We are often asked for ways to save money on flight training and this week we share our thoughts! Too often new students come to us asking questions about how best to go about training while hanging on to as much of their money as possible. Hopefully, this show helps many future pilots do just that!
We have been asked a number of times to put together a show on how to best tackle the economics of flight training. There are MANY opinions here and hopefully, we share a number of ideas that will help everyone get the proper amount of training while also saving some money! In a part of this show, we tackle the question about whether you should "knock out your written" before you start training. Too often we both hear from people that have been told to knock it out, listen in, and hear what we think about that piece of advice.
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What's up, Wally? Hey Bobby, how are you? I’m good. here We are episode number nine now. We had Devin Miller on the show. That was a good show this week. based on some of the request came in for our beautiful coffee mugs that we've highlighted on social media. a Student, a number of people ask similar questions. We're kind of combining these If you haven't got your mug yet it's in the mail. We're going to talk a little bit about the economics of flight Training, Wally. It's not cheap. But there are ways the I think I can give guidance and help people save some money. I know you have years and years of experience Fight training and your two daughters of taken flight training. And I’m sure you've tried to save a few of your own bucks. Absolutely. parents come in all the time and say they help me help me save me some money. And so we're going to share a number of tips and tricks today. on Maybe how you go about attacking flight training with an economical mindset. Right.
so the big question. The one that kind of started all this this. This particular episode for us was while I get asked all the time or I see people all the time. Walking the only go. You know what I’m going to. I'm going to start flight training but I’m a couple months away. I’m going to take my written first and then I’m going to come back and see you ever heard anybody with that guidance?
I have and I’ve had a lot of people Suggest that to say go ahead and get the written out of the way. or As the faa calls, it the knowledge test. So we're going to use those terms interchangeably the written or the knowledge tests. We're all talking about the same thing. And ironically when we say the written there's really nothing written about it. It's all online. That's a little bit old school but The faa has done has gone to great lengths to Make the written or the knowledge test more relevant in the scheme of flight training, in and they're making strides. I don't think there where they want to be with it. As far as it making a whole lot of sense. I know when back in the day, When I was learning to fly and taking these knowledge tests. For my first several ratings I made seventies On all mine written tests. and then I learned how to pass the tests and then I started making nineties. If I go back and I look at my experience, I don't think I ever made an eighty something on a written test anywhere. High or low. Yeah, I was barely passing it. And then all of a sudden, I figure out the tricks to pass the test and then I was making ninety fives. and as an examiner I I’ve never really taken paid attention to The data but I think that's pretty. I think if I were to actually track the written test scores, I think the majority that I would see are in the seventies or in the nineties. You know you'd think Just statistically that about a third of your tests scores will be in the eighties. But I really don't think that's the way it turns out so I think the idea of getting the written out of the way before you even start training is It's a nice idea in that Okay that's just something you don't have to worry about. but the fact is that You just don't you just memorize answers. Yeah, and You know there's a lot of the things on the knowledge test that make are going to make a whole lot more sense if you've actually done it in the airplane. For instance If you're going to let let's just use this example: Let's say you you've got a friend who has come from a foreign country and they have never; we’ll use golf. We'll use the sport of golf since you're an avid golfer. They have never played golf. And you want to teach them how to play golf. Well you're probably not going to give him a book and say read this book. and then in three weeks will go out and we'll get a golf club and hit some balls probably pretty fast pre- pretty upfront in the process.
