2 - 3 hours a day but it worked out around 1.5 hours per day in the end. In the beginning two hours of flying is pretty exhausting, especially when you are trying to take in huge amounts of information at the same time as actually getting used to flying the plane. I would say that if you stood a chance of doing the PPL as quickly as possible with anyone, it would be TG.

Just a hint, when you do your training don't make the same mistake I did and let your exams slide until the end. I ended up doing about 5 exams in the last 2 weeks which wasn't a lot of fun. Sure you aren't as dumb as me though... :D

As to the PA-28 question, it is very much advisable to train on TG's (£15 / hour cheaper) C-152s and then do a one or two hour conversion (depending on your aptitude) onto the Warrior towards the end of the course. You will probably end up with an hour or two to spare towards the end which you can use for this purpose. That way it wont cost you more than £30 to convert, rather than the £500 extra it would cost if you did the whole thing on the PA-28.

Oh, finally, one definite advantage to training at manston is the traffic. You will probably see quite a lot of heavies if you use TG. It can be a lot of fun to be flying amongst 747s and a340s. Although an a340 doing touch and go's for 3 hours became a bit tiresome one day (a rarity thankfully).