Choosing a Flight School

Choosing the right flight school for your needs is 50% of the battle as far as ending up at the right place with the right people there to support you. Here are some bullet points that can help you to build your own list of priorities in order to make the decision more straighforward:

1. Location: The flight school shouldn't be so far from your home or work that you consider the travel to and from the airport to be a chore. Although I've never thought that this would be an issue personally, because I've never had anything but a strong desire to show up and learn, some people might decide to bail on a lesson- or even quit altogether- if the drive time and traffic becomes too much to bear. Today's gas prices only compound the issue.

Location isn't just about travel time either. Consider other factors, such as airspace for example. Many people will wisely, in my opinion, travel a little farther away from a large city in order to train at a slightly less busy airport. Personally, I can't imagine trying to learn at an airport like BWI for example- the distraction would be too great, and the new skills and workload required just to get off the ground might faze some students. Experienced pilots usually avoid flying GA aircraft into major class bravo international airports (e.g. BWI, Dulles, Reagan National; LAX, SFO, DIA, you get the idea)- that should tell you something. Another side effect of airspace is whether or not the airport has a tower. The presence or absence of a tower has a double-edged effect- on one hand, it might be good, because as a student, you will be well versed in dealing with a tower once you get your ticket. On the other hand, it might take time (and in aviation, time REALLY IS money) to travel away from a busy towered airport to get to a practice area, where maneuvering flight (a fancy name for when we do fun stuff besides flying straight and level) can be safely performed. Having to burn some fuel and $ and instructor time just to "get over there" to do stalls for example might be viewed as wasted money.

Another side effect of location and airspace is operating procedures for entry and exit from the airport- and in this case, I'm specifically referring to the Washington DC special flight rules. This extra layer of actions that are required on the part of any pilot can complicate your flying lessons a bit, and any extra layers of frustration can lead down the path to quitting before the student completes their training.

2.  Instructors: Although I will be writing a subsequent piece on how to approach the task of picking an instructor, some general ideas can be brought up at this point. From the general flight school perspective, you should look to pick a school that has a large pool of instructors, so that if your primary instructor is sick or goes on vacation or whatever manner of short term disappearance, you can grab another instructor and still make your flight (in these cases, sometimes grabbing one of the most experienced instructors in order to get feedback on your peformance is a great idea). A small school with only one or two instructors not only minimizes or eliminates this possibility, but a school of such a size screams out to me that the school might not be making a lot of money, and they might not even be in business for much longer (which is why ANY prepaid training plans should be viewed with skepticism, in my opinion).

 3. Aircraft: This one is easy. You will feel more comfortable and get more satisfaction training in newer, better equipped, and more modern aircraft. This is true for both your training flights and the flying that you will inevitably (hopefully!) be doing once you get your license. Mom and dad and Grandmom and your nephew etc. will be more at ease getting their first flight with you in a newer looking airplane.

That is not to say that at some point you will likely fly an airplane older than you are! Typically this will happen when you need a specific type of airplane for specific training- for instance, if you need an airplane with retractable landing gear, or a multiengine airplane. These sorts of fancier expensive airplanes are less common in rental fleets, and the older ones simply cost less for their owners to acquire and lease back. Older aircraft are generally viewed with skepticism from the perspective of safety by the general public, but anyone that has been flying for a while knows that age has little to do with safety, comfort, features, etc. when it comes to flying.

What is more important than aircraft age is how well the airplane has been maintained- and for that matter, updated as well- such as paint, interior, and avionics. Have a look over the school's fleet and check for dents, cracks, bald tires, MAJOR oil leaks, poor windows, ratty seats, and the like. If nothing screams out at you- even with a relatively untrained eye- that's a good indication that the hidden parts of the plane, for instance the important parts like inside the engine and airframe, are in good condition.

Also, it makes sense to pick a flight school that has a large number (let's say, more than two) of the make and model of airplane that you will be flying. This is helpful simply from the perspective of trying to maximize your chances to fly, based on schedule availability.

If anything else pops into my head, I'll put it up later.

NASA ASRS Callback Newsletter

If you'd like to read about the mistakes that other pilots are making- because, let's face it, we all make mistakes- and it's a great way to learn from others- you can get a regular newsletter in your inbox with concise reports on what's going on:

http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/publications/callback.html

I recommend this site and their email newsletter to all of my students. These reports are taken from the ASRS reports that pilots send in when a mistake is made and they want to report it to an impartial third party (NASA) in order to potentially receive amnesty from any FAA enforcement action, should the event become known to the FAA. NASA acts as an intermediary when a report is filed, and they remove any identifying information from the reports that they receive, so that no one- not even the FAA- can track the report back to its source.