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I was going to ask if you were training near Houston or West Bend, but it sounds like Houston by the air space description.
 
All righty, then this might be a drive a little, fly a lot situation. Driving down county might help you find a school with fewer students and better availability.
 
61 or 141?

Why do you have to schedule a CFI for solo flights?

Why aren’t you booking weeks in advance anyways?


Put 3 flights/wk on the schedule until eternity; cancel what you don’t need after your checkride.
 
The system won't let me.

There are multiple issues at play here, including the fact that it's now been too long since my last flight with my CFI, so the system rejects almost anything I try to book.

Getting to this point I have already completed everything except night flights and cross-country. XC requires longer time slots, which are never available because the system forces 2-hour blocks, which leaves no space for a 3-hour stage check or XC flight.

I’d have exactly one conversation with the owner, then move to a different place. When I rent, the busy school/FBO I schedule with has a minimum 3-hr block and the plane can be scheduled for up to 24hrs. True, there’s a non-refundable 6-hr charge if you book it for 6hrs or longer, but that kind of flexibility is huge.
 
Come on back to Wisconsin. We have five airplanes and six CFIs. You should have been able to solo long ago. We can finish you up this summer, though the DPEs are scheduled out to July right now.
 
To follow up on this complaint:

After a couple of pointed conversations with my CFI, I think that the message got through. I would guess that I was not the only student who was having some scheduling trouble.

The school has changed their scheduling policy so that stage checks and check rides get priority. They also added another low-wing plane to the fleet, which helps immensely. It's not a complete solution to scheduling issues overall (there is no perfect solution given wx and mx realities), but I have to give them credit for accepting customer feedback and making an effort to address the issues.
If it makes you feel better, I also have found it tough to get AGL these days. Similar issues - mx, wx, the "I" in IMSAFE, you name it and it has kept me grounded in the past two months.
 
Absolutely. The other night I went up, planning to do some maneuvers practice. METAR was clear, but halfway to the practice area I ran into a whole line of clouds at 1,500+ AGL. Nice - that ends that plan. OK, so I'll go back and practice performance T/O and landings. Wind picks up, and after the 5th landing it exceeds the minimums set in my solo endorsement. End of flight.

:mad2:

I can't seem to catch a break, and we're running into that seasonal weather period where we get short pop-up t-storms regularly in the afternoon, making it really unpredictable.
Based on my history, I'd consider a session that includes five landings as a highly successful flight! :tongue2:
 
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