Home Study Ground School for PPL?

[ajmarks]

Is it unreasonable to propose to a flight school that I will do all my ground instruction at home on my own time? With the understanding that I would bring questions to my CFI as needed? I was thinking of purchasing and using Jeppesen Part 61 Kit for my ground school instruction (on my own time) and use the CFI for flight instruction (obviously).

If the school is a 141 school, would it be more appropriate to use Jeppesen Part 141 Kit?

 

[MAKG1]

If the school is 141, use whatever they say and do whatever they say. Which is fairly likely to be a formal ground school. Part 141 schools are constrained in what they do.

If it's 61, it's all up to your flight instructor. Many are supportive of home study. They may have their favorite, or they may not like the approach at all.

 

[eetrojan]

Is it unreasonable to propose to a flight school that I will do all my ground instruction at home on my own time? With the understanding that I would bring questions to my CFI as needed? I was thinking of purchasing and using Jeppesen Part 61 Kit for my ground school instruction (on my own time) and use the CFI for flight instruction (obviously).

If the school is a 141 school, would it be more appropriate to use Jeppesen Part 141 Kit?

My 141 school offers formal ground instruction on a group basis, but I started training a few weeks after the most recent session had started and ended up just doing self-study. It didn't raise any issues with them and it was pretty clear that the group lessons were optional. It may vary from school to school though.

 

[AggieMike88]

For now, the no cost FAA books will be a good start.

You want to get:

• Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge
• Airplane Flying Handbook

These can be downloaded to your desktop computer or your tablet as PDF files.

There are many others on the FAA website that will help in your knowledge acquisition, but these first two will serve you well to start.
.

 

[poadeleted20]

Under Part 61, you can do it any way you like as long as you can find an instructor to sign the endorsement to take the written.

Under Part 141, you have no choice -- you must do the ground training in accordance with the school's TCO for that course. If you don't complete the minimum 35 hours of ground training under the tutelage of an authorized instructor from that school, they cannot issue a course completion certificate, and you'll have to meet the Part 61 requirements (specifically, 61.109) before you take the practical test.

 

[kenjr]

I did my own. I travel frequently for work so even if I did want to hoof it over to the school for a ground school class, I would have missed half or more just because I wasn't there.

I bought the Sporty's DVD's...they were good but I honestly didn't use them that much. Mostly I just read the Jepp book, I bought the Dauntless RideReady software which I thought was really good for the test prep mainly because of the thorough explanations for each of the questions. I watched a ton of youtube videos of folks explaining stuff, etc...

Finally, when I was ready to take the exam I just pounded through the Gleim and Sporty's Study Buddy questions online. I missed 3 questions on my written.

You may need less or more...hard to tell. But I did my own studying and using Study Buddy did at least 10 questions a day all through my training (about 8 months). By the time I was ready for the written (and I waited until I was close to my checkride to minimize the amount of re-studying I would have to do) I had seen most of those questions dozens of times and felt very confident...was easily making 90+ on every 60 question practice test.

I went to my CFI and told him I was ready and he signed my logbook. All along the way when we'd meet for a lesson I'd bring up something that I'd had to work at to learn to run my 'theory' by him or if there were concepts I just needed an explanation on (using an ADF...we have one in our plane so he just showed me...made sense then) or early on trying to figure out the difference between IAS, CAS, TAS, etc... Sometimes just having someone talk it out with you makes all the difference. So, he knew I was in the books and didn't hesitate to endorse my logbook without seeing results from any tests, etc... I just told him how I was doing and that I was ready.

Finally, getting ready for my checkride I read a bunch of checkride experiences on the interweb and there were a couple very helpful videos from DPE's talking about how to prep for the Private...common mistakes, what the DPE expects, etc...

 

[eetrojan]

Under Part 61, you can do it any way you like as long as you can find an instructor to sign the endorsement to take the written.

Under Part 141, you have no choice -- you must do the ground training in accordance with the school's TCO for that course. If you don't complete the minimum 35 hours of ground training under the tutelage of an authorized instructor from that school, they cannot issue a course completion certificate, and you'll have to meet the Part 61 requirements (specifically, 61.109) before you take the practical test.

In light of Ron's explanation, I should clarify that I did receive a fair amount of one-on-one instruction in various topics per the schools syllabus, but did NOT take the school's ground instruction class presented to a group.

 

[poadeleted20]

In light of Ron's explanation, I should clarify that I did receive a fair amount of one-on-one instruction in various topics per the schools syllabus, but did NOT take the school's ground instruction class presented to a group.

From a regulatory standpoint, in a 141 program, it doesn't matter how you did the ground training as long as what you did complies with the school's TCO and at least 35 hours of ground training from an authorized instructor in the areas required by B141.1 paragraph 3(b) is recorded in your school training records. But unless the school is sending an instructor to your house, you can't do that by home study.

 

[PW_Plack]

Doesn't Part 141 require formal stage exams through ground school?

I took group classes at a 141 school, even though I did most of my flying with Part 61 instructors. I found the group classes very efficient, as I learned from the questions of others in the class.

 

[poadeleted20]

Doesn't Part 141 require formal stage exams through ground school?

Not specifically. Here's the regulation:

(7) A training syllabus that includes the following information--
(i) The prerequisites for enrolling in the ground and flight portion of the course that include the pilot certificate and rating (if required by this part), training, pilot experience, and pilot knowledge; (ii) A detailed description of each lesson, including the lesson's objectives, standards, and planned time for completion;
(iii) A description of what the course is expected to accomplish with regard to student learning;
(iv) The expected accomplishments and the standards for each stage of training; and
(v) A description of the checks and tests to be used to measure a student's accomplishments for each stage of training.

Nothing specifically requiring a formal written stage check for ground training, so it's possible other means could be established in any particular school's TCO. And even if there was such a requirement in the TCO, the instructor visiting the trainee at home could administer it there (assuming home schooling was authorized in the TCO). But whatever's in that TCO would have to be complied with, and the training hours with an authorized instructor would have to be documented and meet the TCO requirement (which would be at least 35 hours of ground training for a PP-Airplane course).

 

[eetrojan]

Doesn't Part 141 require formal stage exams through ground school?

Mine required formal stage exams that were essentially take-home worksheets located within the bound syllabus, along with a subsequent face-to-face review and correction session. The stage exams, however, were not connected to any form of group instruction.

 

[Henning]

Is it unreasonable to propose to a flight school that I will do all my ground instruction at home on my own time? With the understanding that I would bring questions to my CFI as needed? I was thinking of purchasing and using Jeppesen Part 61 Kit for my ground school instruction (on my own time) and use the CFI for flight instruction (obviously).

If the school is a 141 school, would it be more appropriate to use Jeppesen Part 141 Kit?

I did my ground the way you suggest, but that was Pt 61, 141 may not be able to allow that, although studying on your own above and beyond what the class holds is probably wise.

 

[poadeleted20]

Bottom line is back to what MAKG1 said in the first answer:

If the school is 141, use whatever they say and do whatever they say. Which is fairly likely to be a formal ground school. Part 141 schools are constrained in what they do.

If it's 61, it's all up to your flight instructor. Many are supportive of home study. They may have their favorite, or they may not like the approach at all.

If you're 61, no problem. If you're 141, big problem.

 

[Heftiger]

aj,

I did my own home study with the Jeppesen material w/ my Part 61 instructor. The instructor was very supportive.

I passed my written first try with 95%.

I think it's a great way to save money if you're motivated enough.

 

[write-stuff]

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