Why did I do Part 141?

Jaybird180

Jaybird180

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Jaybird180
I'm a student, studying for my Private SEL at a Part 141 School. I expected to go on to my Instrument Rating afterwards, and so logically (I thought) enrolled in a Part 141 course as opposed to Part 61.


Now that I've realized that I've spent about $6,000 more (and not yet done), I hear that a P61 Private Pilot also has the P141 Instrument course available to him same as me.


I don't regret learning to fly, but I am beginning to feel a bit of buyer's remorse (lack of knowledge/ understanding bites every time). My preferred P61 school is 30 mins closer to home and I figure I would have saved ~$6,000 along the way.


So, my question is: What do I get for the extra time, money, hassle, etc? What are my advantages? Why shouldn't I leave the P141 program and finish up P61?
 
If you go to P61 won't you have to prove to a whole new school/CFI that you know how to do stuff? May cost you $500-600 to do so or more.

If you have a lack of knowledge it may be your CFI. If you talk to the head honcho they may be able to switch you to someone else who can pick up where your other one left off.
 
Shiny brochure?

Jaybird180 said:
So, my question is: What do I get for the extra time, money, hassle, etc? What are my advantages?
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You get to be instructed by CFIs who have ZERO experience extracting cross country utility from light aircraft, across fronts and in a wide variety of weather systems.
Why shouldn't I leave the P141 program and finish up P61?
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OMG! You're going to save five hours of instruction! why would you ever leave a 141 program?


Seriously, the way to do this is almost always in a part 61 program. See if you can ping Marty Mayes on this topic.
 
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Who is this person that you speak of? If you know him, can you send him a link to this thread?
 
A casual observer might think that you asked this question about $6k too late.

Jaybird180 said:
I'm a student, studying for my Private SEL at a Part 141 School. I expected to go on to my Instrument Rating afterwards, and so logically (I thought) enrolled in a Part 141 course as opposed to Part 61.


Now that I've realized that I've spent about $6,000 more (and not yet done), I hear that a P61 Private Pilot also has the P141 Instrument course available to him same as me.


I don't regret learning to fly, but I am beginning to feel a bit of buyer's remorse (lack of knowledge/ understanding bites every time). My preferred P61 school is 30 mins closer to home and I figure I would have saved ~$6,000 along the way.


So, my question is: What do I get for the extra time, money, hassle, etc? What are my advantages? Why shouldn't I leave the P141 program and finish up P61?
Click to expand...
 
VA will pay for 60% of your flight training at a p141....but I don't think this applies. Thanks for posting so others don't make the same mistake.
 
I was never a huge fan of 141. I could have gotten a commercial at 190 hours instead of 250, but I had already gotten my Private so some of that saving was negated.
 
What reg you train under (61 or 141) matters much less (to the point of insignificance) than the quality of the instructor you work with - at least for the private. For the instrument/commercial stuff, 141 may be a requirement of whoever is paying for it (if it's not you).

But you CAN find good instructors at 141 schools and bad instructors at 61 schools, and vice versa.
 
I'm not a fan of Part 141 schools and don't see much of an advantage to them. Of course, I've done all my ratings Part 61, and have managed to get them all done in the minimum times allowed by the FAA, except for when I decided to wait longer.

A good Part 61 instructor, even now, will likely get you done very quickly. I had a friend who came to me with 120+ hours at his school, which trained everyone to their 141 book even if they were a 61 student. I finished him up in about 10 hours, and would've done it in 5, but we pretty much spent 5 hours flying around for the fun of it and getting him some more advanced stuff.

If you're not at the point of being done yet, those hours will probably be enough to finish you up on requirements.
 
What Tim Said, it really depends on the school and instructors.
I have taught both Part 61 and P141. For me up to Solo is almost no difference after solo Part 61 gets a bit more flexiable and I have to do less paper work for P61.

The problem I see with larger 141 schools and the instructors that are products of them is that they are really good at teaching proceedures but not so good a teaching the why. This Is ok and maybe prefered for teaching 1st Officers for the airlines in a minimum amount of time. But it is also why we have pilots that think No Flap landings are an emergency proceedure.

Brian
CFIIG/ASEL
 
I used part 61 for my PP and part 141 for the IR. I chose the 141 school for the IR for a few reasons one was the availability of multiple aircraft so I could fly more often. The second was that my local CFI and school was just that a CFI. The third was the reduced PIC requirement for the IR underpart 141.
 
