Rapid pilot training

LDJones

LDJones

Touchdown! Greaser!
Gone West
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Jonesy
My son is in his senior year of college and was feeling a bit down the other day. The pressures of school, life in his early 20s, etc. had him feeling less than successful (despite a 3.56 cumulative GPA so far.)

So I got to thinking about his many successes....accomplished musician/composer on multiple instruments, leadership positions he holds, multiple work success stories, etc. Then I got to thinking about his pilot training, which I think he accomplished in near record time. So I put together a graphic to show him just how quickly he achieved his private pilot's license...essentially 30 days of training over the course of a very short summer vacation (with a total of three weeks of interruption due to summer camp work commitments), including checkride.

I'm curious how many have done an accelerated training course?
 

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I did my instrument this summer in what seemed to be a very short time while working full time. Took me 2 calendar months from start to check ride.

I flew after work and as much as possible on weekends, with a couple little lags in there when either he or I was on vacation. I think with a less-busy instructor (or student!) I could have done it in 30 to 45 days or so.

If he is feeling down and he has a pilot's certificate, he holds his own cure! :D
 
One summer in high school, I studied for the instrument written and read all the instrument books for a few weeks, went in and aced the written and from there I did the instrument rating in a month. I worked at the airport and that month I basically lived out there. If I wasn't working I was flying or studying. Usually did a sim or flight in the morning, lunch with my instructor while studying oral type stuff, then flew in the afternoon.

We all need a pick-me-up every now and then.
 
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That is impressive, you must be very proud of him! I had hoped to do similar this summer, but life happens. Hopefully one more month...
 
petrolero said:
I did my instrument this summer in what seemed to be a very short time while working full time. Took me 2 calendar months from start to check ride.

I flew after work and as much as possible on weekends, with a couple little lags in there when either he or I was on vacation. I think with a less-busy instructor (or student!) I could have done it in 30 to 45 days or so.

If he is feeling down and he has a pilot's certificate, he holds his own cure! :D
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Two months for the instrument while working full time is a significant accomplishment!
 
Gucci Pilot said:
One summer in high school, I studied for the instrument written and read all the instrument books for a few weeks, went in and aced the written and from there I did the instrument rating in a month. I worked at the airport and that month I basically lived out there. If I wasn't working I was flying or studying. Usually did a sim or flight in the morning, lunch with my instructor while studying oral type stuff, then flew in the afternoon.

We all need a pick-me-up every now and then.
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That's impressive considering the attention span of the average high schooler!

And, yes, we all do need a boost from time to time.
 
JoeFromKS said:
That is impressive, you must be very proud of him! I had hoped to do similar this summer, but life happens. Hopefully one more month...
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Thanks. He's a great kid. And as most parents know, you hurt when your kids hurt.
 
Wow. 22 months for my private, and about 18 months for my instrument. Am I a slacker!

Congrats on your son's accomplishments. Have you shown this to him, and how did he respond?
 
nddons said:
Wow. 22 months for my private, and about 18 months for my instrument. Am I a slacker!

Congrats on your son's accomplishments. Have you shown this to him, and how did he respond?
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I just sent it to him a bit ago....curious to see his response.

Keep in mind, he had a fair amount of "encouragement" from his Dad who would have had to give an additional $11K to his University if he didn't pass his checkride before the first day of college! :D
 
LDJones said:
My son is in his senior year of college and was feeling a bit down the other day. The pressures of school, life in his early 20s, etc. had him feeling less than successful (despite a 3.56 cumulative GPA so far.)

So I got to thinking about his many successes....accomplished musician/composer on multiple instruments, leadership positions he holds, multiple work success stories, etc. Then I got to thinking about his pilot training, which I think he accomplished in near record time. So I put together a graphic to show him just how quickly he achieved his private pilot's license...essentially 30 days of training over the course of a very short summer vacation (with a total of three weeks of interruption due to summer camp work commitments), including checkride.

I'm curious how many have done an accelerated training course?
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If your kid has a near 4.0 GPA and he is depressed, he has deeper issues than accepting his successes. Doing aviation training rapidly is not as important as flying safely for however long he continues to fly.

If you are taking on the role of proving to your kid he has worth, then it's too late. You should point him North and kick him out of the nest. Let him swim for a while till he figures out what HE wants in life, and what HE deems important to accomplish.
 
CTLSi said:
If your kid has a near 4.0 GPA and he is depressed, he has deeper issues than accepting his successes. Doing aviation training rapidly is not as important as flying safely for however long he continues to fly.

If you are taking on the role of proving to your kid he has worth, then it's too late. You should point him North and kick him out of the nest. Let him swim for a while till he figures out what HE wants in life, and what HE deems important to accomplish.
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Oh, geez....yet another idiotic post from our resident idiotic poster. So in addition to being our Aviation Guru you're now our resident psychologist, too! Impressive.

