Weekend flight schools or extended flight schools

M

muleywannabe

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Independence, Kansas
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Cherokee235
Anyone have any recommendations? It would be fun to go to an extended weekend school to put in more hours and a different perspective. I know there are a few in the Dallas area, which is not too overly far from me. I am currently flying on average, 3 hours a week. Typically a thursday, saturday type pattern because my instructor has a real job as well and is only free thursday, friday and saturday's. thank you in advance
 
What are you training for? Private? Instrument? Commercial? Multiengine? Flight or ground training?
 
I am sorry, private training. I have 6 hours roughly now and always thought it would be neat to fly new places and learn at different places. Then again, I do not want to burn myself out either. My CFI is awesome, he and I get along great, would just be good to increase my time some, when available due to weather restrictions and so on.
 
Retention suffers when you cram stuff in too quickly.

As for training "somewhere else," that's going to happen anyway, to some extent. I'll suggest that you're adding variables you don't need to, early.

While I've seen a couple of examples of working multiple-instructor solutions, they have always been for instrument training, and are less than optimal. It seems to make things take longer.

I'll suggest focusing on learning to fly -- for now, to solo -- and leaving the other stuff for later. That will keep your hands full enough. While you're likely to go to neighboring airports on occasion prior to that, the navigation part is after solo. And it's more work than you think, not a time to be trying to learn the flare and how to square off a pattern.
 
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You really need more than a weekend ground school to truly absorb and understand the info. There are a number of computer based courses that are very well done. They allow you to go at your own pace and your own timeframe.
Some people prefer an actual classroom course, but those are harder to find. The problem there is finding one that fits into your schedule.
A weekend course is intended to be an intense prep session for the written exam.
So my recommendation is get a computer based ground school course.
I teach at a Cessna Pilot Center and we use the King Private/Sport Pilot course ($349), and have had very good success with it.
 
For the flight training for your Private ticket, I would recommend against trying to train in more than one location or with more than one instructor. Nothing wrong with doing all the training at a remote location with a single training provider, giving it, say, 3 full days of ground and flight training every weekend, but at your stage of training, doing it at longer intervals like every other weekend (thus going 10-12 days or more between training sessions) will allow too much degradation between training sessions. Better to do 2-3 shorter sessions per week locally.

OTOH, doing a 2-3 day ground school "cram course" just before taking the written will help you score better on the written.

And, of course, getting a couple of "stage checks" along the way with a second instructor is also a good idea, but only in coordination with your main instructor.
 
I recently had a student attend a nationally advertised weekend ground school, and sat in a portion. Would not reccomend.
 
I think weekend ground schools for the PPL can be good provided you have taken a course such as King, Gleim etc or even a weekly ground school. The weekend schools essentially serve as a refresher prior to taking the test. I would not advise just doing a weekend cram school to learn the subject area.
 
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