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Old August 22nd 06, 11:53 AM posted to rec.aviation.ifr
David Cartwright
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Posts: 16
Default Cost Savings for PPL

"oscarm" wrote in message
oups.com...
I give my self a
target that in 45 hours I will get my PPL, It sounds funy but flight
simulator really helps me on practice and understanding how the system
works.


PC-based flight sims can be a very useful tool. I found them particularly
useful when I was doing my IMC rating (a UK-specific cut-down alternative to
the instrument rating) because it helps you get used to setting beacon
frequencies, identifying stations, setting up approaches, flying the ILS or
ADF indicators, and so on. Do remember, though, that the PC simulator can
let you get away with some pretty horrific manoeuvres that when tried in
real life could well get you (a) arrested or (b) killed!

In this school I have to spent at least 30 hour dual flight until they
release me a solo, and learn about the radio communications and trafic
pattern on the very last section.


Blimey. You should smell a rat. Over here in the UK, you can get a National
PPL with just over 30 hours total time! I went solo after 13 hours, and the
majority of students I know have done so before 20 hours. If they're not
letting you solo until 30 hours, there's something weird going on.

Also, you should be doing at least a part of the radio communications within
5-10 hours. The way my instructor did it was to give me a few lessons to
figure out how this flying concept works, then to get me to do more and more
radio as time went by. So initially it might be asking for taxi, take-off
and landing clearances, then handovers from one controller to another, then
something else, and so on and so on, eventually doing practice emergency
calls and training fixes (where you actually talk on the emergency
frequencies and simulate an emergency).

Is this a good program or jsut trying
to get as much as hour from me. I heart a rumors that the Instructor
also wants you fly as much as possible so they will earn the hours
while I am paying it.


Depends on the type of instructor you have. In order to get airline
transport licences, a pilot has to have a certain number of hours as
pilot-in-command of an aircraft; one way of getting these hours is to spend
them sitting beside a student, because the student's paying for the rent of
the aircraft. This doesn't automatically mean that the instructor is bad -
I've been with three hours-building instructors of this type who were all
excellent - but in some cases the instructor doesn't give a stuff and is
just using the role to build his or her hours (and a friend of mine has
suffered at the hands of one of those).

Please I need your Input. My Budget only $3,000. This is something that
I always wanted to do, but since I jsut have a baby I have to shrink
the budget.


You'll be doing well to fit it into $3,000 with any school, but the school
you're describing sounds like it'll be way more expensive.

David C