The only real good reason I know for doing your training under Part 141 is because someone providing funding for your training, or the university at which you are studying, requires it. Other than that, you should get just as good training under Part 61 as you would under Part 141 at the same flight school.

The one exception to this is the Instrument rating, which you can obtain with 35 hours of instrument instruction under Part 141 right on top of your PPL without getting the 50 hours of XC PIC.
 
dmccormack said:
For certain, select military members enlisted or commissioned during certain years.
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Or anybody with the GI bill and available funds - I got my Inst/Comm/Multi with it and if I'd had the sense I would have done the CFI back then too.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I had a friend who came to me with 120+ hours at his school, which trained everyone to their 141 book even if they were a 61 student.
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120 towards his Private?

There's a large school near here that takes folks out and does .5 taxi practice on bad days.

Lots and lots of pointless logged hours there.
 
dmccormack said:
120 towards his Private?

There's a large school near here that takes folks out and does .5 taxi practice on bad days.

Lots and lots of pointless logged hours there.
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This guy had several things going against him. The biggest one was that he started and stopped over the course of about 5 years. To give you an idea, he had started his training before me, and I was the CFI to sign him off.

However, the school he was at I blame for probably the last 50 hours or so. When I got him, he was more than qualified to pass the check ride, but his instructor back home kept on saying "You need to get these just a little better." The 3 hours required dual for me to sign him off was more than enough to brush him up. Since I'd never seen him do night work or XC work, I made him do that, as well, and a few other more advanced things. I think he learned a lot from those, and I believe he thinks so, too. Certainly more valuable than going around the pattern another 10 hours.
 
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I went to a Part 141 school but their prices were in line with other part 61 schools. Are 141s typically more expensive?

I paid $95 an hour wet for the plane, $50 an hour for the instructor, and the checkride was given by the base chief at $50 an hour with no extra test fee.
 
In my case, I had the option of a Part 61 that would have worked out better financially. I went into the 141 knowing I would spend more but thinking I would make it up on the Instrument ticket. That's what I told myself everytime I wrote a check.

I think at least maybe I've learned some humility. And that's priceless.
 
Jaybird180 said:
I'm a student, studying for my Private SEL at a Part 141 School. I expected to go on to my Instrument Rating afterwards, and so logically (I thought) enrolled in a Part 141 course as opposed to Part 61.


Now that I've realized that I've spent about $6,000 more (and not yet done), I hear that a P61 Private Pilot also has the P141 Instrument course available to him same as me.


I don't regret learning to fly, but I am beginning to feel a bit of buyer's remorse (lack of knowledge/ understanding bites every time). My preferred P61 school is 30 mins closer to home and I figure I would have saved ~$6,000 along the way.


So, my question is: What do I get for the extra time, money, hassle, etc? What are my advantages? Why shouldn't I leave the P141 program and finish up P61?
Click to expand...


Dont feel bad, they get lots of people. Accept it, treat it as a learning experience. The lesson here would be this: Before you buy or contract anything, research, research, research. If you are going for a career, and get a package price, the part 141 school can actually be competitive, but for individual ratings its not very cost effective.
 
Where could I have found this in the regs, that PP 141 has no bearing on IR 141?
 
Jaybird180 said:
Where could I have found this in the regs, that PP 141 has no bearing on IR 141?
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You won't find it directly. It's the lack of any requirement in Part 141 or its course-specific appendices to have completed one's PP under 141 in order to enroll in a Part 141 IR course.
 
I see said the blind man, as he picked up his hammer and saw.
 
In the grand scheme of things, 6 AMUs really isn't that much when dealing with airplanes. I wouldn't loose any sleep about it. If you are loosing sleep about it, aviation may not be the thing for you.
 
Sorry Bub, I don't scare that easy. But I would like to know what's an AMU? I assume that it's equivalent to $1,000
 
Jaybird180 said:
Sorry Bub, I don't scare that easy. But I would like to know what's an AMU? I assume that it's equivalent to $1,000
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Correct, Aviation Monetary Unit. It's a code we pilots use so our wives dont know how much we are really spending on airplane stuff. Please let me know when you have read this so i can delete this post, lest we inform said wives.
 
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