PPRuNe Forums - Which Flight School in Southern England? PPL

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Which Flight School in Southern England? PPL > Modular Training

I live in the Southampton area and am looking to go down the modular route to obtaining my ATPL. I'm currently looking at which flight school to study my PPL with. Aside from quality of instruction, the other important point to me is the availability of training aircraft and instructors at the weekends. As I work Monday to Friday, I'm hoping for a flight school where I can sit the required training at the weekends (and perhaps the occasional weekday when I have time off) and hopefully obtain my PPL within around a year. I'm hoping my expectations are realistic. I'm assuming flight schools with a tarmac runway are probably a better choice as I won't need to worry about water-logged fields. So far, the flight schools I think I should start with looking at are:

Bliss Aviation at Bournemouth Airport
Phoenix Aviation at Lee-on-the-Solent
Hampshire Aeroplane Club at Lee-on-the-Solent

Has anyone got any comments on these schools, or have I not considered any that are worth a look? Also, is there anything else I should be considering when looking at a flight school for my PPL? Thank you in advance!

Ah yes, I forgot to include BCFT! I couldn't see any information on the pricing on their website except for the integrated courses. I'll drop them an email and see what I can find out.

I've contacted them all including BCFT. Unfortunately, BCFT can only offer weekday training which won't work for me. I've also noticed there's a flying school at Thruxton which looks promising.

Based on the research I've done, I'm going to visit Thruxton and the two schools at Lee-on-the-Solent over the next week and plan to narrow it down to one or two. I'll then take a trial flight with them to make sure they're the right match for me. So I'm hoping to have my flight school decided upon before the end of the month!

I've never heard of Blackbusche; their website looks quite promising anyway. I'm going to see how I get on at Thruxton and the two on Lee-on-the-Solent first so I don't end up with having too much to choose from. I'm hoping the Lee-on-the-Solent ones are good because they're not too far from work. Will be quite convenient if I manage to catch an early finish on occasion, then go flying after!

I'd be interested as to how you get on with Blackbusche though.

So I ended up with a few free hours this afternoon and decided to check out Blackbusche. They've got a good selection of aircraft there and I had a good chat with their chief flight instructor. As a bonus, it looks like they've got a good cafe next door! Definitely worth considering I'd say.

Just to follow up, I've decided to go with Western Aviation at Thruxton. All of the schools I saw were of a fantastic standard and I'm confident that whichever one you end up with will see you well. Now let's just hope for some good weather!

I've dropped you a PM.