Timebuilding, where?

I

ice_air

Filing Flight Plan
Joined
Feb 4, 2014
Messages
5
Display Name
Display name:
student
Hi guys/girls.

I am a PPL pilot from Iceland, studying for CPL.
The hours here in Iceland are way to expensive (in my opinion) and the weather doesn´t help. So I´m thinking of going somewhere else to fly most of the hours I need before finishing my training. I´ve heard that some pilots from Iceland have gone to Florida for timebuilding.. but I don´t know which clubs/schools.

What schools or clubs in USA do you guys recommend, where I could have good access to SEP plaines, with generally good weather and of course reasonable prices?

Thanks :)
 
I know a guy in Montana who'll rent you a Cessna 150 for $60/hr WET. Take a tent and camp at the airport. If you need some complex time, he's got a cutlass too that rents at a good rate (i don't recall the exact number, something like $100/hr wet).
 
Art's got it -- what's your goal? If it's a professional piloting career, the big airline-feeder schools are probably your best choice. They also have a lot of experience with the special rules/approval procedures for non-US citizens taking training in the US. OTOH, if you just want to build hours without taking any training for higher ratings/certificates, pretty much anyone who'll rent you a plane will do.

As for where to go, the best choices for year-round flying are probably South Florida, Southeast Texas, Southern California (probably the most expensive) and Arizona.
 
-1 for Florida, +1 for Arizona or California.

I, personally, find Florida pretty boring, as it is entirely flat what makes flying neither particularly interesting nor challenging. I did my PPL there - it was a nice time, I enjoyed it, but don't think it would be worth to spend more time there.

My favorite flight school in California is the Petaluma Pilot Training Center http://petalumapilottrainingcenter.com/prices.html (Ask for Peggy for the checkout - she will sure tell you something about landings)
I also hear some good reports about the Plus One Flyers, which is a flying club, that also accepts foreign pilots.

There are also a number of flight schools around Phoenix and Las Vegas - we once rented from Westwind Aviation, which I can recommend, they are however located at the rather infamous Deer Valley airport (crazy air traffic with lots of student pilots) near Phoenix:
http://www.westwindaviation.com/aircraft-rentals/

Cheers,

Oliver
 
Petaluma is a great place, and the flying is nothing short of incredible around there. Plus, you can gain weight with all the B-52 burgers.

But a VFR pilot is going to be frequently ****ed off by the marine layer in summer. The solution is to go in the afternoon, but the traffic volume gets high with the shortened day.

You can go inland just a little -- even Livermore is better, but Sacramento is a lot better -- to avoid the marine layer. That puts you close to the Sierra for some spectacular flying, and the Bay Area isn't far either for those days where the marine layer isn't an issue.

Arizona has its attractions, too, but it gets H O T in the summer. So does Sacramento, but not on the same scale.

In summer, I'd suggest central Colorado, unless the high altitude is a worry. You'll want something more than a 172 or you'll be restricted to the flats.
 
German guy said:
-1 for Florida, +1 for Arizona or California.

I, personally, find Florida pretty boring, as it is entirely flat what makes flying neither particularly interesting nor challenging. I did my PPL there - it was a nice time, I enjoyed it, but don't think it would be worth to spend more time there.

My favorite flight school in California is the Petaluma Pilot Training Center http://petalumapilottrainingcenter.com/prices.html (Ask for Peggy for the checkout - she will sure tell you something about landings)
I also hear some good reports about the Plus One Flyers, which is a flying club, that also accepts foreign pilots.

There are also a number of flight schools around Phoenix and Las Vegas - we once rented from Westwind Aviation, which I can recommend, they are however located at the rather infamous Deer Valley airport (crazy air traffic with lots of student pilots) near Phoenix:
http://www.westwindaviation.com/aircraft-rentals/

Cheers,

Oliver
Click to expand...


+1 for Florida, -1 for California and Arizona. In Florida you can get real IMC experience without having to worry about ice.
 
+1 for my guy in MT, you're 60 miles away from the Frank Church and 60 miles away from the Bob Marshall (3U7 is doable and an epic landing spot). Weather is generally excellent in the summer with an ocassional afternoon thunderbumper. And he's probably charging half the cost of anything in FL and especially CA. Anyone can fly over God's waiting room, head out to God's country. :)
 
Henning said:
+1 for Florida, -1 for California and Arizona. In Florida you can get real IMC experience without having to worry about ice.
Click to expand...

????

Finding IMC in AZ can be tough, but I never had a problem in SoCal and never worried about ice.

I've done time in all three. FL is a
cesspool compared to the other two.
 
I'm working on my PPL out of University of California, Davis college campus airpot (KEDU). The rates are the best in the area and they have CFI/CFII onsite. You can fly to SF bay and back in an hour or so. You can fly west and look for the marine layer if you want to practice IMC. Or you can fly east and enjoy the Sierra's. You can also fly up/down the coast and enjoy California's dramatic coast lines. Flying out of central California gives you a wide range of climates without traveling too far. You'll have many flying days due to great weather.

http://www.calaggieflyers.com/ratesmembership.html
 
I love the climate in California. The politics and the traffic, not so much. Arizona would be a bit much for a guy from Iceland but they do have great gun laws there.
 
I've done some flying in Florida, and for pure hour building, I would go elsewhere.
FL gets very boring quickly if you just go up and down the coast. Also, many schools in FL have very strict rules about hour building, and many of them will pair you with someone for "hour building".

