744 Forum

Looks like I'll be based in Kansas City, MO for at least another two years.
So I've decided to seriously investigate getting my PPl or Sport Pilot licence here. For one thing, it seems to be a lot cheaper here in the US than back in the Netherlands/Europe. Now I know that cheap in aviation is not necessarily a criteria, but still..

This weekend I'm going to visit a few flight schools, talk to a few people, get a feel for what they have on offer, how they work etc.

Anybody that's done this and has some tips what to look for, what to ask? Did your fly school live up to its' promises/your expectations?

Jeroen

I had to do with US flight schools two times and in both cases it was a pleasure. I already had a German PPL, I just needed a temporary US license so that I could rent and fly an US aircraft.

When you're new, or every two years, I think, you need to do what they call a "flight review". This sounds like test, but is rather a refresher; if you don't know something, you will learn it, refresh it, instead of failing the "test". I think this is a very good philosophy.

As you already mentioned, -- and like in any other country -- you will have to compare prices and qualitities. In my first visit, 1994, we got a very old aircraft for a very cheap price. Over the Rocky Mountains I got metal chips in the engine and some engine drop-outs during approach and later during a take-off :-) It was an adventure, so I don't really regret it -- Second visit, 1998, brandnew aircraft, higher price: No technical problems. But the weather was the adventure then.


Cheers,

|-|ardy

Did my PPL in the states too. First in Florida, old 152s. Pretty cheap, but the
aircraft always turned left and the gyro drifted up to 30° in 2 minutes.

Later I went to Michigan, flew a well maintained 172 with IFR instruments for
$15 more. What fun to fly!

Both aircraft flew the way they looked like.

frumpy wrote

Pretty cheap, but the aircraft always turned left ...

How did you get to the other end of the runway? :-)


|-|

I did my PPL in the midwest. It's great flying country: four distinct seasons, great storms in the spring, friendly people, and no mountains to fly into. You'll have a blast. Most small airports will only have one, maybe two, FBO's (Fixed Based Operators) which are small companies that rent planes, offer flying lessons, and sell gas and oil to planes that fly in from other places. Bigger airports will have bigger FBOs that serve all sizes of planes, up to corporate jets. You can look around, see which ones you like, meet some flight instructors, "kick the tires," and then start your lessons. Should be really fun.

Brings back many memories ..... way back in 1991.
Best year of my life; the gift of flight.
Many changes now, airports fenced up ... so I heard.
Cross-countries ... just for lunch.

You love it flying there, way to go !

Ray

... drool ... I may be the next one ...

Not clearly related to this thread, but the best real story I have heard about the gift of flight, etc, was told to me some years ago by a Navy fighter pilot I knew. He was required to stay well-practiced with various types of flight including supersonic, long-distance, and in-flight refueling. So, he and his RIO (radar intercept officer, rides in the back seat and uses the radar and targeting controls while the other fellow flies the plane) decided to fly across the US one evening at warp speed with the real purpose of attending a rock concert in Seattle! Took multiple in-flight refueling efforts at the speed they were flying, but that was just part of keeping current I guess. Anyway, they attended the rock concert, had a great time, and hopped back in their personal "corporate jet" and made warp speed back to their carrier (or was it a Naval Air Station?). It was such an amazing story that I wasn't 100.0% sure it was a true story but as far as I could tell, it was for real.

100 "lifetimes" ago, after I graduated from college and while trying to avoid being drafted into the Army/Vietnam, I was on a waiting list to become a RIO, for the US Air Force. The loss rate for pilots and RIOs was pretty high during the war, so they were looking for volunteers. Other opportunities developed for me which didn't involve Vietnam, but I've always wondered about "the road not taken" as I then began grad school. It's hard to think of becoming a RIO vs going to grad school at the same time. So much of our lives depends taking or not taking a major fork in the road of life that we don't really control!

When flying with the US Navy, I joined a few refresher flights of class mate pilots. A favourite refuelling stop was NAS Brunswick. Calling tower for landing we added the amount of fuel required, and a coded part, like "3 roses". While refuelling, a taxi delivered 3 fresh Maine Lobsters, which we stored in a special aircraft tank used for pilot equipment during overnight missions. Refreshing for people stationed at the Chesapeake Bay.
Oh, first solo- summer 1963 on Piper PA-18 Cub.

Hi Jeroen:

I am actually a flight instructor in the U.S. (Midwest) and just did my biannual flight review (like HH talked about) today. As such, I know a thing or two about flying in the U.S. currently and would be happy to give you some advice and point you to resources.

One of the big issues is in the post-9/11 world, is that you have to get special authorization from our TSA to do flight training as a non-U.S. citizen. It is not a big hurdle to climb, but you need to get that done before flight training.

