Working 9 to 5 (really 7 to 6)

Bman.

Bman.

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Bman.
I've got a day job (architect), 2 kids in elementary school and it seems an evening event all the time. I am getting my flight training underway and wonder - when did you guys get most of your flight training completed? Obviously a change in my schedule is going to occur, I am just trying to figure out how most folks fit flying into their schedule - little lone 2 or 3 times a week.

I know everyone is different and my schedule is not yours - but when you are juggling time, what did you find most conducive to your flight training?

Benjamin
 
Did mine while in high school. Plenty of free time. Some things are better done young.
 
There's an online flight school. I saw them at OSH, but I can't remember the name of it.

That's what my busy son with 3.5 kids and a kick ass job is thinking about doing.

I don't know how it works. I'm guessing you do all the ground school stuff online, and go to a field and coordinate it with an instructor...:dunno:
 
When I was single and in college worked well. But I've squeezed in add-on ratings among normal family life, too. We all seem to find time for things that are important to us.
 
Bman. said:
I've got a day job (architect), 2 kids in elementary school and it seems an evening event all the time. I am getting my flight training underway and wonder - when did you guys get most of your flight training completed? Obviously a change in my schedule is going to occur, I am just trying to figure out how most folks fit flying into their schedule - little lone 2 or 3 times a week.

I know everyone is different and my schedule is not yours - but when you are juggling time, what did you find most conducive to your flight training?

Benjamin
Click to expand...

I had a similar situation. Two little kids, career, house payment, wife working part time. It was the worst possible time of my life to learn to fly, except for all the others...

My solution was to find a CFI who would fly with me early -- 7 AM, every day. I then sat down with my boss, who gave me the start-time flexibility I needed. (My training field was a 45 minute drive away, in good weather. And I trained in winter, so I needed some flexibility.)

If you hit it hard, you can finish it up in 3 - 4 months. It wasn't easy, but if you want something badly enough...
 
I have an unusual situation in that I'm self employed and can do most of my work at night. In fact since it's generally pretty hot in my shop this time of year the best time to do work is at night. That said, I made a decision to treat my training as I would any other school. I cut back on the work and made training a priority. I'm single and have no kids, so that's a luxury I'm able to have. I am planning on continuing on and becoming a professional pilot though, so I can justify the time and expense in a different way from those who are just doing it for fun.

Seems like a lot of people with normal jobs just have to deal with only flying once a week or so on the weekends. If you're lucky and are near an airport you may be able to go after work, especially if you can get off a little early.
 
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Am fortunate to have a boss who is a former airline pilot (Braniff) and understands my desire to aviate. I was able to have mornings two or three times a week to go train.
 
Did mine during graduate school (my first steady paying job). Flexibility to schedule 80 hrs of work per week around lessons. Enough money to fly, pay rent or eat (pick 2). The best time I had flying until I bought my own plane almost 3 years ago.

When I got to your point (family, financial obligations, etc.) I stopped flying because I'm not a good enough pilot to be proficient flying as infrequently as I had time for. Only took 28 years to get back to it.
 
I was working full time as an engineer in a factory, keeping equipment running, buying & testing new equipment, etc. then I started on my Engineering Masters at night, and flew once or twice every weekend from Oct to May. Hopefully you live somewhere that winter isn't too bad, as I only flew once each in Jan and Feb.

To make things more interesting, after I finished school, I worked on my Instrument Rating mostly at night after work. Did the XC on a Saturday.

Whatever works for you and your situation.

Maybe someday I will be able to only work 9 to 5 . . . .
 
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ok, how do I explain this. so, I work with several, um, lazy-ass b!tches who disappear multiple times a day, every day, year after year, all the freakin time. my boss is fully aware of this, but because of the times we live in, can't do much about it. he knows it drives me insane, because my philosophy, as crazy it may sound, is "you're supposed to be working when you're at work". yeah, I know.

so, when it came time for training, I told my boss "yeah, I'll be late 1 day a week for the foreseeable future". and that was that.

truth of the matter is, for me "late" was not later than 9:30, which is early on a good day for some of my coworkers so I didn't think twice about it.

this is just around early morning time slots. I did many after work slots and weekends as well so there was no impact there.
 
I flew after work, mostly on weekdays since I'm typically out of town on weekends. Toward the latter third of my training, I was able to leave early some days to go fly. It took me more than three years to get my private.
 
For most pilots I've met, at any point in time they either have the time or the money for this habit, but rarely both at the same time. Just need to "make it happen".
 
Saved up vacation time, got the written out of the way through self-study, then went looking for a CFI who I could get along with and was willing to schedule 2-4x/week. Told him that I had a core schedule for work, and I had to keep that, but everything else was negotiable.

Ended up working some strange schedules to make my work commitments and burning a bunch of vacation time in little 1 hr chunks in order to squeeze a flight in during lunch or make it to the airport for the last bit of daylight.

I was glad when those couple of months were done.
 
I obtained my Private Pilot license during my 4th year of medical school and early in my internship. Darn I was busy but what an escape it was at the time.

One of the physicians I worked with let me use her PA-28 180 all I had to do was pay fuel and the $700 insurance.
 
