Where to start?

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mjwittr21

Filing Flight Plan
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Mar 5, 2026
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Flight_Boi_42
Just took my discovery flight and now I'm hooked! Looking to train at Marcus Air in Mckinney, TX. Will it be better to start ground school first or a mix of ground and flying?
 
Welcome!

My primary instructors had me complete my written before I started flying. I think that might've been a way to measure if I was serious. In hindsight, I feel like doing both concurrently would've been beneficial. When I studied for the written, there was a lot of stuff that was confusing, and then when I was flying I would constantly go back to the books because I had already forgotten it.
 
Personally, I would not start by completing the written exam. I know a lot of people do it this way but I was not one of them.
To me, a lot of that knowledge feels too academic until you have some flying experience. Once you can relate what you're learning in the book to the experiences you're actually getting in the airplane, it goes a long way.
 
But also don't the guy who gets all the flying done and never gets around to taking the written. I've seen that a bunch of times, too. Aim to get it knocked out about the time you've soloed and are working on cross-countries. Then you can concentrate on checkride prep and all that stuff will still be fresh in your mind for the oral.
 
The flight school (puppy mill:rolleyes2:) I went to did 1 week of ground school, then 1 week of flying to solo, then half day of ground, half day of flying. It seemed to work just fine for me
 
My 2 hour windows at the flight school were 1/2 ground school and half flying.
I would have had a hard time if I tried to take the written test before any flying.
 
robin ardoin said:
Online ground school while you are also flying. Sporty's, King, Gold Seal... pick one. Start reading the Airplane Flying Handbook now. Later, the PHAK and FAR/AIM.
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This is the method I chose. We did some ground stuff on days we couldn't fly due to weather etc. but most of my ground was at night at home with Sporty's.
 
mjwittr21 said:
Already have the FAR / AIM! :) Do I need to read it all for PPL or specific parts?
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Part 61 tells you how to get your certificate. Part 91 tells you how to keep it. The AIM will help you understand many things, but you do not need to know it all... just where to find the answers.
 
Gilbert Buettner said:
Part 61 tells you how to get your certificate. Part 91 tells you how to keep it. The AIM will help you understand many things, but you do not need to know it all... just where to find the answers.
Click to expand...
Be familiar with the above mentioned parts during your training and delve in to the other sections late at night when you have insomnia; that is a sure fire, effective, and FAA legal sleep aid!
 
oh goodness put the FAR/AIM on the shelf for a bit. PHAK too. That can come later unless you have a perverse interest in Air Law.

"This rollercoaster was rad! Let's ride again!"

"Great! Here is this collegiate-level boring-ass book about rollercoaster engineering and laws! Dig in!"

Go fly. If you nose into anything, the Airplane Flying Handbook is an approachable and free resource to ease you into the physics and grace of the thing.
 
schmookeeg said:
oh goodness put the FAR/AIM on the shelf for a bit. PHAK too. That can come later unless you have a perverse interest in Air Law.

"This rollercoaster was rad! Let's ride again!"

"Great! Here is this collegiate-level boring-ass book about rollercoaster engineering and laws! Dig in!"

Go fly. If you nose into anything, the Airplane Flying Handbook is an approachable and free resource to ease you into the physics and grace of the thing.
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Such a reckless, devil-may-care attitude!
How is one supposed to take to the skies safely without reading this (which is PHAK Chapter 1 btw).
.... I mean, flying an airplane without knowing the methodology of indexing of advisory circulars? *gasp*
1772753252156.png

(I had to go back and look at the PHAK to see if it was as dry as I remember... it is)
 
bonefishpete said:
For FAR/AIM get the pre print PPL tabs for the different sections.
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Strong disagree. Learn how to use the index. It's all there.

Or, more modern solutions... there are searchable pdf versions. My favorite solution: Google the question, asking for FAR references, then back it up with the book. By the way...I did exactly that during my instrument oral. DPE was perfectly happy with it. The point isn't to memorize the book, it's too know how to find the answers.

IRL you aren't buying a new book every year... if you need to know something you'll look it up on the internet. I haven't tried it, but parsing the FARs seems like something AI would be great at.
 
New pilot here. IMO the best way to go about it is to do both the book studying and the flying concurrently, but do the book study of the topics you're going to be flying in advance of that flying lesson. I probably didn't do that as well as I would have liked and it probably contributed to extending how much time I spent training in the plane because my instructor was explaining things to me that I probably should have already known. I took the written a few months before my checkride.
 
mjwittr21 said:
Just took my discovery flight and now I'm hooked! Looking to train at Marcus Air in Mckinney, TX. Will it be better to start ground school first or a mix of ground and flying?
Click to expand...
mix of ground and flying 100%
 
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