Sporty's Online IR Training
 

I am planning to do my instrument rating next year and am wondering if these online courses are any good for preparation. Anyone out there having experience with them, comments, opinions?

Cats Ir
 

The best JAA Theory Course is by CATS

It is specific to the IR
Well-priced and managed
and has been tried and tested by many IR students from Flyer magazine

The FAA conversion if that is what you mean has been done by some of the group too

Or just go to Bristol and do the full ATPLs. Not much difference time or effort-wise, since there is so much crossover between subjects.

Thanks for that guys, but perhaps I should have been clearer (this was originally posted in the North America forum and moved here by the mods).

I intend to do the FAA IR. I already hold both FAA and JAA PPLs (standalones) and will most likely go down the conversion route in the future.

Hi ya 172,

I'm also thinking at doing my FAA IR. Have you decided on where you'll do the flight training? If so where. I'm looking at FACT (Florida Aviation Career Training) in St. Augustine.

Cheers.

RB

Laroussi, no, not yet, although it will almost certainly be somewhere in the L.A. area for personal reasons. A place I like is Justice Aviation in KSMO, although need to double-check the visa situation.

What are you using for the theory studies?

For the FAA IR I'd plump for the King DVDs, and the ASA test prep book is quite useful. I sailed through the exam, and of course there's only 1 exam for the FAA IR, unlike the JAA equivilent which has 7.

As for comparing the effort of the JAA IR course vs. ATPL, what nonsense. The IR course is about 40% of the work involved for the ATPLs.

I used the Sporty's DVD's myself some years ago when I did the FAA IR. The DVD's are very detailed and well worth having. There was plenty of practical advice in there and I can't see that it would do anything other than good to watch them. I seem to remember they were not cheap, about £150ish but I flogged them on ebay and got most of that money back. They saved me a few hours of training and paid for themselves and then some. Don't skimp on training materials; if you can afford the King stuff as well then it would be a good buy, just flog it on ebay later on and the cost will be very low. Hope this helps.

I got the Sporty Videos from a friend who completed it in Florida. He suggested using the Gleim books. I also got the Jepp book from Ebay!

All the best with it.

Laroussi, just did a quick check re prices, and the place you quote seems about $ 2k less than the one I'm looking at. However, they don't include any sim time. Are they doing everything in the airplane? Have you already got more info there??

172,

I basically emailed them a few months back. I see they've just updated their website but it doesn't seem to have changed much though.

It's all in the aircraft. Don't forget though the price doesn't include accommodation etc. They recommended a motel about 4 miles down the road at $25 a night.

It's worth while giving them a bell or an email. Let me know how you get on as I've not fully committed yet.

I'll do that. My main reason for L.A. is that I have friends there I can stay with. Also, I did my initial PPL in that area and think it's a great training environment (you get pretty much anything thrown at you :E). That said, money talks.....