You're going to go outside at least out in the backyard and show okay. This is a golf club. This is the way you hold it. This is the way you swing it. You're going to let them get some hands-on stuff. so You know use that with the airplane. You want some hands-on knowledge before you start attacking the knowledge test. at least, that's my opinion.
yeah. I'm a big believer in that. As well and I don't know under which context you this question. Obviously, I get it when people are coming in here looking for a flight school there asking these questions. Normally they're saying: I was told that it'll save me a lotta money. If I do this It'll save me a lot of money. That just doesn't make sense to me at all. I think you know I like the idea of saying I could get that done, but it really is memorization. and there are no There are no time requirements for the knowledge exam. I just have to take it before. I'm endorsed to take my practical exam. Which would be the check ride. and mine My normal advice to young people and adults and parents would bring their children in I say, Look when would you take a test that you're going to be graded on and then have to speak to orally about your results. Would you take it before you ever did any flying or would you wait and do it like five to ten days before you had to take that practical exam? if there really is no timeline on it, Why would I ever take it before I finished all this training? You know I do my cross country planning probably a month into my flight training but I’m going to go take a written exam how to do cross country flight planning before I ever do any cross-country flight planning right. It really is either memorization at that point. Or you're missing the opportunity to truly understand the material. like you can't get a question that you don't understand if you really know how to do the cross-country flight planning. so I always use the example of a hold short line in this conversation. You can memorize what it looks like on a piece of paper or a chart from the faa but if you go take off three times and you stop and your instructor says see that yellow line. this It's solid on this side. We can't cross it when we're on the other side it's dashed, we're going to come across it. That's called short line. Yeah. probably going to remember what a hold short line is in in good training. They'll probably say because there's other planes coming you don't want to cross that until you're cleared across it. Right. and it's just going to make so much more practical sense than memorizing what it looks like, and then hoping the other yellow lines don't confuse you. Right. when you see them on the test right. so I don't know why would save any money. I get why people think it would maybe save you some time but it probably even costs you on the time side of that pendulum as well.
I think what it can do is it can lead to frustration. Because you're reading about things that are you know if you have never been in an airplane you're reading about things and you're being tested on things that are just theoretical things that you have not really experienced. Where actually you get in an airplane. You go: oh That's what they're talking about it. It really brings it all together and you're talking about timelines. One thing to think about there is one time line on the knowledge test Once you take the knowledge test it's only good for twenty-four calendar months. so You know someone who says okay. I'm going to go do a weekend ground school. And I’m very academically gifted person I can go and listen to two and a half days’ worth of lecture and I can pass this test okay. Now you've got this document that says you have passed the private pilot knowledge test with the with The whatever grade is long it's seventy or above. and now the clock starts ticking. You got two years to take your twenty-four calendar months to take your check ride and if it goes over a day you have to retake the knowledge test. so another reason to maybe not do that. I mean it may two years Sounds like a lot of time but While a with a lot of us life gets in the way and things happen. job Changes, you move, It's not unusual. In fact I just got a call This week about a young man whose knowledge test expires the end of the month. And he needs to get in and get a check ride. Or he's going to retake his knowledge test and of course. I got no availability. So he is in you. Know he's got to find another examiner or Retake the test.
And what's the reality that is knowledge is the same today as it was twenty-four months ago when he took that test right fairly unlikely that he knows the material as well which could lead to some proficiency and other things so.
I think we're both saying there's no sense in taking a knowledge test before you start your training start training. Learn more about what you're doing in the aircraft on the airport. What the airport operations are etc. So that that knowledge test just becomes easier and you really know the material right. The next thing I get asked: man, I get this every time as well. Just how helped me understand how I can save money and I do my best. I think there's a lot of ways that you can save money in flight training but the reality is it's also expensive so you're not going to find a cheap way. and I do hear that his who's the cheapest. I'm still surprised. People want to fly in the cheapest planes or aircraft they can find. That doesn't seem to make sense. But I get it’s a. It's a thing that we want to be cognizant of and that's what the show's all about. so a couple of things that I talk about During your primary training you need to come somewhat regularly right you. if you take the mindset of, I don't have a lot of money. I'm going to come once every two weeks. What happens to those students in your in your experience, Wall?