Other than that, it is great to fly here. We have all sorts of free services like flight briefings and ATC (all paid for in fuel taxes) compared to Europe and Canada. Some airports have landing fees, but you can plan to avoid those. So what you are paying for is the aircraft (usually "wet" - meaning fully fueled) and an instructor.

As for tips, I would not get locked in to a program. You can pay as you go, and feel free to switch instructors until you settle on one you like. People have different styles, and it is not a marriage. I have had many over the years and can now tell the good from the "not so good". Some prefer young ones right out of training - they are fresh and eager. Others preferred the seasoned instructors with a little gray on top. It is all a matter of preference - all are properly licensed and the training is rigorous.

Any questions, let me know!

- Stekeller
KORD

Aha, special authorization needed for foreigners. I'll need to look into this as well, then. Thanks for the tip!

The other Jeroen

Hi All,

Another one having done his flight training in the US - though an eternity ago

Foreign students wishing to earn a license do need at least 2 things:
Actually, its 3 things, but I figure that Jeroen D. since living already there does have an appropriate visa. Otherwise one would need an M1 visa, when training for a license which results in a rating.

They must register themselves at the Alien Flight Student Program (AFSP)
https://www.flightschoolcandidates.gov/afsp2/?acct_type=c&section=FQ
and they must make sure to do their flight training with an SEVIS approved institution:
http://www.ice.gov/sevis/map/approvedschoolsmap.htm

Some more info on all of this here (I am sure, there are many others):
http://www.pprune.org/professional-pilot-training-includes-ground-studies/418519-m1-visa-no-visa-sevis-approved-schools-usa.html

I did my flight training (CPL, IR, Multi Eng) in 78 and 79 in California.
As for tips:
The very good ones that Stekeller has already mentioned , plus perhaps:
- Also check the equipment they use. I would recommend to train on a glass equipped a/c from early on.
- Do some research on the Internet, if the school you intend to use does have a sufficient availability on a/c and instructors.
- Make doubly sure, that your flight school is a SEVIS approved one - this is your responsibility. There are schools letting you to believe that they are, but aren't. It is you who will be held accountable, not the school. 9/11 did change a lot of things...

Charles

Thanks for all the replies.
I visited two flight schools this weekend. I had find out about having to register with the TSA but not about the flight school needing to be SEVIS approved. I'll have to double check on that.

Prices do vary, mostly depending on the aircraft/age. Those offering training on Cessna 152 are about 75% of training of more modern versions.

I was wondering about starting on "glass" right away. I sort of thought it might be better to start on "steam gauges" and transition to glass later on.

Read an article this weekend where the author also made a point of students/pilots these days spending to much time head down, rather than looking outside and getting a feel for the plane.

What was also new to me is that part of the training will be 3 hours of night flying and once you have your PPL you can fly at night as well! I haven't check on this in Europe for a while, but I was under the assumption that a PPL in Europe doesn't allow night flying.

Jeroen

Jeroen:

Let me add my 2 cents on the "learning on glass" philosophy.

I believe that you should learn on the cheapest, most basic aircraft that you can. I learned on a C-152, but it is really for smaller people (I was OK, my instructor was not happy). The fundamentals of flying, as you are working on your Private license are the same for all aircraft. You really should not be looking down a whole lot during visual maneuvers anyway. I would routinely have to cover the panel with a chart to break students of this habit. Often, they were avid flight simmers (sorry guys) who were used to looking at instruments because visuals just aren't as useful on a computer. The cues and depth are often not there, and peripheral vision really helps (try flying a proper traffic pattern in a light single within a desktop sim for example - without Track IR). There is some basic instrument work for the Private license, but it is only to get you out of trouble, and to do some navigation.

When it comes to instrument training, that is a legitimate choice and possibly a good time to switch to a glass aircraft. I doubt many new aircraft will be built with steam gauges anymore, and having flown the Garmin G1000, it is an amazing avionics suite, in many ways more advanced than the 747-400! I learned on steam and then have adapted to glass. I hear it is much harder to go the other way.

I agree that the condition of the aircraft is very important. However, this may not be apparent until you fly and see the kinds of defects that appear on the aircraft and how quickly they are fixed (look at the "squawk sheets"). Age of the aircraft is not a good indicator of the quality of maintenance. These trainers are not pressurized and can almost fly forever with proper maintenance.

Regarding night flying, you CAN opt out of that training and your license will be limited with a "Night Flying Prohibited" printed on the certificate. I don't recommend it. Night flying is interesting, and at times terrifying. I enjoy it because there is less traffic, but it is more visible, and the air is usually smoother. ATC is usually more available too. It is good experience and you never know when you may end up needing those skills.

Any other questions, just ask.

