Good schools - East Midlands area?!!
 

I am thinking about starting my PPL fairly shortly and was wondering if anyone could give me any recommendations of flying schools in the Leicestershire area?? Anywhere in between Nottingham and Leicester would be ideal but somewhere in the vicinty would be fine.

I am looking for a good all round school, preferably not the most expensive but with friendly helpful staff!

Cheers

Flying School at EMA was always fantastic, only flew there once or twice and haven't been near the place since Excalibur went down but give them a try..

East Midlands Flying School at EMA airport, I did my PPL there in 1997, it was good. A/C in very good condition, friendly flying club.
Bokkie449.

I flew into Leicester yesterday, looks a very nice setup (proffessional), airfield is quite big, nice tarmach runways, go and check it out i am sure they will let you look around.

However if you are planning on going commercial i would go to East Midlands as there you will get better experience of an international airport and how they operate i.e Ground, Tower and Approach.

Just got my PPL through Derby Aero Club (just off the A38 near Burton on Trent). Pretty sound bunch by all accounts, and not the easiest of airfields either - short, grass, trees, power lines. If you can't land a 152 at 55, you're going round. E-mail me if you want.

WGW

WGW Did they let you do your first solo and solo circuits practice at Derby? They used to make you do these and set off on your solo cross-countries from Leicester. This used to add an hour of cost to these lessons. Early on in the course you could use the transit time for some other part of the training, but as you got to the end and had completed the other parts it got rather expensive.
Do they now let their students use their own airfield solo?

I believe that Derby Airfield has a rule which states that no student pilot may use 10/28, unless under instruction by a Derby Flying Club instructor, because of the shortness of this particular runway. Apart from this restriction, I think students can use the remaining runways for solo circuits and even First solos.

I'm revalidating my PPL there, and expect to be allowed to solo there - that is if I ever regain the knack of landing :o I'm reading the Landings thread with interest...

Edited for spolling and to re-iterate the comment that Derby is a jolly good place to learn. The club is friendly and professional - what more do you want.

The shortish runways just encourage prompt "go round" decision making.

Si's comment about RT is valid. If commercial is your final destination, EMA would be better in that respect. Don't get me wrong - I'm not knocking A/G (at Derby or anywhere else) - IMHO all students pilots should be given enough experience of both A/G and full ATC to allow them to visit Derby or EMA and be safe in both environments. But if commercial is where you're going, A/G will be less important.

[ 16 August 2001: Message edited by: tacpot ]