PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Intensive PPL with on-site accommodation in nice location?
Old 6th Aug 2014, 07:28
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BroomstickPilot
 
Join Date: Apr 2002
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Don't come to the UK for an intensive course!

Hi oneredpanther,

Whenever someone posts on Pprune seeking a location for an intensive course there is always someone who suggests coming to the UK. Don't do it. The UK has a 'returning polar maritime' climate, (i.e. cloudy and wet with a summer maximum rainfall). And it is at its worst in the North and West of the country.

In fairness, you can just perhaps be lucky. In 1960 I did my own PPL in only a few weeks at Barton near Manchester. But I was very, very lucky. After I had completed my course it then proceeded to rain for weeks on end. If I had started my course ten days later it would have taken months to complete.

In the mid 2000s when I came to renew my licence - this time in the relatively dry South East of England - I had to book two to three times the number of lessons I wanted because more than half of them had to be cancelled within 48 hrs of flying because of adverse weather. Renewing my licence took nearly a year.

In these circumstances if you come to the UK you could end up returning to Denmark weeks later with your course far from complete and facing the choice, either of doing half of your training in Denmark, or else of making multiple further visits to the UK.

You need to go somewhere with a 'continental' climate, (i.e. dry).

I would also suggest it should be somewhere where there would be no shortage of instructors whose native language is English. If I was a native Danish speaker, (as I assume you are,) I should be most uneasy about learning to fly in English from an instructor whose own native language is, perhaps Czech or French. The possibilities for mistakes and misunderstanding would be worrying.

I reckon any of the following should do - but stay well away from the West coast in each case; Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, United States.

Good luck!

BP.
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