- Stekeller
KORD

As long as you're learning in aircraft that have some sort of non-zero chance of big mechanical failure, it will pay to get proficient on steam gauges. Learn on what your aircraft will revert to in an emergency. Once good there, then transition to the fancy stuff... that way your foundation is solid.

Question from a typical oversimmed non-pilot with a surprising amount of yoke time (under supervision) on 172 and 501 Cessnas (not counting the many hours on Lufthansa professional 744 sims, though I mostly did manual, visual circuits there).

When VFR, my mind still wants to confirm two items Very Often: airspeed and altitude. Both for absolute value and for trend (V/S helps). Next is heading. And since I don't trust myself, I put a glance at the attitude indicator in between every other instrument scan (AI - IAS - AI - altitude - AI - heading - AI - IAS).

When flying the Citation at 10,000 ft, I consciously tried to look outside for traffic and keep my heading and attitude constant using ground and horizon references. But this isn't accurate enough.

Is this typical wrong simmer mind thinking, or is a Citation just not suitable for VFR, or ... ?

When in a pattern in a 172, how often do you check IAS and altitude and possibly heading? They are all rather critical in the pattern, low and slow, I presume.


Jeroen

The more experience you get, the more you can sense the big picture without going AI - IAS - AI - altitude - AI - heading - AI - IAS. That kind of scan is important in the beginning, because it drills in the concept of IFR situational awareness. But the situational awareness itself is more important than the actual scan pattern, and after a while, you'll use certain instruments more than others at certain times. Like the AI when rolling into or out of a turn, and airspeed on final (or when given a speed limit to hold). You sort of internalize the big picture, and the scan itself becomes unconscious, like "watching" the balls unconsciously while juggling, or adjusting your balance unconsciously on a bicycle.

In my airplane, the mighty Jetstream 32, we had steam gauges and no autopilot.

While in level cruise, I looked at the altimeter most frequently, with little glances here and there at other instruments to catch trends before they developed. In clear weather, the AI was redundant except for rotation and when changing the flap setting. In IMC, the AI was more important, and little deviations on the AI would really attract my attention, even in peripheral vision, since in the J32 you basically kept a certain pitch attitude day in and day out. I found that I'd spend more time on the altimeter than the AI, since peripheral vision would let you see a picture getting out of whack before it got too screwy. Perhaps in airplanes with different kinds of stability, that would be different.

There was enough time for both pilots to look outside for traffic, even though we cruised at 320 kts and flew traffic patters at 180 kts. We usually saw what we needed to see, but with no autopilot it was a high-workload. The non-flying pilot handled radios, looked outside, and backed up the flying pilot on the scan. The flying pilot flew, scanned inside, and backed up the non-flying pilot on looking for traffic.

It was a decent airplane for VFR, but the visibility across the cockpit was crappy, so you needed your copilot to look for traffic and to call "abeam" the runway. Like I said before, the AI was redundant in VFR, so concentrating on airspeed and altitude was sufficient for nailing a traffic pattern in clear weather.

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Rgds
JHW

Learning on 'Glass' from early on...
Well, with that I did not mean, 'from the very beginning', but certainly from some point onward during the PPL course - I especially had those in mind who want to later follow a career as pilots. Some of the reasons behind my statement:

- Instrument presentation and hence - interpretation is (very) different. Learning on glass spares you from re-learning later on.
- Basic principles of flight (still very much in force ) can imho be learned on glass equipped a/c just the same. I agree though, that the potential for distraction from the essential things is a problem and puts an added burden on the instructor. It certainly steepens the learning curve since modern glass systems do provide such a plethora of densely packed information. But managing this info in a systematic way is imho a thing best learned from early on.
- Zinger's statement of pitch * power = performance is, in my opinion, the most important concept (and by no means for instrument flight only!) to learn from rather early on. It prevents from 'chasing the gauges' (being they steam or glass) and helps freeing up the scan and hence gaining more time for looking outside and other essential things.

Will's description of flying the Jetstream 32 reminded me very much of me flying the Metro II in the very early days with Crossair Thanks for sharing this!

Just my 2 cts.

The human factors research community, industry and government conducted a study of pilot performance on B744 simulator, to which errors were injected. This to augment and improve automation and especially pilot displays. 19 pilots of all levels of experience and aircraft familiarity participated. 18 didn't detect the injected errors, such as below glidpath or erroneous PD autoflight mode annunciation.

My first point here is that integrated displays pose serious problems of interpretation, and derivation of full and correct aerial situation. My second point is that the study showed commonality between novice FOs and seasoned captains in these findings.
In conclusion, current glass still has basic display flaws. Add to them reliable advanced automation where pilots trust George completely, finding it difficult to routinely practice manual flight skills, and you get events as a German chartered B757 CFIT minutes after takeoff due to a single (of many) airspeed indicator errors identified while rolling at 80Kt, a Turkish B737NG at Schipol stalling on short final and an Indian Airbus captain woken up by the FO up at FAF just to crash.

