Advice for the New Student: How to Maximize Your Training and Minimize Your Cost

Part 1: Training Schedule

By Gene Benson

Any new flight student is vulnerable to receiving inferior flight training and to paying a premium price for it. That is not to say that the majority of flight schools and flight instructors are somehow dishonest. Most are not. But, unfortunately, an extraordinarily high percentage of new flight students fail to receive their pilot certificates in a timely and economically justifiable manner. Even worse, some individuals who do complete their training are really not safe pilots.

That was a pretty negative first paragraph for an article on an aviation web site. Oh well, I tell it like I see it. I also try to fix problems in this industry that I hold dear. The best way that I know to help fix this serious training problem is to provide some information to new flight students.

In this article, I will address most of the common problems found in flight training and offer suggestions on how the flight student might overcome them. This article is mainly aimed at the new flight student, or the student struggling to earn a Private Pilot Certificate. Individuals who have moved on to more advanced training have most likely already learned these lessons the hard way. If you are one of these individuals, please send me your stories. If you disagree with anything I say here, please also let me know about that.

Now that all that introductory stuff is out of the way, let's begin by cutting the hype spewed forth by those with a financial interest in recruiting new students. Learning to fly is a serious, academic, and skill-oriented activity. At the end of the training the newly certificated pilot will be entitled to take a machine weighing more than a ton, load it with passengers, and hurtle above the earth at speeds in excess of 100 mph. That is not something to be taken lightly. Any individual who enters flight training with any attitude other than that of wanting to become the best pilot that he or she can become, should not begin the program. Isn't it fortunate that I don't have to make a living selling training programs?

Now that half of my readers have clicked off this article, I will continue for those people who want to become good pilots and want to do it efficiently.

The first step is not how to choose a flight school, but rather to determine whether this is the right time in the person's life to embark on such a project. Learning to fly is a time and resource consuming activity. Regarding time, I would consider two flight lessons per week an absolute minimum. Each lesson will require at least two hours at the airport to get a one hour lesson. Additionally, the student should be prepared to spend at least one hour of study time for each hour spent with the instructor. That will equate to a total of at least six hours per week. Add to this the time spent driving to the airport. Regarding resources, costs vary by region of the country, but a new, competent, Private Pilot will most likely have spent a minimum of $6500 in the process. If either the time or the financial resources are not readily available, the decision to begin flight training should probably be deferred until a later time.

With the time and financial commitment under control, should training be done on a full-time or part-time basis? Full-time training has a tremendous benefit. Any individual with a choice of this concentrated training versus the more traditional couple of flights per week approach should train full-time. However, this isn't always possible and one has to play the cards as they are dealt. With the need to juggle the commitments of jobs and families, most people will settle for training part-time. This will work out fine providing the part time doesn't become sporadic.

An important element in human learning is forgetting. The more frequently learned material, including psychomotor skills, are repeated, the better they will take hold. Therefore, two lessons per day will cement the skill and knowledge better than one lesson per day. One lesson per day will cement the skill and knowledge better than three lessons per week. Three lessons per week will cement the skill and knowledge better than two lessons per week, and so on. Some students seem to have the idea that there is a finite number of flight hours to be flown to earn the pilot certificate. Of course, this simply isn't true. The prospective pilot must achieve a specified level of proficiency in many areas to be able to pass the practical examination. The less frequently the training flight s are conducted, the larger the effect of forgetting what has been learned on previous lessons. This equates to more flight hours and, of course, more expense.

In my more than thirty years as a general aviation flight instructor, I have trained many students who are enrolled in full-time programs. I have also trained many students on a part-time basis. The fact that the students who fly less frequently than twice per week require substantially more training hours and have a greatly reduced rate of completion. In fact, I believe, though I can't substantiate this with hard statistics, that students who begin the training process with the intent of flying fewer than two times per week have only about a 10% completion rate.

I also recommend going one step farther. Let's say that a student has the time and financial means to train three times per week. It is much better to arrange a fixed schedule with the flight school and instructor than it is to try and fit into the existing schedule on a relatively short term basis. Locking in, for example, every Tuesday at 8:00 AM, every Thursday at 5:00 PM, and every Saturday at 2:00 PM, is more likely to provide a consistent training regimen. Varying the time of day will help to provide training in a variety of wind and lighting conditions. Obviously, the schedule must consider the time of year relative to the available daylight. The schedule will need to change once cross-country flying begins and to accommodate night flying requirements, but it's important to get off to a solid start.