Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: muckmaw on July 20, 2004, 05:12:13 PM
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Experienced pilots...
Your opinion would be helpful.
Should I go to ground school for $299.00 (Books included)
or buy a Sportys or King Video course?
If you say video, please recommend a series.
Thanks in advance.
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Ground school. Videos don't answer questions, and you'll have a lot of those once you start classes.
Daniel
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Definitely ground school for private. Aside from access to the instructor, it's good to be around other students at that stage.
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Bah...the written is easy. Multiple choice and the FAA gives you all the freaking questions in ADVANCE! OK, so there are 750 they can pull from, but many are simply variations on the same base set of questions.
My suggestion: find an online course. They will have CFIs who can answer questions via email. And when you complete the course, they will send you the endorsement to take the written. If there is an area that you need special help, you can talk to your regular CFI. Besides you need ground school time from your CFI in your logbook before the check ride anyway.
BTW, there are a couple of free websites that have practice test generators. Use those too.
Google away...
:aok
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Use Ebay, get the videos.
Go to the ground school. Avoid your local flight school mom and paps ground school. A solid Private ground school, will make your commercial ground school just a review.
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The videos are ok for those who do not have a good ground school available. I'd go to the school whith a live instructor rather than a video.
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I'd go with a good accredited ground school...ask around. Nothing beats having a "real" person to ask questions of, and to have the ability for them to relay their real life experiences based on those questions.
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Depends on you. I spread my 45 flying hours out over 10 years. Completed ground school twice, once via cassette tapes and once in classroom. I'd go the web based training route and may do so if I ever pick it back up again.
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ground school. you will have questions and they can answer it one site. no waiting for email.
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As an afterthought.... Ask if your school is a Cessna Pilot Center (CPC). If so, you might want to look into the Cessna "Cleared for Takeoff" kit. It's a good addition to a ground school and has video clips shot from inside the plane of what's going to happen each lesson. A lot of places will cut you a deal on the price if taken concurrently with a ground school.
Be wary of any course or school that has you memorize answers for the written exam. The FAA has caught on to this and will be randomizing the questions very soon.
Private and instrument are the most difficult ratings unless you get into your CFI(s). Reasons being;
At the private level you're getting into a whole new world. It's the most important time to be sure you're learning the right things and good habits. Less than a third of the pilots in the U.S. advance to any higher ratings.
At the instrument level, you get some in depth "If you don't respect it, it'll kill you" stuff. Get a real good instructor for this one.
If you get into your commercial ratings and had a good instructor for your private, it's all basically review with tighter tolerances on maneuvers.
Well, you also get to learn some new really fun maneuvers. :)
Another big advantage to a ground school is hanger flying with the other students. You can learn a lot just by listening to what they're doing right or wrong. Maybe even hookup with someone to trade off riding backseat with so you can learn for free.
If you have any specific questions, feel free to pm or email me.
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Thanks alot guys.
As usual, alot of great advice on this subject.
I may never ask you fellas who I should vote for but when it comes to flying......