From what I recall doing the groundschool, it was actually quite competitively priced in the UK. There are a several distance learning providers who compete and innovate pretty keenly and are well on top of the exam material.
At least here, the market is working. There were plenty of foreign students too, as the courses are generally aimed at wannabe ATPLs, and one has to know the subject matter in English to get a job.
It’s normal to pay £1000 (€1200) for the basic package for ground school at an FTO.
Any classroom time is on top of that and I paid £200 for 3 days at GTS in Bournemouth, in 2011.
Whether it is good value, depends on what you want to get out of it. For running an establishment where you place your bum on the seat and somebody stands in the front and goes through some stuff, and you come out with an exam pass, it’s probably cheap by the standards of commercial (business) training courses. For learning about real flying, it’s poor value because nearly all the material is not relevant to flying (GA).
With these eye-watering figures, it makes me realise how lucky I was to do my IR via the FAA route where I paid $25 for the material and studied at home!
So did I in 2006 ($90 for the single written IR exam (if done in the USA, £150 here in the UK at a now-defunct outfit), another $90 for the single CPL exam, etc) but EASA’s politically motivated anti N-reg stuff is forcing a re-doing of it all, to get the EASA papers on top of the FAA ones. A complete waste of a chunk of one’s life.
The CB IR makes the conversion a lot easier now but no prudent pilot could have forseen that.
As shown above, ground school (where required) will never change because the moment you bring the FTO classroom time into it, they have to make the usual money. There were rumours of totally distance learning options but they never came.
As shown above, ground school (where required) will never change because the moment you bring the FTO classroom time into it, they have to make the usual money. There were rumours of totally distance learning options but they never came.
90% of the CB-IR or E-IR theory (i.e. 72/80 hours) can be done remotely/by distance learning.
90% of the CB-IR or E-IR theory (i.e. 72/80 hours) can be done remotely/by distance learning.
I think one could debate about how the 90% is counted 
I think one could debate about how the 90% is counted
Go ahead.
Hi guys, i’ve started with Orbit ground school as well over a month ago, together with 6 other students from my flying club.
We are running into a some of issues.
The theory is not filtered for CB-IR/E-IR. It is actually the regular IR, with some PDF’s telling you what and what not to study. Unfortunately, these PDF’s are not entirely correct of complete.
Also the progress tests are not filtered for CB-IR questions so the only option now is to learn it all, otherwise you can’t do the progress tests.
They should have filtered progress tests available any time soon, however, this was also requested december last year.
@Bobo, what is your experience with Orbit so far?
MarcelK wrote:
Hi guys, i’ve started with Orbit ground school as well over a month ago, together with 6 other students from my flying club.We are running into a some of issues.
The theory is not filtered for CB-IR/E-IR. It is actually the regular IR, with some PDF’s telling you what and what not to study. Unfortunately, these PDF’s are not entirely correct of complete.
Also the progress tests are not filtered for CB-IR questions so the only option now is to learn it all, otherwise you can’t do the progress tests.
They should have filtered progress tests available any time soon, however, this was also requested december last year.@Bobo, what is your experience with Orbit so far?
Sign up with AviationExam.
They are fairly spot on.
I read the school material one time and used aviationexam extensively for the rest.
Thanks!
I did some of the free tests, and the interface looks quite nice. They also responded very quickly on a mailed question which is a good thing.
I think i’ll give them a try…