Turning a bad day in college into massive depression is a pretty huge leap!! Stick to aviation.
 
Six weeks for my PP at 38. I wanted to get it finished during my usual business slow down.

In today's job market(at least in my area), I can understand some of his worries. Go flying as often as you can with him. It is a big stress relief for me. Plan some short trips during his breaks. Good luck to him.
 
RV10flyer said:
Six weeks for my PP at 38. I wanted to get it finished during my usual business slow down.

In today's job market(at least in my area), I can understand some of his worries. Go flying as often as you can with him. It is a big stress relief for me. Plan some short trips during his breaks. Good luck to him.
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That's pretty darn quick. I, too, used flying a stress reliever during college and grad school. Worked wonders. Especially during the long, grey days of winter when I'd climb up above the cloud deck, soak up the sun for twenty minutes before shooting the approach back into reality! :yes:
 
I took rapid training in swimming - if that counts.
When the big kids down at the river found out I could not swim they grabbed me and on the count of three hurled me far out into the river (well it seemed far out) Then they shouted 'swim or drown you little basturd cuz you ain't gettin out till you swim'.
I thrashed, and I splashed and I drank half that river, but by gawd I swam because they meant it. After that I was one of the guys even if I was the smallest.
This would have been the summer of 48, long ago and far away in a world most of you have only read about.
 
Well my story is pretty atypical. I had been consumed with flying since birth and had gotten my private at 17. I was a good student and did well in high school and had good college prospects academically. My father rewarded me with a graduation surprise. He hired an instructor to come fly with me in the summer between high school and freshman year of college. That summer I went from private to instrument to commercial to CFI in about 6 weeks. We flew 4-6 hrs a day with ground school and sim time in the evenings. It was a great experience and made me a dramatically better pilot from a safety standpoint. The only thing I felt that suffered from the accelerated training was the instrument ticket. You can learn the IMC skills that quick, keeping the plane right side up, but I don't think it allows enough real world instrument time to have a concrete understanding of the IFR environment. If I tried this training schedule at 40 I think it would kill me :)
 
nddons said:
Wow. 22 months for my private, and about 18 months for my instrument. Am I a slacker!

Congrats on your son's accomplishments. Have you shown this to him, and how did he respond?
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Not too bad. I took over a year for my private - quite the opposite of my IR. I just didn't fly all the time due to money or weather or competing interests (I was 22). When I flew I was serious about it, but my instructor used to smack me on the back of the head with checklists because I was screwing up something he had taught me more than once. He knew I was an engineer (as was he) and gave me no quarter. :D
 
CTLSi said:
If your kid has a near 4.0 GPA and he is depressed, he has deeper issues than accepting his successes. Doing aviation training rapidly is not as important as flying safely for however long he continues to fly.

If you are taking on the role of proving to your kid he has worth, then it's too late. You should point him North and kick him out of the nest. Let him swim for a while till he figures out what HE wants in life, and what HE deems important to accomplish.
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Wow. You must be one if those Millennials who knows everything about everything. Impressive. How many kids do you have?
 
Corsec said:
Well my story is pretty atypical. I had been consumed with flying since birth and had gotten my private at 17. I was a good student and did well in high school and had good college prospects academically. My father rewarded me with a graduation surprise. He hired an instructor to come fly with me in the summer between high school and freshman year of college. That summer I went from private to instrument to commercial to CFI in about 6 weeks. We flew 4-6 hrs a day with ground school and sim time in the evenings. It was a great experience and made me a dramatically better pilot from a safety standpoint. The only thing I felt that suffered from the accelerated training was the instrument ticket. You can learn the IMC skills that quick, keeping the plane right side up, but I don't think it allows enough real world instrument time to have a concrete understanding of the IFR environment. If I tried this training schedule at 40 I think it would kill me :)
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Wow! That's pretty amazing! I did my instrument, commercial, multi and CFI over eight months while going to law school full time. I thought that was a challenge! (Actually, it probably kept my sanity!). Did you end up in a career in aviation?
 
I did my private between Labor Day and Christmas during my first term at college. Took my first lesson a week after Labor Day and the check ride was 7 days before Christmas.
 
5 years for PPSEL, couple months to add Commercial Helicopter, Commercial Glider in 5 days. 3 days for PPSES. Win some , lose some.
 
46.5 Hours to check ride in 10.5 days start to finish.

I nearly cried....

Then a year and 250 hours later did IFR in 10 days.

My head nearly exploded...

I loved it and that is how I am used to working and learn best, but it is NOT for everyone!
 
