Weekend Instrument ground school, thoughts?

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Cjayfly1
I’ve heard mixed reviews about the weekend ground school programs. I’m curious to see if anyone has gone through a similar program and what are your thoughts.

is it worth it?
Benefits of the weekend ground school?
Cons of the weekend ground school?
Stick to Sheppard air for ground school or the weekend course?

thanks as always!!
 
Cram session. Unfortunately, there is no easy button for IRA.
 
Weekend courses are a lot of information in a short time,your basically cramming for the test.
 
I don’t know which ground school you are considering, but a real IR ground school takes about 30 hours.
 
I know of few people that did the weekend course at American flyers in Arizona and it was great . I will be doing that along with sporty’s IFR video course. Shepherds is just a test prep which comes in highly recommended also .
 
My opinion is it’s fine in addition to a good ground school program. I don’t like it In lieu of a ground school simply to pass the test. A big part of instrument flying is understanding the rules, processes, and procedures. IMO the cram type courses can get you through the test but do little in the way of imparting understanding and explaining why things are done the way they are.
 
I took one solely to pass the written. 2.5 days of class, last afternoon, take the test. Got a decent score, but didn't really learn much. Don't call it ground school as you don't learn enough to go out and fly or pass the practical. But if it's just to pass the test, it can work.
 
I did a weekend course at American Flyers in Dallas. Like others have pointed out, it teaches the test and along with some memory aides from Sheppard, I passed with a score in the 90s (I believe). I learn/memorize better in a classroom setting, so Sheppard wasn't working for me by itself. YMMV.
 
I used Aviation Seminars weekend ground school as a refresher to retake the written as mine had expired. For that purpose, I think it was money and time well spent. I had already self studied and passed once before using Dauntless and Gold Seal (both of which I think do a fine job of online/app based ground school). In this case I wanted the scheduled, dedicated time to get back in shape for the written. It was good. Far more than just "test prep" but also a good deal of "For this kind of question, here's the cookbook process to find the correct answer". This was very helpful for the VOR/ADF type questions on the written, for example. I'm not sure if those are still on there. I passed (last time) in 2019.
 
The weekend IFR classes are for passing the IR written test. They are not designed to replace IR ground school. I picked up a few tips sitting in the weekend IFR classes American Flyers offered when I was an intern for them many years ago. Little shortcuts you could use on the complicated IFR cross-country type questions. It would be something along the lines of "if you see 36 gallons in one of the multi-part choices (what heading, which airspeed, amount of fuel required, etc) it is the right answer." Passing the FAA test back when all the questions and answers were public domain was very easy. Using the technique I learned for any FAA test I would attempt a test on Chinese Calculus with 2 days notice.
 
I don't think you could really learn anything over a weekend. There's a fair bit of stuff on the instrument written that you'll actually need to know. I used an online ground school and felt it both prepared me for the test and I learned a lot. I used gold seal, but there are many, and most offer a free trial.

I did mine and passed the test before I started training; I think it would've been beneficial to me had I done them concurrently. A lot of the stuff I learned in the ground school didn't make sense until I did it in the plane, and by then I had to go back and review it.
 
Jim K said:
...I did mine and passed the test before I started training; I think it would've been beneficial to me had I done them concurrently. A lot of the stuff I learned in the ground school didn't make sense until I did it in the plane, and by then I had to go back and review it.
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Similar here... Took my written prior to doing the 10-day PIC training course. I used a combination of Gleim and Sporty's and ended up with a 96% on the written. But I wasn't totally in tune to everything until I did the practical training. Much more made sense after/during that. Given I did the practical flying/ground in 10-days there's also the risk of not committing things to long-term memory. Due to such, I've also filed IFR about 80-90% of my flights, continued to study procedures and related to ensure I engrain the knowledge into long-term memory. There's a number of ways to achieve your goal depending on your approach and long-term continued efforts to ongoing learning.
 
I took the American flyers weekend course after doing an entire ground school and getting a separate endorsement. It was simply a review session for the test.
Im still glad I did it, but would in no way recommend it for someone without a thorough understanding of IFR flying. It scratches the surface of what you actually need to fly in actual IMC.
 
I'm an educator (high school math and shop) and I recently got my IR. Some people respond well to cram session type learning but almost all people will have some form of significant memory loss in the long term. There is an unbelievable amount of information one must know for the IR. My typical approach is learn it slowly over time and while training followed up with a big cram session before the practical. Even after passing I still find myself studying instrument stuff so that I don't forget things.
 
jsstevens said:
This was very helpful for the VOR/ADF type questions on the written, for example. I'm not sure if those are still on there. I passed (last time) in 2019.
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Nope, no more ADF questions, but plenty of VOR questions.
 
CheckRidePrep online ground school is more than 30 hours. Basically watching recordings of ground school plus quizzes tests along with CFI access. Much better than 10 hour sportys. Ymmv, I did this about a year ago
 
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