OK - time to get mercenary.
Spitfire - I don't give a stuff if you get a visa or not. I don't do flight training, I don't hire out aircraft for hour building. If you want to risk your £300 on flight tickets, do it. I don't care either way.
Long Way Down - correct, you can fill out a visa waiver form on the aircraft....just like any tourist.
Coltster - I believe that a seven hour course (even if done in under than a week) is less than an eighteen hour course. No visa. Hour building has always been regarded as pleasure flying - even in Pennsylvania - come and enjoy (but I still don't rent aircraft [although I know many who do]). You are correct - fill out some form of application on the plane (it's an I-94W [visa waiver form])....it's green....and if you get one word of it wrong, you will be sent to the back of the queue and told to do it again. The form is in two parts - a big bit and a little bit.
The big bit will be kept by the Immigration officer at the airport of entry - the little bit will be stapled to your passport...on the page that the Immigration man just stamped and wrote the latest date of when you must leave the USA.
When you check in to fly back to the UK, the check in agent will ask for that little bit back - and will enter it into the I.N.S. computer.
Whilst on the subject - you will also be required to fill out a white card..with blue writing. A Customs form. This is to say that you do not have too much money, are not carrying any drugs or guns and, that you do not have an apple or a ham sandwich in your luggage. No, I'm not joking.
Query - what on Earth have you got against students doing it right?? Does "Facts Not Fiction" have a point? Your posting suggests you post from Yorks...are you an agent for a US school that cannot issue visas?
Cut and Paste: <<beware of people trying to fool and frighten you off going to Florida>>
Who is trying to put anybody off?? On the contrary, all that is being said here is aimed at ensuring that the student actually manages to get into the Country when they arrive - tell me, what has been said that can be read as trying to talk Spitfire (or anybody else) from coming to Florida?? The industry depends on people like Spitfire - they are a much needed commodity.
I have personal knowledge of THREE students that have been turned back by Immigration Officers in the USA over the four years that I have been involved with student pilots entering the USA - now, reading this thread, I hear of one being turned back by Gatwick Airport staff.
I also know that the big US schools - FlightSafety, PanAm, etc. INSIST on every student having the correct visa...even if just training for a UK PPL. Some students have slipped through the net - much to the anger of the administration office at FlightSafety. They arrived on the doorstep without a visa - one of them was refused entry to the school.
The FAA don't give a monkeys about visas - it is purely an IMMIGRATION question - and the Immigration officer is the FIRST person you will meet when getting off the plane.
If my memory serves me right, even Ambassador (mentioned by Spitfire at the start of his thread) mentions visas on their own web site (although they cannot legally get you one).
Spitfire - you please yourself, I was just trying to help. I, personally, have absolutely nothing to gain whether you cross the Atlantic or not (unless you bring some tea bags for my wife!!).