EGKB,
You can find the entire PPL training syllabus
here. From Page 20 onwards, it breaks down all the "Flight Exercises" and what they contain.
In practice, these are composed slightly differently into individual sorties
- Exercises 1 (Aeroplane familiarisation), 2 (Pre-flight checks) and 5 (Taxiing) are normally covered incrementally over several sorties
- Exercises can be broken down over several sorties. For example, Exercise 5 (Straight and Level) typically is Ex. 5.1 - Straight and level (1) followed by Ex. 5.2 - Straight and level at various airspeeds and configurations
- Also, exercises sometimes are combined, for example climbing and descending, and later Ex. 12/13 (take-off and landing, aka, circuit)
but overall, your course will follow this sequence.
Following on from GQ, how long will it take you? She is spot on that the main factors you can influence is
how frequently you train, and
where. Others are of course aptitude, and I would add age [I certainly don't learn as quickly as I did 20 years ago!], but you cant do anything about those...
There are really three distinct ways to go about it
- Full time. Probably lowest hours to solo and flying. This will take 6 weeks or so (although weather can ruin that badly...). This will feel like hard work at times, and also you will not have experienced what it means to come back to flying after a month or two of not going up. But will give you the lowest number of hours, and I personally know people who did this in or close to minimum hours [although your mileage WILL vary, as the Americans say]
- Multiple sorties per weekend, plus days off at critical trainig stages (pre-first-solo consolidation, qualifying cross country, test). Done this way, it should take up to half a year. It can be done in minimum hours, but it is less likely. Bias warning: I did all my licences/ratings (PPL, CPL, IMC rating, IR) that way.
- Fly one lesson each weekend. This will take WELL over a year, and you can pretty much forget achieving anything approaching min hours.
Regarding where - on that one I am not quite with GQ. I found that both for training and for my flying that if I can't get to the airfield in less than 45 minutes, it significantly reduces my motivation to fly. If you enjoy driving, that might not be a consideration, but unless keeping cost to a minimum is your priority [and then you have chosen the wrong hobby!] I would go for a school that is close, appears to be professional and you get along with the instructor they assign to you. They DO assign one to you, right?