my experience is that the first. Let's say every flight is Just for To make it easy. Let's say the typical flight is an hour. Probably a little bit more than that but let’s say It's an hour. I would say for the typical student pilot who is coming every two weeks. You're spending the first twenty to thirty minutes of that hour rehashing What you did on your last flight. I tell I tell people that They should really try to schedule three times. A week in their private pilot training. reason being is right off the bat. You're working around four schedules: You're working around your schedule. You're working around the instructor schedule, You're working around the airplane schedule, And you're working around the weather schedule. And so I think it's statistic; I don't have statistics in front of me to back this up. But I would say that. Probably one of those three times is going to get Canceled for whatever reason life gets in the way somebody gets on the main thing are the you know the availability of airplanes: You have maintenance issues, The student in front of you came in and blew a tire and So the airplane is going to be down for an hour and a half. Well, That's your two-hour time slot. and of course weather is a big factor in different areas of the country Have different challenges for the weather. I know here in in Houston, January-February timeframe, If I go back and look at number of check rides given, I’m it's not unusual for me to do eighteen checkride in a month. But I think last January. I did one and I think last February I did two so Those are the bad weather months for us.
No doubt. So, I agree with the three times a week I also cautioned people to not come too much. There is diminishing returns That happens. if you're if you have three lessons during your primary training scheduled. You're doing a lot of stuff. Let's just equate that the three lessons at home. You're probably doing homework, studying, reading your books getting prepared depending on what stage you're at you might be doing some cross-country planning and weather checking. That's a lot of time dedicated to flight training. When it's all brand new to you. if you get to the point where you try to do five or six, I think there's this this just a diminishing of return where you can't take all that information. in your buckets only so much so big and you can only put so much in it. And I think good stuff starts flushing out of that bucket or that brain and you just can't take it all in. so I love three. There's people that have asked to do four five and six. I think some people can handle four and five but when you try to fly six times a week, you just can't take all of it. You're definitely a lose some.
I i definitely agree with that. I There are certain situations where the economics are just the logistics Cause you to have to do some more. I know I got a seaplane rating in Alaska. Probably about four or five years ago. And when I went up there, we would fly twice a day. We fly in the morning and go have lunch and then we go fly in the afternoon. but again I was traveling Four thousand or however made miles It is up to Alaska to get this done. so we were trying to maximize the logistics Behind that. but To me, three maybe four Lessons of a week would be ideal against scheduling; knowing that probably one of them is going to get Canceled for whatever reason and then of course.
Once you're into the solo phase, you remove one of the One of the elements of the scheduling Equation; you're removing the instructor from it. so you can It makes it does make things a little bit easier. but You know sometimes you see people that want to come in and fly Three hours once a week. and for some people you have to do that because of work constraints and so forth, but Really, I find that after about an hour twenty of intense training; and I’m not talking about across country I'll obviously if you do two-hundred-and-fifty-mile cross country. You're going to fly longer than a couple hours. There's no getting around that unless you're in a very fast airplane.
The other thing to think about is that we put time in a log book. We don't put hours. I mean we don't put miles in a log book so there's nothing wrong with a slow airplane. there is nothing wrong with going slow. You know some of the flight schools around here will have a say Cherokee one forties that's a slow airplane. Nothing wrong with that or are one fifty-two. You know if you can fit in it. It's a little uncomfortable for me, but Nothing wrong with going slow. because you were putting time in a logbook. We're not putting miles.
No doubt completely agrees. So the other part about just coming once a week is you take a step forward and then you take two steps back. figuring out the flare landing hard for just about everybody. if you do that once every fourteen days, It's just going to be harder. There's no question about it.
