I did my PPL with Angel City Flyers in Long Beach, California (April 2010) and some of my hour-building at Chandler Air Services in Arizona (January 2013). Both states provide really good flying.
Long Beach, California
- Overall orientation is straightforward (sea is west, land is east!)
- Good experience of really busy airspace along the coast (LAX, military, ...)
- Sometimes there is a "marine layer", it's a cloud layer that usually lifts by morning and there can be weather over the mountains inland from the coast
- Places to visit: Santa Barbara, Palm Springs, Catalina Island (I'm sure there are many more but since I was doing my PPL I only did a few cross-countries)
- Lots of interesting things to do when you are not flying
Arizona
- Inland climate: cold nights, hot days
- Some busy airspace around Phoenix, also high altitude and mountain flying. There is lots of desert around (!) so sometimes there are longish flights to get to your destination and fewer features to use for navigation
- Places to visit: Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, "boneyard" in Tucson, volcano and meteor craters
Last edited by DiamondC; 10th Oct 2013 at 18:29.