From 9,000 hours of flying both cockpit types on 90 different aircraft types, I recommend to build your flying foundation on conventional displays, and not rush to either glass cockpits or heavy metal.

While having designed integrated display cockpits before, I can now only advise you guys how I treated a similar situation, not in the cockpit. At age 27 I received command of an operational squadron, youngest in our organization. Every squadron had SOPs, thick books devided into normal day operations and wartime sections, 3 meters wide on my shelf.
In a short time I replaced them all with a different system, one booklet comprising a few dozen A5 pages, each page detailing one procedure, applicable everyday- unified for routine and war, so people don't have to switch to another realm when war strikes, just continue the normal well trained routine. Each page looked like a Powerpoint presentation slide with few lines and sizeable bold text, like checklist. I didn't invent it, just borrowed the concept from a translated RAF Command & Control booklet found in our library.
In each squadron function, like operations center, logistics center, human factors center, relevant pages, no more than 3 necessary, were hanging laminated, hardened and tangible for immediate accurate implementation. Every few weeks I implemented a surprise wartime internal excercise which meant that no permanent facility was to be used except toilet and officer's club. We simulated movement to a remote site where a telephone line was the only provision, using the squadron lawn and ammunition trolleys designed and manufactured at home at no cost. 10 months into my shift, the 1973 war broke out. The guys felt largely at home even though they were sent 250 miles away were the only thing found was a telephone line.
Simplified, easy to follow, no bla bla and legal small letters.
The cockpit and pilot tasking should move that way, now, as it should have 40 years ago, but instead more burden and hardship were added, despite electronics. You may ask how, rightfully. This needs more time to write-up, start with throwing complex CRM and company procedures either out or to be accomplished by a robot transparently.

Just to be sure: "injected errors" were artificially created abnormal display artifacts that in theory could not happen on a real ship unless specific equipment or software code was malfunctioning? So for example not a simulated below-glideslope deviation of the simulated ship, but manipulating just one gauge to misread?

"Heavy metal" is anything larger than a single prop when you have zero hours on anything? :-)


Jeroen

I should clarify something I said about learning on "glass".

It was not that I have a problem with obtaining a private pilot certificate on a glass cockpit aircraft. There is a tendency for students to go "heads down" instead of looking outside, but that tendency is there on "steam gauge" aircraft. The issue is that glass aircraft are newer and tend to be more expensive to rent. Your license is the same whether you learn in a C-152 that costs $80 an hour to rent versus a C-172 with a G1000 panel that costs $140 to rent. Over time, that difference adds up. There ARE advantages, such as having traffic information available in some areas (TIS), synthetic vision (for obstacles) and weather info (through XM weather). Those are safety enhancements that may be worth paying a premium.

After getting your license, you can always get checked out in a G1000 or other glass aircraft and have that experience, particularly as a fan of the 747-400.

For the instrument rating, the scan is fundamentally different on glass and on steam, so it is different. So perhaps that is a more important choice than for the private pilot training.

- Stekeller
KORD

Hello Jeroen,

yes. For instance display VNAV PTH when VNAV SPD should be annunciated.

My recommendation for a student pilot who might aspire to later fly commercially, is to make small steps in his advance. In heavy metal, I meant widebody aircraft and even A320/B737NG class aircraft. Having watched approaches in both aircraft generations, it appeared simpler for the five man crew than today with 2 and full automatic flight. I can also see it on my firstborn who has been flying both types for over 20 years, including AH-64D which is far more advanced in automation design than anything else his mother company ever made. But now that he has taken up B737NG, it is a different ballgame in terms of observed workload, while it should be dead opposite.

Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers wrote

Just to be sure: "injected errors" were artificially created abnormal display artifacts that in theory could not happen on a real ship unless specific equipment or software code was malfunctioning? So for example not a simulated below-glideslope deviation of the simulated ship, but manipulating just one gauge to misread?

"Heavy metal" is anything larger than a single prop when you have zero hours on anything? :-)


Jeroen

Hmmm ... would the workload of a modern, electronics-equipped manager in a business be higher than that of her counterpart in the 1950s?

Maybe electronics and automation are used to increase the mental workload of a human, which then is believed to increase productivity? And then the question comes: what is gained by increasing a pilot's productivity? The plane does not move any faster. Maybe he's taking over work from previously ground-based people, such as dispatchers, bean counters, etc.? First the industry reduces cockpit crew to two, and they cannot get much lower without currently expected redundancy (needed or not). So next they try to move other jobs into the pilot's brain?


Jeroen