I agree. All things considered, on a PPL level, it doesn’t make much sense to do it someplace other than where you are going to fly afterwards.
An exception might be when, for some reason, one only has time to do it in winter and one is home somewhere north of 47 N.
boscomantico wrote:
An exception might be when, for some reason, one only has time to do it in winter and one is home somewhere north of 47 N
I did 90% of between end of Jan and early may of the same year, mine north of that, on a place without instrument approaches etc (well, it was for PPL anyway!). with 1000 ceiling, one would still go and do some circuits (800 ft agl). (and it took me at least 55 hours, maybe more!)
I’ve been involved with more than 100 fast track PPLs all accomplished in a month and all in the UK.
The biggest problem is the never of ‘booked’ students that don’t turn up. Last year the flying school I’m referring to had 3 that didn’t turn up in one month.
One sent an email apologing at 2200 the night before. From the others nothing was heard.
Didn’t go down well with the instructors who had no work for the next month
There is one particular flight school in Spain which I will NEVER recommend and if anyone asks, will advise against, basically because they had a young Instructor there who tended to let his social life get in the way of work. I discussed this school on another forum in advance with someone involved and was lead to believe it was quite good so I passed the recommendation to a friend of mine who wanted to do their PPL in 4 weeks but practically every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, flying was cancelled because of the alcohol level of the instructor.
That meant my friend had paid for 4 weeks lodging and lessons but was only ever able to fly on Mondays to Thursdays….. I took up contact with the person from the other forum to ask what the score was; this lead to my friend getting a bollocking from the owner of the flight school after this involved person asked what the heck was going on – the bollocking was for raising the antics of this young instructor to outsiders!!!
Needless to say, that friend did the agreed and paid for 4 weeks there and came back, did the rest of the PPL here. The whole exercise was a joke – they could have finished their PPL within that 4 weeks but so much time was wasted due to that instructor.
Oh, I agree with the issues of training at large airports in Spain – whether by chance or otherwise, block time was typically 30% more than flight time, due to the aircraft having to wait around for clearance to taxi behind CAT… As block time was used for calculating pricing, horrendously expensive.
In other words – don’t do it in Spain…..Or if you are, PM me which school and I’ll tell you whether it’s the one I’m referring to……
Part of the problem with slow PPL training progress in the UK is inexperienced and overly timid instructors.
Circuits and low-level nav are possible with a low-ish cloud base, real IMC conditions can be used for some basic instrument work, cross country navs shouldn’t be cancelled due to excess haze as it’s all good experience for the future and a chance to use GPS and autopilot, etc etc.
So if the weather is below “PPL training minimums” (whatever they are), but otherwise safe, I think it is better to go flying and learn something, even if the instructor ends up doing some of the flying, than to wait until the following weekend and get rusty.
ortac wrote:
Part of the problem with slow PPL training progress in the UK is inexperienced and overly timid instructors.
I think the inexperienced instructors tend to be the more sporty in terms of testing the ATO’s weather limits for PPL (with a probable link to insurance cover). The veteran instructors, many of them ex airline training captains or RAF, will want to set a good example and stick to decent weather where the lesson can be taught in a relaxed manner.
Circuits can be flown with reasonably low cloud, say 1600’ AGL, and the precautionary landing exercise and low level navigation would ideally be in realistic conditions.
Even the most dedicated student will take all winter to complete the PPL in the northern latitudes. The solo nav exercises being a particularly stubborn obstacle while you wait for reasonable conditions.
this is my first message hello all, im not doing spam just want to somehow help european ga . to me it doesnt make any sense what you are proposing. there are plenty of places in europe where you can do the training, get the easa licence straightaway i.e. not having to convert it and at the same price as in the us if not much cheaper , without even considering plane tickets to the us , visas, the hassle of paperwork etc. have a look at aviation schools in hungary and poland , they are really cheap, you can get a full ppl , theoretical +45 hours practical for around 5500 euros. in the schools i have been in hungary i ve seen the most professional instructors, from people with atpl +20khours (in fact the great majority of instructors), to instructors starting out but whose main concern is not just to log some hours . Being properly debriefied and postbriefed. and of course flying everyday if weather is suitable, not public holidays for the instructors or the school as long as the weather is not really bad. if still you cannot find any school sent me a pm, but just google and you will find many. in czech republic there are some as well, but in my experience hungary is the place to go.
These are very good points and thank you for your post, @seaplanelover
Unfortunately finding the good schools in the far reaches of Europe is not so easy. Many people have tried, only to find almost nobody even bothers to reply to emails. Then, when one visits, one finds some cowboy outfit…
I was going to do my JAA IR to FAA IR conversion in Greece, at a particular FTO, and visited them, incidentally twice as I was near anyway. I got fed a load of bull about how great they were and how many hundreds of conversions they had done (probably they had done 1 or 2). Then I was told the full nylon airline pilot uniform was mandatory even in the summer, at which point I walked…
Before that I emailed many FTOs and most never replied. Clearly most didn’t do foreigners, or English speakers.
If you know of a really well organised school, and you have been there yourself, feel free to post a report.
CBIR hours in Canada or US
Currently trying to figure out how to do the practical part of my CBIR. Hourly rates (even in sims) in Switzerland are just insane…
A few questions I couldn’t find answers for:
1. As far as I understand, you can do 30 hours of your CBIR training outside an ATO with an FI. Could I fly those hours in the US or Canada with a local instrument-rated FI or does he need to be EASA-rated?
2. What about the night rating? Can I do a Canadian night rating and convert that to the EASA one?
3. If someone has done this before: would you recommend getting the 30 hours abroad, than come back to EASA land and finish the remaining 10 hours in an ATO? What are the disadvantages? How did the ATOs react when you did this?
Thanks!
1 – needs to be EASA rated
2 – no
3 – no, the IR is highly procedural and 10hours is nowhere near enough for the average candidate to be at test standard unless the training leading up has been test focussed and with someone experienced for Initial IR training. I would bet you would waste large amounts of money and time doing it that way – get someone in Europe who know what they are doing in training for test.
Good luck!
