Originally Posted by
mspano85
Piper is cheaper, but not by much. They are both similarly equipped. It is very unlikely that I would be changing schools because 1) I live right next to it, and 2) since I'm going through a college curriculum for the training, I have to use a school approved by them. Frederick Flight Center and Advanced Helicopter Concepts are the only schools available within 50 miles of my house.
They used to have an approved school at Montgomery Airpark, but I don't know what happened. I think Montgomery County and PG County Airports are having issues due to being so close to D.C. and the restricted fly zones.
Frederick seems to on the outside of that bubble.
I definitely plan to get checked in both. I want to be a CFII so it is essential to be able to train in both.
Thanks for the advice!
I've flown Frederick Flight Center's archers (if they were the ones they had in 2009-2010). Good Airplanes
. I also flew the G1000 Cessnas a few times when they would run the G1000 for the price of a normal 172 deals.
As far as MX, I was always impressed with how fast they got stuff done. When I was there I flew their only arrow and only seminole, and I think I had maybe one or two flights cancelled because of maintenance. The engines on the Seminole had to be overhauled like the week before my checkride, and I thought the plane would be down for weeks, and they just swapped engines from the factory or whatever, and had the plane back on the line with in a few days. A lot of other places I've flown planes have sat for weeks waiting on parts or whatever, it seemed like Frederick just paid to get stuff shipped in so they could get things up and running asaply.
EDIT: To add to the MX comment, I don't want to make it sound like they rushed through maintenance quickly at the expense of doing it properly. I always felt like they kept stuff well-maintained. Just they were efficient, and always tried their best to keep stuff online.