American Flyers Test Prep

Has anyone taken the IFR written test prep from American Flyers? I'm
looking for some input on it. I was thinking of taking the Aviation
Seminar course, but its not held very often, making it much less
convenient.

URL http://www.americanflyers.net/about/writtenclass.asp

Thanks

"mark" wrote in message
m...
Has anyone taken the IFR written test prep from American Flyers? I'm
looking for some input on it. I was thinking of taking the Aviation
Seminar course, but its not held very often, making it much less
convenient.

URL http://www.americanflyers.net/about/writtenclass.asp

Thanks

I used to work for AF and sat in on several classes about 10 years ago. The
company provided me IFR training, including the IFR test prep weekend class.
I thought the class offered many tips and tricks that would be helpful
during the written test. The days are rather long, 8a-5p, and far too many
people in class think the class is about learning real life IFR or
discussing prudent IFR practices. The class is about passing the written
test, nothing more. It's not a place to discuss the merits of FAA answers,
FAA enforcement action, I learned about flying from..., etc.

I can't judge if the weekend ground school classes, as they were called back
then, are worth the current price or not. That answer depends on how much
difficulty you have/anticipate learning the material. Frankly, I don't
think I would pay any money for written test prep. I'm convinced I could
learn to pass an FAA test on Chinese history, conducted in Mandarin just by
the technique I've used for all other FAA tests.

My technique for passing the written test, and not real life, is to buy the
ASA test book that has nothing but the questions and the multiple choice
selections. There is one flavor of book that is strictly Q&A and another
that has the question and then relevant study material intersperced. I
prefer the Q&A for test purposes only. Read through each question and
highlight the correct answer and ignore the others selections. Go as fast
or slow as your schedule and attention allow, repeat if necessary. I passed
the Flight Engineer test, far above any real flying I have done, along with
the mechanic tests using this method. Don't use this method if you expect
to learn a damn thing about real flying. That learning must be done using
quality books/materials and competent instructors. If you can seperate the
skills/techniques for real life and FAA tests this method will work like a
charm and cost about $20.

I'd say you can get 99.9% of the value of the in-person weekend class from
DVD, if offered. It seems the DVD course is the same price as the weekend
class, but it's obviously more convenient. About the only thing you will
miss using the DVDs are the free donuts and coffee

--
Scott

W reelected, Daschle defeated, Arafat dying, and it's not even Christmas
yet!

I haven't taken the course but while I was working on my checkride
with AF I had dinner with a guy who flew into Chicago DuPage to take
the weekend course. His opinion was that it was fine as long as you
understand that the sole purpose of the course is to pass the written.
But this is also true of most of the home training guides such as
King, Sportys. My flight instruction there was first class though
expensive. One thing I liked was the ability to schedule time on
short notice. It's also good to fly with more than one instructor, I
think.