The next thing that we would I would recommend is some sort of a plan for home simulator. When we're talking about the economics of training thinking about all of it, right? so private, instrument, commercial. I would even say during private. It would definitely help you with a visual scan outside the aircraft and inside at the to just do some cross-checking but man when you get to instrument it really helps you with your skin. It really helps you lose all visual reference to the ground and you get you get some really good practice on tuning the radio, Tuning the gps, Making sure you're going the right place that you want to go; and probably get to practice things You just wouldn't feasibly practice in an aircraft. for example zero zero day in an airport trying to get down and shoot that all the way to minimums and never see the ground and go around. You're probably not going to practice that way with an instructor in an aircraft. and then you can raise it to five hundred feet. Eight hundred feet thousand feet. You can really change the outside world very quick with a simulator and get a lot of practice. to that recommendation, Those software packages cost about sixty bucks, Explainer flight simulator for Microsoft. and I would recommend buying a pretty good joystick kit That has a joystick. A throttle control of some sort. There are about one hundred fifty bucks but you need those switches and buttons to get your flow down to work through checklists, to extend the flaps, to raise the flaps. Turn the lights on. Turn lights off. You need that. I guess it's the muscle memory of moving and reaching and hitting a switch is beneficial. But you don't get a log all that time. But I try to tell people that two hundred bucks give or take is probably less than one flight lesson. And you'll get the benefits of many, many flight lessons out of that home simulator kit and something you can use forever and ever.
Yeah definitely. what about Preflight briefings? I get a lot of stick from customers and students to say man. I don't want to do ground before every lesson, Wally? and I just feel like I'm wasting my money would you would You advise that to a student pilot? I the ground is absolutely Critical. I'm a sports fan and So I use a lot of sports analogies with flying. Typically before a football team comes up to the line of scrimmage and runs a play they huddle up and they talk about what they're going to do they call the play so everybody knows what they're going to do and then. Then they try and go execute the play and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't work based on What the defense is doing. And so to me the preflight briefing is the huddle. What are we going to do today? Okay we're going to go out there we're going to do this maneuver we're going to do we're going to do, Let's say, Power off stalls.
Today, we'll maybe pull out the Acs. what does the acs say about power off stalls? What are what are the standards? What are the You know, from the instructor standpoint, What are the common mistakes? What do what do students usually Mess up? So yeah, it's definitely it puts you in the mindset of. You know instead of just getting up to the line of scrimmage and gee is the quarterback on a throw the ball to me or is he going to hand it off to the running back? so the preflight The briefing is really important and it doesn't have to be extremely formal but it ought to ought to at least be a sit down it at least ten five ten minutes I would say.
yeah, I believe we all live in a world of tenths of an hour. so I like to think of it as twelve to eighteen minutes right. You're probably going to spend point two to point three back. There are pre-fighting your flight profile with your instructor and that's valuable time. I'm an advocate. You should be paying your instructor for that consultation and That planning. what I see happen more often than not to those people who told me they didn't want to pay for that preflight ground. They actually rushed out to the plane and preflight the plane jump in. Where do you they still have to huddle they. Just don't huddle here on the ground. So they're talking about in the aircraft. They've they get to the west practice area. They fly a few circles. They spend twelve minutes in the plane talking about the things, The common mistakes, the demonstration, and they don't realize they spent point two of the Hobbs on that aircraft which is an extra twenty-five dollars on top of the instructors Time in that aircraft. Right. so it not doing that. Briefing probably cost you a lot more money than really planning that Briefing out with your Before.
as it relates to the instrument commercials students out there, The best way to put some economical thought process around the flying is to never fly alone after you get your private pilot’s license. That's a little bit unrealistic, Probably. but I do think that the school here does a lot to have help People share time together. put instruments student with instruments students. So they can go where foggles and shoot approaches and practice and do all that stuff together. We do the same thing with commercial pilots. and then try to make sure we're doing everything we can to help commercial instrument pilots. One of those Tips is something that we've talked about a number of times here, Wally. And it's the in accordance with so if I never fly alone share time splitting the cost. That's great. what is what is the in accordance with mean? And what should students instructors doing in their logbooks to make sure they're maximizing the things they do as well.
