dima

Was sitting in my flight school today, waiting for my flight instructor, and thought of some ways that I and everyone else can cut down on pricey training.

(Some tips are for students who flew for some time)

1. Be prepare for your flight lesson. Makes sense: an instructor doesn't have to sit down for an extra 30 mins and explain why you have to do things certain way. Always at the end of each lesson ask how did you do the maneuvers, what you should work on, and what will be for the next lesson. Read as much literature as possible. Write down questions, and ask them when you are already in the plane (works well if you can do two things at once). Saves you about 30 mins

2. Do a pre-flight plane check, add oil, etc BEFORE your instructor will meet you. Make friends with management of school, so they can give you keys to the plane before your instructor gets to the plane parking. If you have to fuel - have company card ready. If needs oil - put some oil. The whole idea is to make airplane ready to fly, so when your instructor gets to the plane, all he/she has to do is to get a quick report from you on what is going on with the plane, what did you do to fix it, etc. Saves about 10-15 mins

3. Try to choose slow days/times of a day at airport. It sucks to sit at hold short line because there is a line of 4 planes coming down to land, and wait for tower to give you clearance. I've learned that flying in the mornings, or during not-picture-perfect weather is the best time to fly. You can get difficult conditions flight training, and you most likely will be one of the few up in the sky. about 10 Total of waiting time

4. Try to memorize check list and instruments. On first couple of hours I had to jerk my head back and forth from check list to instruments. My instructor suggested me to memorize my check list. Now, after I went through all instruments, I just read my check list, to make sure I didn't miss anything. saves about 5 mins

5. Buy books from amazon.com. I found jeppesen private pilot book for 20 bucks in like new conditions with some yellow highliner inside. New one would cost more than 100 bucks. Same goes with Check list, study guides, etc. I've noticed that most of these books you can find online for free. Just a matter of time finding it. saves loads of money

totally you'll save about 50 mins to an hour of flight instructiong time, and on rental or aircraft. Plus, you'll learn way more better that way.

Maybe somebody else want to add something?


PS. English is my second language, plus its almot 2am. So you'll find some grammar errors

rickair7777

That's pretty much right on.

#1 is pretty important, as part of your preparation you should "chair-fly" at home, runninging through all of the manuevers, flows, and checklists verbatim, while moving your hands to the imaginary controls.

You want LEARN the manuevers at home, and PRACTICE the manuevers in the airplane. Otherwise it gets pretty expensive pretty fast.

Your instructor should be refining your flying technique:
"OK, a little more back pressure"
"Watch the bank angle"
"A little more right rudder"

You do not want your instructor to be spending a lot of time teaching you the order in which to do things...these kinds of things you can learn on your own before you fly:
"No, gear up first, THEN flaps!"
"What did you just forget?"
"What do you always do before starting a manuever?"

Ewfflyer

I think you are by far the smartest student ever!!! I always told my students I charge from the first ground discussion we start having til the paperwork is done. So they had the option to talk before/after/during the preflight. Sometimes I'd go out during their preflight to monitor though, and start quizzing them on something because 99% of the time I could stump them on something. This wasn't a "Milking" attempt either, just wanted to state that. It was 100% for learning something new/reinforcement of learned material.

WEACLRS

Excellent!

Couple of other suggestions (assuming you are working on all certificates and ratings, PPL - MEI):

1. Absolutely do as much primary training as possible at a small, quiet airport - meaning reduce all time possible that the engine is spinning (the Hobbs clicking) and you are doing nothing or not going anywhere. Do your instrument flight training at an airport, or within a few miles of airports, where the necessary approaches are available. Remember, flight training is anywhere from $1.50 to $4.00 every time the Hobbs clicks off a minute.

2. If you are doing your training part 61 (and most students end up in part 61 training at some point), finish all your multi-engine training before you reach 250 hours. Take your single-commerical at 250 hours and your multi-commercial at 252 or 253 hours. If you are doing a 141 program, as suggested, be prepared, study hard, and "chair-fly" as much as possible so as to stay in the 141 track.

3. For an instrument rating try to do as much of the 20 hours of instrument training allowed in a flight simulator or flight training device - 61.65(e)(2) - as possible. FTD instrument training time is very productive (done right) and usually cheaper than an aircraft.

4. Do your CFII training in a multi-engine aircraft. While you are building the 15 hours of PIC multi-time required for an MEI, you can complete your CFII training and MEI training at the same time (generally about 10 hours CFII and 5 hours multi).

mistarose

Good except don't memorize checklists, be familiar with them.

Pilots who only use checklists make mistakes.

Pilots who don't use checklists make mistakes.

Competent pilots use a combination of checklists, flow patterns, and memory aids to provide a certain level of redundancy and safety/efficiency piloting the ship.

Pilotpip

Great advice. I'd also suggest taking advantage of rainy days. My last instructing job required students to come in rain or shine (we were salaried). Those students really did well on flight exams and we've seen the pass rate increase remarkably since I went through the program. I really liked having private pilot students that didn't just spew out rote knowledge and instead could describe a system on a working level and understand what they were talking about.

If you're not in this situation, you should still consider it. The instructor can introduce new things and take more time working with you on tasks that are initially difficult like weather and cross country planning. You'll spend less time with the hobbs running trying to figure things out and your instructor will appreciate an hour or two of pay on a day when they would otherwise be sitting at home. If you don't meet with the instructor, hop in the plane and do some 'hangar flying' and work on flows and procedures. The second one shouldn't cost you a thing.