Hello and PPL Trainnig in Central California

Kenny Taylor

Kenny Taylor

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Joined
Aug 25, 2021
Messages
145
Location
Bakersfield, CA
Display Name
Display name:
Kenny Taylor
I've been taking a serious look into going after the private pilot's license here in Central CA. I've landed on this board a couple times while researching and figured I'd register and say hi.

There are a couple of local outlets that do training, and I feel like I have a pretty good handle on the process. Discussions on the checkride seem daunting, but I'm sure that gets better with training. I work full-time and am tentatively planning to do the ground school and medical cert first, then start flight lessons. I've looked at the ground school on pilotinstitute.com, and it seems decent.

I've read that it's ideal to do the ground school and flight training concurrently. With my time constraints, I'd lean towards knocking out the written test first then going back through the ground school videos as I do the flight training. Bad idea?
 
What’s your location? Being an x resident of the area, I know some of the training places pretty good
 
I'm in Bakersfield, KBFL / L45. Southern valley, though I'm probably as close to KMIT as KBFL.
 
Check out: bakersfieldflyingclub.com

Good group of people there.
 
Just sent you a PM.

Ditto on the club, I trained from them
 
Bakersfield Flying Club looks pretty good, from what I've seen. I noticed they have a Redbird simulator as well. I'd rather spend every hour up in the real thing, but it sounds like the sim can be handy for running scenarios and can count towards part of the PPL flight time.
 
To your original question - you can certainly do it that way (i.e. written first then training). However, for the PPL, I thought it was useful to be doing both the flight training and the ground at the same time. Both helped fill in gaps in the other. For later ratings, I think this makes less of a difference.
 
Thank you all for the great advice. I got sucked into the IFR forum this evening, not knowing what it was, and my head is spinning. :D One step at a time!
 
I'll just add to the good advice above, if you're working and have a family, getting flying time might be more difficult than you think. So even if you opt to study ground first, I wouldn't take the written test until you and your CFI think you're OK with the time/schedule. It's not terrible, but you don't want to be rushed to get your checkride in before your written expires. The other advice is to not worry at all about how long it takes. It'll probably take a little longer since you're doing this on the side, and that's fine.
 
It sounds like Bakersfield Flying Club has a few month waitlist. I'm also checking out Best Aviation at L45 and Kern Aviation at KMIT. Anyone had any experience, good or bad, with either of those?
 
Hey Kenny,

I’m in Tehachapi and have plans to drive down the hill to work with Bakersfield Flying Club. I’ve been on their waiting is for about 4 months now, seems COVID brought the “Learn to Fly” to the top of everybody’s bucket list - me included. I looked around Bakersfield, Tehachapi, and into Mojave and Lancaster and BFC seemed like the clear choice.

Fred Webster is the guy who runs it and he owns a couple of the 172’s and is an instructor pilot for American, seems like we’ll be in pretty competent hands.
 
Charles Soper said:
Hey Kenny,

I’m in Tehachapi and have plans to drive down the hill to work with Bakersfield Flying Club. I’ve been on their waiting is for about 4 months now, seems COVID brought the “Learn to Fly” to the top of everybody’s bucket list - me included. I looked around Bakersfield, Tehachapi, and into Mojave and Lancaster and BFC seemed like the clear choice.

Fred Webster is the guy who runs it and he owns a couple of the 172’s and is an instructor pilot for American, seems like we’ll be in pretty competent hands.
Click to expand...


Very true!!
 
I passed the PPL written exam Friday and submitted the student pilot app this weekend. Pretty stoked to be moving forward!

Regarding training, I stopped by the FBO at L45 a few weeks back. They seemed like a really nice group. Talked with Jennifer at the front desk, got a tour, and chatted with an instructor who dropped by at the same time. They have two PA-28-140 Cherokees and two C177 Cardinals. The owner has a beautiful Cessna 421C and 340A sitting in there as well. I didn't quite appreciate the size of the twin piston planes until I stood next to one.

Anyhow, I'm queued up for flight training starting November 13. Looking forward to it!
 
That’s awesome man, congrats!
 
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