one thing that is required for a commercial pilot is ten hours of instrument instruction time. It's 61.129 that addresses this. and It says that I don't have the reg front of me but saw in paraphrasing. but it basically says that you've got to have ten hours of instrument time, Straight and level, unusual attitudes, turns, climbs, all that stuff and it does say using a view limiting device. Okay so the intent is not for the for this to not be actual time and this is The way our FAA offices Basically interpret this. I may be misspeaking by actually saying interpret; but anyway It's it is separate from the instrument time. so At one point if you had a commercial pilot applicant, they already had an instrument Dpe may say oh well this, This doesn't apply because you have the ten hours. Well it is. It is Separate. now that law that time can be logged concurrent. so in other words if you are an instrument student. And you think or even have a thought that you might Pursue a commercial pilot certificate at some point in the future, when your instructor is logging your instrument time for your instrument rating have them put an endorsement in there That says that this training has been Conducted in accordance with, and we usually put IAW for that, in accordance with 61.129 and we can count that towards the commercial time. so it's not another ten separate hours after the instrument rating because most people the usual sequences private instrument and commercial.
So if we have that we're good to go. if not, We have to Either go out and get ten hours of time. a lot of times The instructors around and we can get a blanket endorsement That says that I certify that the flight instruction given between these dates is in accordance with 61.129 and I have accepted that before.
Yeah, if we're talking about economics that's ten hours of dual instruction that could go away, doesn't mean you're going to fly less than that for the two fifty requirements for commercial etc. but, I don't have to pay for that dual time again. So that's going to be a big deal the rest if I refly that time with someone else to get to my pic time than splitting the cost and save a lot of money as well.
so we've talked about a lot of things. Let's the last couple of things that that are important to me to students, and everybody views this a little bit differently, but it is the structure of training right. I think when I took my training. I didn't know any better and I just kind of did it by the seat of my pants. No pun intended. But I kind of came in and said start and we did some straight level for a while. And then I did some climbing and descending turning and so what are we at the end of. What are we doing next time and they would tell me. Go home and I try to read a little bit about it and we come back and talk. and normally when I came back great instructor but he had a lot of students say would we work on last time. And I’d say we did climbing and descending turns. Okay well the natural next step for him would be blah blah blah. Whatever that would be. Maybe we start working on stalls. find a syllabus. There's a lot of generic syllabus syllabi on the internet. A lot of big publications have syllabi that you can follow. and you know the requirements to get the private you know the stages and steps that are proven if you're following one of those syllabi. At this flight school we use an electronic syllabus that students follow for all their ratings, so that they know what the next class is going to be and they have that. Now, one forty-one is regulated and very structured. We use something very similar to our one forty-one to guide the par sixty-one process It just makes sense to follow a plan. we're going to do a whole episode on part Sixty-one versus Part forty-one, thanks to Jeremy Hyde’s request and we'll get to that in a couple weeks. But, thoughts on following syllabi or some sort of structure, Wally?
yeah, I as I think I've alluded to in previous podcast: I'm a musician. And I play in a band. And we one of my pet peeves; I actually used to teach the percussion section at a local high school. I used to talk to my students about practice and rehearsal. and what we did collectively as a group, was a rehearsal. what they at their own, at home or wherever, before rehearsal is practice. So if you know what's going to be done in a rehearsal, it makes practice possible. and that's the way, if you have a syllabus, if you know what you're going to do your lesson Tomorrow, it makes you able to prepare for it. Now, There needs to be some flexibility in that. and for instance: Let's say The syllabus calls for Going out and doing high works stalls in and navy steep turns, today. but Here at this airport, We have a north south runway. If you come out today in the wind is 090 at 12 knots; well, today's probably really good day to stay in the pattern and do crosswind landings. so we may you know, We want to have a little Flexibility with that. but You hear it all the time. you hear Instructors say to the students, I hear it all the time in a flight schools, Okay well next time we fly will do this. And I’m thinking that instructor is not going to remember what they told the student and So then the student comes in and they're doing something totally different. so A syllabus is. Is I think very important.
