Wed Jan 30, 2019 2:15 am
#1669951
Hello all! Fair warning, long post!
New member here but have been lurking for a short while now. I'm considering taking up flying for real and maybe even a career later on, but due to the high costs, I'd rather not look at the end goal right now and just focus on PPL and maybe getting a few friends on a few sightseeing flights, spread the love for aviation and stuff.
A bit of background: I've wanted to fly since I was little but somehow it never happened so while dealing with RL responsibilities, I naturally turned to PC gaming and flight simulations. However, most of my flight sim time is with combat flight sims and very little GA flying at all. I'm now in my mid-30's and somehow I managed to get a couple of trial flights and some glider experience and something in my brain just clicked and now I'm thinking of doing this for real one way or another.
So for the past few years, I've been looking around at flight schools in my local area. My local airfields are Durham Tees Valley (20min) and Newcastle (45min) airports. I've attended the Pilot Careers event in Heathrow last November and, along with what I've observed in my area and have read on various sites, I'm a bit worried about taking the first step in my training.
Basically, how do I choose a flight school?
Please keep in mind that I would very much love to have the option of going commercial later on, but just focusing on one-step-at-a-time so PPL for now. However, I've read/seen a lot of posts about dodgy schools, some of them going out of business after a few years due to the owner running away with the money or poor business sense (two of which happened in Durham Tees, I think!) but even more worrisome is how some of them are still operating!
So please allow me some silly questions:
Part of my flight sim hobby is assembling my own PC and knowing how to pick parts for it and I've had a few friends come to me for advice and I would facepalm at their choices or their reasoning, but this is coming from a proper enthusiast vs. someone who just reads the spiel on a glossy website. I expect me to be the "stupid friend" here so please be gentle and I apologize in advance for any facepalm reactions I elicit. I appreciate that some things can be blatantly obvious for those with significant knowledge in the subject and here I am totally clueless
Thank you for reading!
New member here but have been lurking for a short while now. I'm considering taking up flying for real and maybe even a career later on, but due to the high costs, I'd rather not look at the end goal right now and just focus on PPL and maybe getting a few friends on a few sightseeing flights, spread the love for aviation and stuff.
A bit of background: I've wanted to fly since I was little but somehow it never happened so while dealing with RL responsibilities, I naturally turned to PC gaming and flight simulations. However, most of my flight sim time is with combat flight sims and very little GA flying at all. I'm now in my mid-30's and somehow I managed to get a couple of trial flights and some glider experience and something in my brain just clicked and now I'm thinking of doing this for real one way or another.
So for the past few years, I've been looking around at flight schools in my local area. My local airfields are Durham Tees Valley (20min) and Newcastle (45min) airports. I've attended the Pilot Careers event in Heathrow last November and, along with what I've observed in my area and have read on various sites, I'm a bit worried about taking the first step in my training.
Basically, how do I choose a flight school?
Please keep in mind that I would very much love to have the option of going commercial later on, but just focusing on one-step-at-a-time so PPL for now. However, I've read/seen a lot of posts about dodgy schools, some of them going out of business after a few years due to the owner running away with the money or poor business sense (two of which happened in Durham Tees, I think!) but even more worrisome is how some of them are still operating!
So please allow me some silly questions:
- What should I look for in a flight school to know that it's good? It seems like shiny offices and clean aircraft aren't the cues to look for!
- What questions should I ask and whom? Talking to the PR lady and talking to students can give very different results but how can I contact students? Just hang about the school?
- What are the cues that would tell me to stay away from a flight school? I've been to a couple of open evenings from flight schools that ended up closing shop soon afterwards and I had no clue about it until I either read about it on a forum site or visiting the airport again only to find the school gone!
Part of my flight sim hobby is assembling my own PC and knowing how to pick parts for it and I've had a few friends come to me for advice and I would facepalm at their choices or their reasoning, but this is coming from a proper enthusiast vs. someone who just reads the spiel on a glossy website. I expect me to be the "stupid friend" here so please be gentle and I apologize in advance for any facepalm reactions I elicit. I appreciate that some things can be blatantly obvious for those with significant knowledge in the subject and here I am totally clueless
Thank you for reading!