Relocating to finish PPL

[Seth.A]

I'm working on my PPL, about 25 hours in, and feeling frustrated because I just lost an entire week to weather. I live in Seattle, and it turns out that starting my training in the fall in the pacific north west west was probably not the smartest thing to do. Weather cancellations are becoming more common than not.

I work remotely, have a pretty flexible schedule, and a bursting vacation time budget. Going somewhere sunny for a couple of weeks to get some good training time in is potentially a viable option for me. The question is where to go and who to train with.

So, my question to this forum is, given my situation where would you go? And when you got there, who would you go to for training?

thanks for any suggestions.

 

[Pilawt]

There's a reason so much commercial and military flight training happens in Arizona, and it's been that way since before WW2.

 

[Seth.A]

Arizona does seem like an obvious choice. Seems like there's lots of schools in the Phoenix area offering 'Accelerated' programs for 'Destination Pilots', which I guess is me.

Any suggestions for schools or instructors down there?

 

[NH_Moose]

Went down for a week to Tucson and Double Eagle to finish my IR, too much drama with weather, plane, and instructors last winter here in PNW. For IR Tucson was much better as Phoenix had 5 flight schools fighting over an approach. No idea if there is drama in Phoenix for VFR training.


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[Seth.A]

thanks. I hadn't considered potential congestion around Phoenix, but looking at the area on flight aware i think i can clearly identify the popular practice areas. Somewhere like Tucson might work out better.

 

[Brad Z]

Arizona and Florida are the two big hotspots for flight training with lots of flight schools. Now is a good time because with the airline COVID situation, schools are retaining flight instructors longer and not having the staffing issues they were having last year during the pilot shortage.

As far as selecting a school, the schools come and go, the instructors come and go. I may have had a good experience two years ago but you could have a bad one today. The way I'd approach the problem is to focus on some specific areas of the country and start calling the schools in that area. Explain what you want to do and see how good of a match they'd be. Talk to the instructors and get an idea of what their training plan is. Big things for you are instructor quality and availability, aircraft maintenance and availability, and access to DPEs. The best school in the country is useless if they have trouble getting DPEs to do practical tests in a timely manner.

 

[Bill]

Arizona and Florida are the two big hotspots for flight training with lots of flight schools.

 

[aterry1067]

thanks. I hadn't considered potential congestion around Phoenix, but looking at the area on flight aware i think i can clearly identify the popular practice areas. Somewhere like Tucson might work out better.

I’m currently training in the west Phoenix valley (KGEU). There are lots of schools and traffic in the valley, but the valley is huge and there are a whole lot of vacant areas just outside the valley in all directions. It has been really nice and we usually don’t have any issues at all finding a nice open area to do maneuvers.

And don’t worry about wanting to stay here. When May rolls around and it’s hitting 100 before noon, you’ll be happy to get back to Seattle.

To add, my instructor actually moved out here from New York not long ago to finish his training. He left NYC with 20 hours and no PPL a couple years ago and is now a CFI.