Hello all,

I'm new to the forums and I am search of some advice. I have been wanting to get my PPL for years and now I'm in a fairly strong financial position to proceed with the dream. However, I currently work overnights and am fairly exhausted when I'm not working-- mostly because of the schedule.

However, I would love some tips from you all about scheduling lessons and how you would go about the training, studying etc.. to get your PPL.

As far as my plans go, I currently work in another industry and would eventually like to work at an airline-- but not as a pilot. I would love to fly because of the passion. Eventually, I would like to get my commercial and probablly stop there.

Thanks for your help!

Also, can someone project costs for the following:
0-PPL (8,000?)
then Instrument and Commercial tickets.

 

Welcome!

As far as your schedule goes, working on the back side of the clock is tough. If you are single, you can just live the life of a vampire and do OK, although daily exposure to sunshine does play a role in our biology.

If you have a family, it can be rougher...it can be hard to get good sleep during the day with kids around, and you have to flip your sleep cycle on weekends.

From my experience, the best thing you can do is find (or make) a place where you can good uninterrupted sleep. It needs to be 100% dark and very quiet. Queit can be tough if you live in an area where there is a lot of activity during the day. You might be able to insulate a room in your house, or even use earplugs or an ANR headset.

As far as flight training, I would probably try to do it in the evening before work, after you have rested. This could be an advantage for you...more airplanes may be available, and there are many experienced, older CFI's who have days jobs and can only fly evenings and weekends. It will not hurt you to do a lot of your flying at night if it comes to that.

Costs vary by location, but I would estimate:

$5K-8K PPL
$6K-$7K IR (Part 61, including 50 hours XC)
$13K-$17K CPL (Part 61, 250 hours total time)

This is based on average student performance, which normally means more than the minimum hours required by the FAA. If you are really sharp and work hard, you can save some money.

If the school uses simulators, you might be able to save money. But I would only uses sims for basic instrument training...they are often almost as expensive as a real airplane, but sim time will not count towards total time for job-search purposes.

Prices also vary between part 141 and 61, and how often you fly. If you fly less than 2-3 times each week, you will waste flight time refreshing on things that you had already learned.

 

Get a desktop sim such as X-Plane and use it for "chair flying", the term for flight training conducted at home by yourself. I have always advocated spending somewhat heavy on things like desktop sims, peripherals, flight training videos, textbooks, posters, handheld radios, and magazines because you want to maximize what you know about flying before you start the engine on a real airplane since it is so expensive.

You can learn a lot by yourself and cut the cost if you go to your lessons knowing more or less what to expect there. I often teach students things they could have done at home for less money. Over the years desktop sims have become theoretically pretty accurate in regard to flight models, controls and instruments. While you actually need to fly a real airplane to get a good sight-picture, feeling for g-forces, sounds, and a sense of the control feedback, almost everything can be visualized at home some extent. I occasionally go to the desktop sim to study an aerodynamic principle, run through approach plate or to think about flight profiles.

Welcome to the Forums. You are in for a great experience in flight training.

 

I have to agree with cubdriver. Chairfly, chairfly, chairfly! That was all that me and my roommates did for our pvt. We had a sportys C172 poster hung up on the wall that we sat in front of and ran through checklists. When I started flying the seminole it was a little different, we had a sim at our disposal so it was a little more hands on. Learning the checklists and proceduers beforehand on the ground (free) will cut down on the cash that you burn learning your checklists in the air ($100+ an hr). Also if you can get your self a handheld radio (I use the VXA-220 Pro VI works great) and start listening to local ATC. This is how people that I went through training with learned the radios. If you cant find anywhere that has air band radios, you can also tune liveatc.net. The selections are limited to most major areas (ATL, DFW, NYC, etc.) but it does help. Good luck out there, and have fun with your wild ride!!

 

As far as scheduling time I would recommend scheduling lessons when you are fresh at the start of your day. It's tougher to focus and assimilate things when tired from work. On average count on taking about 30-40min for preflight discussion and preparation and then a 1:30 or so for the flight and 15-20min after for postflight stuff. Of course these things depend on what you and your instructor workout.

For studying in general immerse yourself in aviation (like many others have said). Do as much head work as you can before stepping into the plane. The more "ah ha" moments of understanding you have on the ground, the more frequent those "ah ha" moments will come to you in flight, and with less effort. It'll feel like a puzzle coming together, that's the feeling of learning. This will help you focus more on just flying the airplane and make it easier to observe what is happening around you. Just remember to always be looking for ways to improve the efficiency of how you do things because this will allow you to handle a higher workload when things get tough. "Chair Flying" will help with that.

Go get a hold of the publications you'll need from FAA: Home (you'll probably want print copies in the future)

Search the FAA site for the Private Pilot Practical Test Standards for Airplane that'll have a page of reference materials you'll need. It is also a guide to your checkride.
The first ones you'll want to get are The Airplane Flying Handbook, The Pilots Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, and the FAR/AIM 2009.
Start reading the first chapters of the handbooks and that'll give you a good head start.

As you read about controls, aerodynamics, and maneuvers. Get a copy of MS Flight Sim X and/or X-Plane and a joystick and perform what you are reading in the sim and of course play around . Flight sims are immensely powerful learning tools and really help learn the basics of aircraft control and even subjects like navigation and communication (if you learn to work the sim). I think X-Plane is best for aerodynamics and control whereas Flight Sim X not nearly as good in aerodynamics but is more realistic in communications and easier to use for navigation. Get the demos for both and just see which works easier for you.