Mooney_Driver wrote:
I would seriously question the competence of a school who leaves a PPL like that, and I also would have to question the motivation of the guy himself
Why? People are free to do whatever they chose, and do it without some stranger questioning their “motivation”. A PPL gives you the right to fly a small airplane for private and non-commercial use. There is no more motivation needed than sailing a boat or building a cottage or going on a holiday. It’s a license that broadens your horizon for fun and recreation, nothing more. I mean, if you are going to hire someone to fly in your airline company, then you can question their “motivation”.
A high end school is just a question of having enough people with enough money within a relatively small area. I don’t thing it would be possible anywhere but Paris, London, Ruhr, Switzerland maybe. I also think that people motivated by glamour and having things delivered to them on a silver platter, will not be very happy about the bureaucracy of flying PPL, and are not likely to do much on their own. They would be better off purchasing a high end microlight with all the newest gadgets and be free as a bird, while paying someone to look after their little toy. This doesn’t mean there would be no place for that high end school, quite the opposite.
I have never seen a school that will prepare you for real life with an airplane and for travel around Europe with your family.
It could be done, but the percentage of people who will spend the necessary € 50 K to become a real pilot in a PPL school is too small.
I will tell everyone who wants to listen: Do the PPL – but be prepared that only THEN the real learning begins. And (ok, there’s some talents) do not expect to fly your family around Europe for the first couple of years.
And many of the ones who didn’t believe me did the PPL – and quit 2 years later. There are exceptions, but not many are so talented and sharp.
Flyer59 wrote:
I have never seen a school that will prepare you for real life with an airplane and for travel around Europe with your family.
Huh? Either we are very special (which I don’t believe), or the whole “schools are crap” mantra in this forum is somewhat overblown…
One of my first flights after the PPL and a few familiarization flights with an instructor on the PA28 was LSZK-LSZH-EDDS-EDDN-EDDS-LSZH-LSZK. Granted, not with family, but with friends.
Flyer59 wrote:
I have never seen a school that will prepare you for real life with an airplane and for travel around Europe with your family.
It could be done, but the percentage of people who will spend the necessary € 50 K to become a real pilot in a PPL school is too small.
I agree, they are few and far between. They do exist, I would count the school I work with to that branch, as they will pro-actively guide you through the PPL and then open up your horizon by offering upgrades to more capable airplanes, but they are the exception. 99% of “higher education” (IR/CPL) are schools which are full with prospective airline pilots, the rest of them are clubs who look at you with big eyes if you want to take the plane for two days in a row.
I don’t think that you’ll need 50k to earn your PPL, but it is good if people get properly informed and talked to before they start. What do they want, what are their goals and out of that, a mission profile and a clear idea of what is needed to achieve that can be defined and then worked towards.
The problem are clubs and schools who are caught in their own “we’ve done it like that in the last 50 years and if you don’t like it buzz off” trap on the one side and professional ATPL mills on the other who have no program for the private traveller pilot.
I agree, what might be a great thing is to have free lance instructors or safety pilots who could really do some of these things with their students. And particularly it would be great if there was a market for pilots with their own planes. Fly, learn, achieve your ratings in your own airplane with a freelance FI who knows his business.
tomjnx wrote:
Either we are very special (which I don’t believe),
You may be. If you are in the school that I think you are, then I guess yours is one of the best places to do the PPL with. Along with the other one at the same airfield :)
tomjnx wrote:
One of my first flights after the PPL and a few familiarization flights with an instructor on the PA28 was LSZK-LSZH-EDDS-EDDN-EDDS-LSZH-LSZK.
Nice. Yea, that is what it should be like.
A friend of mine bought a PA28R before finishing his PPL in Austria and has been travelling in it quite a bit since with his FI who loves to come along. They did a flight to Samos about 3 weeks after his final PPL exam. That’s the spirit. But many schools don’t like this.
tomjnx wrote:
or the whole “schools are crap” mantra in this forum is somewhat overblown
Way overblown. How do you prepare adults in their 30-50s to be independent, responsible persons, yet willing to explore the possibilities and calculate risks, then go out and take that calculated risk – and have fun while doing it? That’s what it’s all about, and if you aren’t that person at the age you start flying, you never will be. Instructors will teach you how to fly the aircraft, period.
