So you have a flight instructor that isn't associated with an actual school? Where can I find one.
I am one! Of course, I live several thousands of miles from you... but the point is: they are out there. Sometimes they don't advertise and are hard to find, and the way to find one is to "lurk" around your local airport and talk to the local pilots, the local mechanics, the local airport-bums.
A quick primer on flight-school "lingo" you'll hear in this forum... There are two ways to get flight training. One is to go to a formal flight school, where they will set you up with some kind of ground school program (either live classes, or an online thing) as well as the flight instruction. There will be quizzes and stage checks and a syllabus that everyone follows, and the kind of structure that will remind you of "school". This is called "Part 141". The other style is less formal, where you and an instructor can train any way you like -- well, any way the instructor likes -- and can sometimes look more like "Here's a free book from the FAA, go read it, and on Thursday we'll talk about Chapter 4 and then go practice in the air." This is called "Part 61." Neither style is better or worse than the other. Do you like structure, or do you prefer to be more self-directed?
In the end, they're less different than they sound... both involve a combination of ground training and flight training. There's no rule that says you have to complete ground first (pass the "written" test) before you can start flight, nor is there a rule that you have to take them together in parallel. Depending on where you live, there may be a municipal airport nearby with a Control Tower and a flight school with a fleet of shiny planes... or there might also be a quiet little grass strip with no Tower and a freelance instructor with a plane. You can "go intense" and try to do everything in a few weeks. Or you can squeeze it in between the other parts of your life, like one would for choir practice or going to the gym, spread over months.
Getting the sense that there are a lot of options?
Asking around on a forum like this one, you'll find people have done it all sorts of ways. So don't let any one school tell you that their way is the only way. Personally, I am a fan of a) doing ground and flight in parallel, and b) squeezing it amongst the rest of life, even though it will take much longer, it's easier to pay-as-you-go and adjust to life as it happens. But that's just me.
Personally, the idea of investing $80K all at once for the whole kit and kaboodle seems risky and extreme. It has to start with the PPL whether you are going for an airline career or not, so just start there. It's such a long journey, you'll learn *so* much just from that first step in it, including what works and what doesn't. Talk of "styles" and "options" aside, the most important thing is to find a good instructor, since you'll be entirely in his or her hands at the beginning when it is the most important. So it is totally OK to "shop around" for a good instructor, too. They shouldn't mind.
No matter how you go about it, never pay a school a whole bunch of money "up front" for all the training. And also don't get frustrated if you ask a question like "how much will this cost?" and they can't give you a straight answer... because the cost is by the hour and no one can know how many hours it'll take you. Everyone is different, and it'll take however long it takes. In fact, if someone guarantees a license with a certain dollar amount, I'd consider that a warning sign.
Good luck!!
