Originally Posted by
doublerjay
Not saying it is impossible, but students at "puppy mill" flight schools are 'normally' scheduled for 60 days to do the zero to private pilot thing, and thats all they do full time.
While I'm not shooting down your plan, you'll need to consider schedule/weather/aircraft availabilty/maintenance issues associated with your vacation plan. The CAP also has their own processes and procedures for becoming a flying memeber, usually requires several training missions as an observer before 'moving' up.
The puppy mills cater to the lowest common denominator...early 20's frat boy funded by the 'rents.
A motivated adult can readily do a PPL in three weeks...fly twice a day (average 4-5 hours/day) five days a week. Study in the evenings and weekends. You do need guaranteed good weather and available airplanes...the later means you'll want a larger club/school that has a fleet. The instructor will need to committed essentially full time, including ground school sessions each day, and probably Saturday as well. If the instructor is airline-bound, get a written commitment that he won't leave...this is actually easier to plan for now since they need 1500 hours so if he has less than 1400 it should be a non-issue. Actually this sort of training plan might be best served by an older professional instructor vice a time builder (costs more though).
Knock out the written before you start and ideally read a PPL text-book...front-load the academics as much as possible. I've done this for multiple profession adults.