I just read a thread about atp and they seem to get bashed. How is this any different than atp?
 
Aren't most instructors low time since that's usually the first job they get, and aren't all instructors held to the same standards on the tests?
 
I went to a part 141 accelerated training flight school almost 20 years ago. It was all fire hosed at the students and you were expected to keep up. The training was intense. Emphasis was on becoming a professional pilot, not teaching to pass the test. I did private, instrument, multi and single commercial before running out of money.

I think I soloed after 30 minutes of training...... Ok, more like 15 hours, and passed the private with something like 50 hours. I had to do counseling a few times because I was always a few hours behind their training schedule.

I did the CFI ratings at a part 61 flight school that was more relaxed and more emphasis on individual training. I needed the extra time for each CFI.

That was the best way for me since I have a little trouble trying to make myself learn in a self paced course.
 
I just took a look at my log book. First Lesson was on 5/18/14, passed my checkride on 8/21/14, but I also didn't fly at all from 5/31-6/27 due to my vacation and my instructors vacation stacking back to back. So basically 2 months to get my PPL.
 
LDJones said:
Oh, geez....yet another idiotic post from our resident idiotic poster. So in addition to being our Aviation Guru you're now our resident psychologist, too! Impressive.

Turning a bad day in college into massive depression is a pretty huge leap!! Stick to aviation.
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Like you 50 posts on this thread have a shred of value? Grow up goof...you are nothing special either.
 
Catalo said:
Aren't most instructors low time since that's usually the first job they get, and aren't all instructors held to the same standards on the tests?
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Depends where you go. I got my CFI 3 years ago with 350 hours in my logbook, which is low time (but the examiner I took it with mentioned that I had a bit more time than his average applicant, which was in the 250 hour range) and at my previous job/airport I was usually the lowest time CFI among the others. I now work at a different school and it seems like my time is in the upper 50% among my other co-workers with a bit more than 1,000 in my logbook (which really isn't what I would consider high time).
 
One of my CFIs who I've known for 5 years before I decided to fly did some sort of compressed 141 course in 6 weeks and did his checkride at just over 37 hours. Looking at that now, that seems pretty fast, but it was his senior year of high school so that's pretty much all he did for those 6 weeks.
 
Catalo said:
Aren't most instructors low time since that's usually the first job they get, and aren't all instructors held to the same standards on the tests?
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Most full-time CFIs are low-time, but the time isn't the issue- understanding and quality of training is. And at a mill with in-house checking, that quality and the standards the CFIs are held to can be rather low.

Low to the point that hearing certain callsigns or tailnumbers can be sufficient reason to stop whatever you're doing and get the hell out of the same airspace.
 
warthog1984 said:
Most full-time CFIs are low-time, but the time isn't the issue- understanding and quality of training is.
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Having gone through an intensive program...two now with an IFR program, I would argue that that lack of understanding and low quality of training are prevalent in both the accelerated format as well as traditional schedule programs. The issues are just more obvious and apparent in an accelerated format rather than a traditional one as there is less room and time for crappy procedures and instruction. How many stories do we read about students that this board is questioning their CFI's competence? It is easier to hide those flaws over 60-70 hours across 6-12 months.

I was fortunate to have high hour seasoned vets for both my primary and IFR CFIs and met plenty of students that were struggling with their CFIs in traditional programs. It take a certain mentality of the student and a CFI that has an established program to complete an accelerated course successfully.

There are pilot mills out there with low standards, absolutely...but that does not mean as a generalization that accelerated programs are any less worthy than taking a year to get your certificate.

Like everything in aviation...do your research.
 
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JoeFromKS said:
Ok seriously, how many pp's aren't engineers who also own sailboats?
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I'm not an engineer, but I design and build vehicles for a living, and also own several sailboats. Didn't realize it was a thing. :lol:
 
Shawn said:
46.5 Hours to check ride in 10.5 days start to finish.

I nearly cried....

Then a year and 250 hours later did IFR in 10 days.

My head nearly exploded...

I loved it and that is how I am used to working and learn best, but it is NOT for everyone!
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I'd love to try a 10 day private course. You're proof it can be done.
 
warthog1984 said:
Most full-time CFIs are low-time, but the time isn't the issue- understanding and quality of training is. And at a mill with in-house checking, that quality and the standards the CFIs are held to can be rather low.

Low to the point that hearing certain callsigns or tailnumbers can be sufficient reason to stop whatever you're doing and get the hell out of the same airspace.
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I wouldn't be so sure about making statements about standards being lower. I work at a pilot factory with in house checkrides and I consider most of the stage checks/checkrides to be a bit harder than most of the part 61 checkrides I took myself/sent previous students on. That being said, there are quite a few practices I would do away with if I were the boss.
 
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