Accelerated PP training

Jeanie

Jeanie

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Jeanie
I have been hired to provide accelerated PP training to a fella on a ranch in west Texas. The current plan is that we will start early January and I will go up to the ranch and stay for a few days at a time doing ground school and flying in his 182. We understand that the schedule will need to be fluid for weather, health and general life stuff that happens but we are hoping that we can approach it in a "git er done" kind of way. He has flown in many different kinds of aircraft during his life and I am thinking he will pick up on it fairly quickly.

Any thoughts from students and / or CFis who have experienced this kind of accelerated program?

I am looking forward to it.. I will be staying in a guest cabin, we are setting up the "school" in the lodge and there is a cook! Talk about posh :yes:
 
Sounds like a very nice deal. You might be developing a nice "Have CFI ticket... Will Travel" product there. Kinda like Ron and his PCI training road show.

Any chance this guy has some other buddies who'd like to participate at the same time?
 
I spent 6 weeks in 2008 on my private. I would recommend Sporty's or King DVD's, maps, AFD, kneeboard, FAR/AIM, electronic E6B to be purchased beforehand. We flew one AM and one PM flight per day, four days per week. I'd study in between. I am glad I did it that way.
 
Thats what I wanted to do when I started.. Once of these accelerated programs. Seems like when you do it the reg way it takes so long so drawn out..
 
If you have the place and motivated student, I think you could crank through this pretty fast. I taught my son to fly in about five weeks total training time and that was usually averaging only one lesson every other day. Some days we'd do a one hour flight lesson early. Grab some breakfast and do some ground school, then fly again for 45 min. or so, although the double flights were only a few of the lessons. Most of his ground school he did on-line, then I'd review his questions with him.

If someone wanted to dedicate 6-8 hours a day, with 2-3 flights interspersed with ground school lessons, I think you could do this in a week or two tops. I'd love to give it a try sometime.
 
LDJones said:
If you have the place and motivated student, I think you could crank through this pretty fast. I taught my son to fly in about five weeks total training time and that was usually averaging only one lesson every other day. Some days we'd do a one hour flight lesson early. Grab some breakfast and do some ground school, then fly again for 45 min. or so, although the double flights were only a few of the lessons. Most of his ground school he did on-line, then I'd review his questions with him.

If someone wanted to dedicate 6-8 hours a day, with 2-3 flights interspersed with ground school lessons, I think you could do this in a week or two tops. I'd love to give it a try sometime.
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um how old is your son
 
You sent me a note that I hadn't gotten back to, but here's my take.

He'll be pretty good at VFR stuff if he's current and has flown a bunch. The IR will be horrendously humbling at certain points. (My emotional low point was when Jesse plunked the covers over the vacuum gauges during a turn onto a DME arc I thought I was going to have wired... I realized I still had a lot of work to do.)

I lost the picture, got behind the airplane, and Jesse coached me through the remaining steps of the approach, which I flew badly. And wisely said... "Let's land from this one." My adrenaline was up and I was really cranky (which for me, doesn't always show as cranky, I'm angry as hell but not showing it other than just getting quieter and madder... Haha.)

It's going to happen. Keep an eye out for it. You're not just teaching new skills but also going to give someone a sense of "You know, this sucks... I knew how to fly this plane just FINE last week!", especially in the case of a higher time VFR pilot.

Just let 'em have a break to work it out. Realistic words mixed with a little encouragement will go a long way at that point...

Example, not quoting Jesse... "Alright, so you know where it didn't work. Up until that point looked pretty good, we just need to work on what happened when it fell apart. You still made it to the airport with a little coaching, so we'll just work on some more of that so it becomes easier."

Sounds like it'll be fun. I enjoyed the short route. Other stuff that can come up is him not knowing the book stuff. In a short time frame there's not as much time for that, you're flying... So you'll have to get a feel for where his written and oral knowledge gaps are. Mock oral questions asked while the student is at overload make excellent distractions. You also get to see if they're going to tell you to shut up while they prioritize and fly the plane. ;)
 
First thing to recognize is that there is no such thing as "accelerated training." The training cannot be conducted any faster than one training hour per clock hour. What you are doing is intensive training, where those training hours and days are conducted consecutively rather than spread out over a longer period of calendar time. Go in with any other thought, and you're bound for trouble.

But whatever you call it, what you need is a plan, preferably one developed carefully over a period of time and adjusted with experience. PIC's 10-day instrument rating plan has been developed over decades, and after over 30 years, is still fine-tuned periodically. The result is a training plan with has been proven to work, and which is a copyrighted, proprietary product (lots of investment in that). My guess is that it will take you at least a week to put together such a plan for an intensive PP course, and there are a lot of considerations involved -- think it through carefully.
 
Keep in mind that one of the downsides is that the pilot will be exposed to less weather variation. You will have to spend some time on covering these situations.
 
Speaking from my own personal experience, I think age can be a major factor on deciding if an "accelerated" training schedule would suit a student.

I am now 64, and last year when I decided to go for my dream of achieving my PPL, I looked at different ways I could to do the training.

Due to living in the UK but having a vacation home on Florida I decided to sign up for an accelerated 3 week course with a flight school local to my vacation home in Florida, which is where I plan to do most of my flying in the future.

I initially did my ground studies at home using the study Gleim kit, and when I arrived in Florida to begin my training I first took the FAA written, with that out of the way I began the 3 week course, it was intense flying 2 and sometimes 3 times a day, then studying at night in preparation for the next day.

I managed one and a half weeks, and just reached my first solo in the pattern stage, and that was it, I was mentally and physically drained, I had to call a halt to the training before I hurt myself or someone else !
I changed to a more steady rate of training over the period of a year, which was a lot more acceptable to me, and in October I passed my checkride.

In defence of the "accelerated" type course, I will say there was a number of younger guys who had no issues in knocking out their PPL within the 3 week period, but in my case the ability to take everything in so intensely was a bridge too far....
 
To echo alland's post, the trainee's age and physical conditioning are critical to success in an intensive training course. The PIC program requires a good 8 hours a day of work, plus an hour or two of homework/study each night, to complete in 10 days. I've had a few clients in their mid-60's and older who could not handle that level of effort over a 10 day period, some who were pretty well cooked by 3pm each day -- those clients did not complete in 10 days. Some had the extra time to extend the training on a less intensive basis, but some decided just to terminate the intensive program and finish on their own in a more traditional manner. For a PP course, where it will be at least three weeks for an ab initio program, the fatigue factor will be even more significant.
 
We talked about burn out/fatigue and pace when we met last Saturday. This won't be a forced march, we will work a few days and take a break for a couple of days. I doubt I could manage the continuous for hours and days on end pace either...
 
Jeanie said:
We talked about burn out/fatigue and pace when we met last Saturday. This won't be a forced march, we will work a few days and take a break for a couple of days. I doubt I could manage the continuous for hours and days on end pace either...
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It is indeed tough on the instructor. When I come back from a ten day gig, I usually need four days of R&R before doing anything work-like.
 
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