I know that these people exist, one of my first flights after the PPL was to LDLO, the next one to Prague. But that’s really the exception. Many pilots need years to do that. I was in a priviliged position as an aviation journalist – and many of my flights were paid by my magazine. So you can imagine that I had the motivation to do these flights right away. But who has that … ? Not that many people.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
I agree, what might be a great thing is to have free lance instructors or safety pilots who could really do some of these things with their students. And particularly it would be great if there was a market for pilots with their own planes.
I think this could work. How could such a business realistically be set up? Partner with an ATO, freelance in the instructors and freelance directly with the client the safety pilots?
If your instructor/safety pilot has spent most of his time doing circuits/flights close to his local field in a beat down C150, he will not be too fond of you engaging on pro transport like A to B missions in a high end Cirrus, especially IFR in real weather. He just doesn’t have that horizon and will not be able to provide you adequate resources.
A friend of mine is currently pursuing flight training (PPL, CPL, ATPL theory) at the local field. He has his PPL since summer and is currently hour building. We engage in daily conversation about his training and flights. He receives opinions from my experiences and I am glad to be able to re-brush up my GA knowledge. He honestly admits that the PPL course (especially the theory) did not provide enough resources that he would feel confident to embark on a 2 hour cross country VFR flight, crossing multiple CTR/CTA zones, approaching busy airports etc…
Not relevant but in my opinion he has a talent for flying, that always comes in handy.
On some of his flights (e.g. to larger, further away airports) I join and he is more confident to have me along as a back up and to share some work when it is busy (e.g. to give inputs for navigating and atc). I don’t act as an instructor, make it clear to him again and again that he is the PIC, he has to decide and he needs to plan ahead. Generally I keep my inputs to an absolute minimum, but I make mental notes and we discuss things we could have done better or differently after the flight.
tomjnx wrote:
One of my first flights after the PPL and a few familiarization flights with an instructor on the PA28 was LSZK-LSZH-EDDS-EDDN-EDDS-LSZH-LSZK. Granted, not with family, but with friends.
Well… It’s not about being special but having the right attitude. You did remind of my first ever international flight as very low time VFR pilot. I would have to look it up in an old logbook which I don’t have with me at the moment. It was in a PA28-180 with two friends to travel to a software conference at the Sheraton airport hotel which is located at the Brussels airport. I flew VFR and the weather over Belgium was CAVOK but visibility was not good. The first thing to learn on the fly was radio navigation. Back then it was not part of the PPL but thankfully I had an interest in the topic and read an “IFR book”. So when ATC treated me with “IFR” speak and put me onto the localizer I did sweat but all went well. Huge boost in confidence after a high speed landing (“747 behind you. Expedite your landing”).
We humans are incredibly flexible and can adapt very well by default. But there is a lot being done to stop us from adapting constantly. It is much easier to have people who follow rules and don’t think outside a given box.
Aviathor wrote:
Made me think that the quote was pretty close to what you would get from ACOP or an FFA affiliated aeroclub.
Actually money was no factor in my decision (except maybe in the decision against doing it in Switzerland). My conversation with A&C wasn’t about money, it was about how to organize my IR training. The thing that made me walk away is when they wanted me to first sit through 35 hours of ground instruction before going into a sim or plane. That means I would have had to double my time investment in this training (40 hrs), which wasn’t feasible for me. When I asked if this couldn’t be done differently I was told no and that’s how they do it, in a way that made me feel bad for even asking. That was the whole tone of the conversation, I felt like a little child being told off in a very arrogant way.
BTW, quotes for a “complete PPL” have to be taken with more than a grain of salt, because each school calculates this differently. For example, almost nobody achieves a PPL in the minimum hours, so the price for additional hours is very important. I have just tried to find prices on their website, to no avail. That is usually bad news.
I was very pleasantly surprised when the final price that I paid for my CB-IR at Aero Poznan was exactly what they had quoted me in the beginning, it even included the exam fees and any other expenses. Of course my being able to do it in the quoted number of hours helps, but I also credit them for this fact.