Also: DO NOT PAY IN ADVANCE IN FLORIDA! The schools there come and go. I was bitten by this and lost almost 2k last July when school decided to close their doors 2 weeks after I started my training and paid in full. That school had been going since 1991, so even a long history is not proof of stability.

If you find an owner willing to rent his plane for that, that would probably be ideal.
 
Art VanDelay said:
I love the climate in California. The politics and the traffic, not so much. Arizona would be a bit much for a guy from Iceland but they do have great gun laws there.
Click to expand...

Did you REALLY answer a question about weather and flying with guns? That's a bit of a concerning fixiation.
 
bartmc said:
I know a guy in Montana who'll rent you a Cessna 150 for $60/hr WET. Take a tent and camp at the airport. If you need some complex time, he's got a cutlass too that rents at a good rate (i don't recall the exact number, something like $100/hr wet).
Click to expand...


That sounds like an adventure, camping at an airport for a month :)

The price sounds wery reasonable, but does he have just one cessna 150? Because I can´t go to the US betting everything on one horse. And the complex plane is probably more expensive than what I have in mind.
 
ice_air said:
That sounds like an adventure, camping at an airport for a month :)

The price sounds wery reasonable, but does he have just one cessna 150? Because I can´t go to the US betting everything on one horse. And the complex plane is probably more expensive than what I have in mind.
Click to expand...

You're going to have a hard time finding a 172 for $100 wet. It's not unheard of, but it's low. It's VERY low for a 172RG (assuming that Cutlass is really a Cutlass RG -- actual Cutlasses are not complex).

If that's your budget, go for the 150. Seriously.
 
Great advice about paying in advance. The best I'd do is maybe a 10 hour block, but nothing more.

mtuomi said:
I've done some flying in Florida, and for pure hour building, I would go elsewhere.
FL gets very boring quickly if you just go up and down the coast. Also, many schools in FL have very strict rules about hour building, and many of them will pair you with someone for "hour building".

Also: DO NOT PAY IN ADVANCE IN FLORIDA! The schools there come and go. I was bitten by this and lost almost 2k last July when school decided to close their doors 2 weeks after I started my training and paid in full. That school had been going since 1991, so even a long history is not proof of stability.

If you find an owner willing to rent his plane for that, that would probably be ideal.
Click to expand...
 
We have a lot of timebuilders at my flight school from various parts of the world. They seem to enjoy it, and the $90/hr Cherokees certainly help too.
 
I dont know what happened to the other answer I posted.. guess it decided not to be.

But thanks for the many replies. I´ve been checking out these schools and clubs you guys posted, and the petaluma f. ex. sounds good..

Do you have anything to say about this one? http://www.flighttimebuilding.com/index.html

About the cutlass, I had no idea what a normal rent on that would be, just thought it would be a lot more expensive. The prices I´ve been looking at are around $85 up to $120, for 150, 152, 172 and warriors. So of course the plane for $60 got my attention..
 
bartmc said:
I know a guy in Montana who'll rent you a Cessna 150 for $60/hr WET. Take a tent and camp at the airport. If you need some complex time, he's got a cutlass too that rents at a good rate (i don't recall the exact number, something like $100/hr wet).
Click to expand...


Key word Montana lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
If you can fit in a 152, the school here in northern/central CA (near Sacramento) has them for $84.00/hour wet. They have a few in the fleet in case one is out for maintenance. Get the cali coast, the valley, delta, large cities, and mountain ranges. It's like being in 4 states.
 
ice_air said:
I dont know what happened to the other answer I posted.. guess it decided not to be.
Click to expand...
As a new member you didn't have quite enough posts to add a link you your post. You should be OK now.
 
PTS out of Tamiami has a decent 172M for $100 wet.
 
ice_air said:
[...] Do you have anything to say about this one? http://www.flighttimebuilding.com/index.html
[...]
Click to expand...

Just be aware, that the adverticed prices are dry rates.
They seem to be located at the Massey Ranch Airpark. Their current price for AVGAS is $5.12: http://www.airnav.com/airport/X50
A 152 consumes about 5.5 gal. / h: 5.5 gal. * $5.12 = $28.16 in addition to the advertised rate for the 152 of $59 = $87.16

I think, that this is pretty comon price, which you will also find at a lot of other flight school.

Now, if you really insist on going to America's largest retirement community :wink2: , the flight school Florida Flyers might also be an option - this is where I got my ticket: http://www.florida-flyers.com/equipment.php

They have 9 Cessna 152 and a lot of other planes, including 172RGs. The flight school is located at the KSGJ airport in St. Augustine, which is also a pretty nice litte town. They also offer a discounts for time building pilots, I am however not aware, what the current conditions are. Their undiscounted rate for a wet 152 is $89.

What you might also want to take into consideration, especially if you go cheap (you usually get what you pay for), is that if the flight school only has a single plane of the type you are interested in, that in case it brakes down, you might have to use one of their other, more expensive planes or could be entirely grounded - especially, if they don't run their own maintance business. Also, they might need it for other customers, what could limit your flexibility.

By the way, if it matters to you as a tourist - even though the gun laws in Florida are not as good as in Arizona, they are still a lot better than in California. High capacity mags are also legal. :yes: :wink2: Open-carrying is prohibited, though. :rolleyes:

Cheers,

Oliver
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top