And then hopefully your school does do something to enable instructors to keep track of that syllabus. So that if you do change instructors which commonly is a problem in flight training then the new instructor doesn't know what you did without some sort of record keeping skimming your logbooks probably not good enough. They probably need some sort of record keeping and then the last tip that will leave you with today for the economics of flight Training really is to pick a fly school that has a simulator; full motion if possible. Standard, You know something from a professional company not just a desktop simulator.
But something that you can get in have a least a hundred and eighty visuals of you of what you're flying into or with. And then the controls that are set up with a real yoke throttle quadrant. Those sorts of things. It benefits you both as a private, The regs say you can log up to three hours If it's an approved of ice from the faa. seventeen more in the instrument for total twenty. and then a total of fifty for the commercial and a lot of people. I think get hung up while the on this three for private. You know I would rather fly The sim if I wanted to work on things, Like emergency procedures and whatnot till I got my flows and checklist usage down. And I might I might choose the six or seven hours in that simulator. I don't lose the other three or four hours. If I’m working towards becoming a professional pilot. once I start working on instrument rating those hours automatically count in my logbook their loggable they're just not log -able countable towards my private pilot rating right now.
They're loggable they're just they just don't count towards the requirements. So yeah, you definitely want to log it I couldn't I definitely agree with that The other thing is you know. We talked about Two of the Two of the elements that we have to schedule around are airplanes and weather. And, For the most part if the weather's bad the simulator still flies and if the airplane out there has a bad magneto the simulator still flies.
and We can simulate a bag net absolutely late an engine. Very we can simulate a lot of problems and they're.
just let me do another plug. If you want to learn about bad magnetic go back and listen to our podcast on our system. Yes, this show. But anyway the one complaint. I get from students: the simulator is All the simulators is so hard to fly and it is it is Most of them are harder to fly. I've gave a lot of instruction to my daughters in and several simulators. And I had them use the autopilot a lot in the simulator. I because I told them I says what we're trying to do in the simulator is not so much. Teach you how to fly but more so really teach you procedures. You know that probably the most common avionics packages that we have around here are the garment 430s and the 530s. And almost all the simulators around here have that so we can sit there and put the plan on the autopilot and You know play around with the Garmin. Okay this make sure make sure This is selected. Make sure you've actually activated the approach. You know you can't just select it which transition do we want to select. Well let's play around with it. so I use The simulator is more to teach procedures as not so much teaching how to fly the airplane.
The other beauty is the pause button in a simulator. You don't have that in flight and so if you're really learning a new technique like shooting an ILS for the first time sure is a lot more fun to do it in a simulator to learn those procedures, Hit the pause button, and talk about what you're trying to do talk about, How do you really want to set up the aircraft right before you get to your final approach fix and do all that in a much slower pace before you get out there into an aircraft That can't stop moving forward.
Yeah, definitely and one thing: Probably the biggest error I see on instrument check rides is over controlling. I had an instructor one time they used to constantly say “eyes moving fast hands moving slow” and I use that All the time now is moving fast hands moving slow in other words you're scanning but you're not moving the controls a whole lot. and one thing I like to do in the simulator. You can do in the airplane. It would just be very costly and it would take you awhile. I liked to have someone You know put them five miles out on final at two thousand feet and Move them one dot left on the localizer and let them see the visual picture of what it looks like. because a dot off on the localizer is just not that far off. But we see a dot off and we want to make a twenty-degree correction. And that's just the way too much so that move them to dots off and say okay even two dots off on the localizer at five miles out instead of the runway. Just being a twelve o'clock maybe the runways at one o'clock now it's just not that far off and once you learn what a dot off looks like It will teach you that okay. I don't need to correct a whole lot.
Well that's a great show, Wally.
I think that's all we have for today. If you have other ideas on how we can help people with the economics of flight training. Send us an email bobby at behind the pro dot com or Wally at behind the prop dot com. And maybe we'll do a part two to this. The people come back and listen to and save some money while they do their flight training until next week. Say behind the prop.
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