PDA

View Full Version : PPL Training Question


PeterDublin
27th Mar 2006, 07:16
Hi everybody
I have few questions to fellow students, recently I started flight training with some little private school and I have few concerns.
First of all my training started in january and I was able to accumulate till today only 3,5 hours, I can only train on saturdays and usually I get 30 minutes flying time, looks like this is the case and likely not gonna change, providing weather here and other circumstances it may take me over a year like no longer to get PPL. I am also concern with the pace of the course if it takes so long probably my understanding of the subject and flying skills will take longer than if it would be in more frequent scenario 2-3 hours a week.
Also I am responsible for books and self teaching I am not getting any aircraft check list ,emergency procedures etc. What do you think will I be better off pursuing regular flying school with faster pace ,but spending more money?
Regards

littco
27th Mar 2006, 14:16
Hi Peter,

I'm just coming to the end of my PPl and am just waiting for the weather to get better to test.

Personally I think you need a good consistant 1-2 hours a week if not more. Any less and you will find yourself repeating yourself.

The flying of the plane only makes up about 1/5 of the PPL course, for every hour I've flown i've done a good 5-10 hours studying towards the exams, so while the weather is sh*t I would recomend you get revising and take the exams. Again, if you get all the exmas out of the way now, then when the good weather comes along you can fly rather than having to worry about studying. Especially when you consider inorder to do your 1st solo you need to have sat your Airlaw exam!

With regards to the school its self. All very well going to a small school as it might be cheaper but if it takes 15 hours longer to get your ppl than it would at a good consistant school you wouldn't actually be saving anything!

In my honest opinion, the fact your asking shows your not exactly happy at the school your at, so I would move, find a better one, probably make a world of difference

too_sleepy
27th Mar 2006, 17:18
Hi Peter

A lot of this is down to you really. No matter how good the school is if you can only fly on Saturdays you're really limiting yourself. Add to that the days you can't fly because of weather and you don't have many days left.
You will not have your PPL in 1 year, that would mean you flying 1 hour every Saturday, and you're already behind on that schedule.

Are you in a school or a club? It's tough getting your PPL in Dublin, even tougher if you're not in the best school.

I have my PPL and just want to build a few hours here. No chance, between weather and aircraft availability I'm lucky to get 5 hours a month.

ThePirateKing
29th Mar 2006, 19:54
Not sure I fully agree. I only flew Saturdays, and I completed my PPL in the UK in 47 hours between March and November 2000 - and the last 5/6 weeks were waiting for weather/plane/examiner to happen all at once. Oh yeah, and I had a 3 week holiday in August too.

TPK:ok:

too_sleepy
30th Mar 2006, 10:39
I know it can be done but if the chap is flying for 30 minutes once a week it's going to be next to impossible.

PeterDublin
6th Apr 2006, 12:33
Thanks to all replies, I think I will stick with them for now, they got better lately.
In terms of medical classes is it better to go straight and try to get class 1 or just do class 2 first ?

dc1
6th Apr 2006, 13:02
peter:

I would recommend you go to the states or spain and do it intensively for about 4 weeks. I've just jacked in my ppl course after accumulating 70+ hours at weston!!. i had passed my written exams, done my solo cross country, all i had left was the flight test. but couldn't stick at it anymore as i found the 2 hours or so i was spending most weekends flying out there wasn't frequent enough and as a result I got really bored with flying and as a result ended up hating flying. it became a real pain in the arse after a while and i don't regret packing it in even though i was so close to finishing my ppl.

i remember asking the same question on this web site when i was considering where to do my ppl. at the time and like most people i worked monday - friday so i felt that the only way i could do the ppl was on the weekends. i figured it would take me a year maximum to do. how wrong i was. 2.5 yrs later and still don't have it. There was so much time wasted due to bad weather like crosswinds were too strong or the cloud base was too low etc. with the benefit of hindsight i should have gone to america or spain and done it in 4 weeks and got it over and done with. the mixture of good weather and flying very frequently in those warm weather countries is a very big benefit to the success of your training.

i don't want to be overly negative here but i would also consider very hard what u want to get out of doing ur ppl. i only say this as there are lots of people who spend tons of money and time on going for their ppl, only to fall by the wayside for various reasons. there are also lots of people who get their ppl and never fly again. i only say this as i was one of many bright eyed aviation enthusiasts who started my ppl with the view of getting the ppl, and perhaps progress on to do my atpl's but when you intend to do an hour training here and there on weekends, combined with the unpredictability of the irish weather i would perhaps reconsider investing the €9,000 -€10,000 it costs to do the ppl.

either way i wish u the best of luck with whatever you decode to do.