Originally Posted by
250 or point 65
This is not only unnecessary, its outright dangerous. Oh, you've never fired a gun before? How about we give you a machine gun, 5 minutes of instruction and drop you into Afghanistan?
A 2 week PPL course is just handing over an instrument for someone to kill themselves, family, or friends.
There are gun ranges that will rent a pistol to a person who has absolutely zero training. That, I find a bit scary.
Anyhow, thanks to everyone for the replies. I totally agree that flying is not just about getting the paper.
Just like educational degrees are paper (and sometimes wastes of time, cough), they are worthless without years of practical experience, making mistakes and learning from them.
My personal belief is that this "2 weeek PPL" is similar to technology related certification bootcamps (a la CCIE Bootcamp) where people fork over a few grand and over the course of a day or two undergo a massive brain dump on key points and practice exams.
Certifications/Paper doesn't mean clue.
(PS - Sorry for posting the URL in the first post, I didn't realize I was breaking the forum rules. I was just using it to reference the site should anyone have additional questions)