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Old 11-23-2013 | 05:50 AM
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Cubdriver
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Originally Posted by 2strokes
...It seems like a good approach would be to try and get a custom finish-up plan for my PPL with one of the "pilot mills" you are suggesting. American Flyers seems to offer such option, while others to MALB's point only have add-ons. Do you guys have any recommendations?...
AOPA has a list of flight schools, I am not sure where you are but if you run a thread asking for a "good flight school near (Kalamazoo)" you might get a good response from people here. The other poster said why go to a pilot mill like American Flyers if the weather can be crap during your stay, and if you choose a local school that may be true depending on where you are. This is why a lot of pilot mills have locations in Texas, Florida, So California and other sun zones. Go there.

...Until I am able to take a week off to go to a "pilot mill" it might make sense to continue my current training, to at least maintain my skills. On the topic of skills, it feels that a lot of my instructor feedback boils down to "It's not good enough, you need to practice more" which while it might be true does no point to specific ways to address my shortcomings. Do you have any suggestions for a more targeted and focused training?...
Well I agree your instructor should do better than just say not good enough, but you may also be doing things that point to a lack of practice rather than any one bad habit you need to break. Sounds like that is the case, and I have had many students do the same thing usually for the same reason (too much work). They expect to make progress developing a difficult set of skills with 1-2 hours a week, not gonna happen. I am not sure I would even bother doing it at that ineffective rate, save some money and go to the pilot mill in sunny TX or wherever it is on your next vacation.

The subject of what to do with students who like flying but cannot devote the time to pass comes up occasionally. I discourage them from doing this. They usually get their solo signoff and want to fly around the patch or local airport indefinitely while developing all sorts of bad habits making no progress towards anything. They like the thrill of being half way there without the stress of actually getting there. It's a pitfall, don't do it. Any instructor who allows frivolous soloing without flight-by-flight targeting of student performance goals is wasting your time, even if they will allow it (and many do). There is no such thing as a perpetual student pilot, and the misuse of a solo signoff to allow screwing around by the student is just that, a misuse of the privilege.
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