FAA IR School recommendations

[paulyp]

Hi Guys & Girls,

I am looking for some advice regarding a good flight school in the US to offer FAA IR training to a foreign student. Apart from the popular big contenders, does anyone have any recent experience and recommendations of other schools. As a EASA CPL & current IR(R) holder and having some previous IFR experience, I'm hoping for a reduction in training hours.

[Chilli Monster]

Angel City Flyers, Long Beach. European owned, training as required to get you through, modern equipment. You won't get much better.

[englishal]

+1 - won't get better.

[S-Works]

If you hold an EASA IR(A) then you only need 3hrs training a check ride and exam pass. Same for CPL.

So you will get the reduction you seek!

[this is my username]

I did mine at Tailwheels etc at Winter Haven (they have moved now to Lakeland). They had a fixed-price package for the IR - it was an "all you can eat" deal - as much flying and ground school as you need to get through. Worked well for me as things didn't work well with my first instructor so although it consumed time and effort it didn't cost me any more money. I did the whole thing from scratch in 14 days. They were very honest and were certainly geared up to get people through in the minimum time.

As with all of these places your experience will depend very much on your instructor, and they tend to move on fairly regularly.

A couple of pieces of advice - get the exam out of the way before you go, and the same with all of the TSA fingerprinting requirements etc otherwise you can waste time waiting for the approval to come through. The exam is pretty straightforward, but you will have to put in many times more effort to get through the oral part of the checkride - there's an ASA book which helps with that.

American schools normally charge for "ground" time - which can include the pre-flight brief, post-flight debrief and any support which you might need to get through the oral exam. Most of the instructors I flew with weren't that big on pre-flight briefs.

[S-Works]

I was going to add, Tailwheels, they are brilliant. I did my CPL and IR with them and have been back many times since. Saw them at the new place at Lakeland in January.

[Tinstaafl]

Pilot Practice Page (http://www.exams4pilots.org)

This site has most, if not all, questions for the various FAA certificates. I've used it for a few different qualifications now. Very convenient! Only catch is that they may not have the image/graphic that goes with some questions.

Even excluding those questions I've easily scored in the '90s when doing US theory exams.

[englishal]

If you hold an EASA IR(A) then you only need 3hrs training a check ride and exam pass. Same for CPL.

As a EASA CPL & current IR(R) holder

In otherwords IMCr, so maybe not such a discount depending on num of hrs Instrument time.

[Ellemeet]

all imc or simc training with a qualified instructor will count.

get the asa ir testprep book and ditto for the cpl.
read it .. and do the test questions. (there a few very good ipad apps)
or the cpl you do not need much training however I believe it are totally differnt exercises:

eights on pylons
spiral descent
lazy eights
chandelle
stalls
soft and short field
360 >50 degrees
and emergency landings .. on the marker.

should be 4 days.


the instrument part is a standard ir training.

[sapperkenno]

Chandler Air Service, in Arizona.
Their website (http://www.aerobatics.com)
Worth a look. Highly recommended.