Did it in high school on the weekends.
 
Started my training in high school and currently while I finish up my last year of college.
 
I flew early in the AM and came in a little late to work 1 day/week and flew once every weekend. 2 lessons/week will get you there. In my case noone much noticed I was gone on the weekend mornings because they sleep in and I'm an early bird. (pun not intended)

Bman. said:
I've got a day job (architect), 2 kids in elementary school and it seems an evening event all the time. I am getting my flight training underway and wonder - when did you guys get most of your flight training completed? Obviously a change in my schedule is going to occur, I am just trying to figure out how most folks fit flying into their schedule - little lone 2 or 3 times a week.

I know everyone is different and my schedule is not yours - but when you are juggling time, what did you find most conducive to your flight training?

Benjamin
Click to expand...
 
My instructor and I both worked weekdays, so we did Sat/Sun mornings until I got to solo. Once I could solo, I added flying after work to move things along.
 
I'd try to go 2 times a week, once in the evening after work on whatever day happened to work out, and first thing every Sunday morning.

Depending what you're flying and how your kids and instructor are, you could bring the kids with you.
 
I did my PPL right after the military and had free time for a couple months. Flying 3-7 lessons a week for the first 25 hrs made it go really fast.

If you can only get weekend time try to fly 1 lesson in the am maybe debrief have some lunch or go see the kids and then fly later in the afternoon. It really helps to stay fresh and keep moving forward early on if you can fly as much as possible.

Have fun....

Dan
 
I went every Saturday and sometimes after work for an entire year.. This was in between my 3 kids' Baseball games, school programs, ect... I started August 24th of last year and just earned my PPL yesterday :) It was hectic at times but I stuck with it..
 
As most people have said already..... you just find a way to make it work by making it a priority.

Somewhat similar situation with regular job during the week and 3 kids with ex-wife all involved in some extra-curricular activity and then current girlfriend having 2 kids of her own (we live together so basically married).

I went through a couple CFI before finding one that worked for me. The others wanted to only instruct M-F 9-5 and on weekends if they didn't have something for which they would let me know by Fri of that week. That doesn't really work for me for obvious reasons.

What has worked really well for me is scheduling with my CFI a week or more in advance for the lessons after work so it is on my calendar before anything else that might pop up. If you are like me there is always something going on and I could be busy every night of the week if I waited until that time to try to schedule a lesson. Schedule the lesson in advance and it becomes the priority on your calendar for which you then scheudle around it the other things. This works for me doing once or twice a week as needed and then on weekends as regular as possible.
 
Good stuff guys - thanks. Yeah, making it a priority is the key. I know I can make it work and I already marched in and politely asked the boss to use his plane. I will go back in an tell him I am going to use his plan to make me late a few times a week.

Bolted out early today and settled on my CFI. Great guy. We'll get along just fine. Walked the plane and shot the breeze for a while. He manages the FBO so he is always there. The airport is 4.4 miles north of where I am sitting.

While I was there, stepped into the PC-12 he was taking out later tonight.
Then we walked around the Archer II just to take a peak.

N2853_A_2.jpg
 
I put in about 50-70 hours a week with work, but I work from home so I can squeeze in flying during the day. However I also work it around family time and other things. So I go weeks without flying and then some weeks I pack on the hours.

In my off time though I study and play Prepar3D (Flight Sim).
 
That's pretty much how I see this all going down. Some weeks, one flight, other weeks 3.

I hear you on P3D. I just dialed mine in. Waiting for v2.3 ASN update.
Just posted this video for a friend of mine. He wanted to see how P3D would handle in the Cherokee at Orbx KSEA area. As expected, 20's. Every where else 30s ~ 40s.

http://youtu.be/c3KxOvNEc4M
 
P3D will help you a lot on flying. You'll be familiar with the planes, systems and switches and they won't have to explain to you the basic flight controls. I was having some issues on my landings post solo because I was really over thinking it. I did somewhere around 5 hours pattern/landing work over 3 days and on the 4th went back out with the CFI and nailed it. Haven't had an issue since (Some better than others obviously).

With your P3D setup. You are using headtracker I assume and what is the AFD looking thing that pops up on the right hand side or is that something plane specific? Not to sound like a complete nerd but I have an Oculus Rift DK2 coming next week and need something AFD to look up info without taking the headset off.
 
The OC is nice! One of my simming buds has one on the way as well. They are really being shipped??

That's the Garmin 750 GTN from flight1. Awesome device and can be put in any plane. I have always been a fan oh RXP stuff (530/430) so this is just the latest and greatest. $70 bucks but you can drop it into every plane so it's a good value.

Benjamin


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Like I told you on a PM you'll do fine in flight training. My CFI was a bit dumbfounded at the amount of information I already knew going into it and my ability to pick up coordinated control of the aircraft. In fact did Spin training Friday and successfully did two spin and recoveries, which I practiced in the game. Note: Note spin training isn't required for a PPL but I wanted to deal with my fear of putting the plane into a spin.

The Oculus Rift DK2 has been shipping for about a month. I Pre-ordered it the 2nd or 3rd day it was offered and received an email late last week that it's in processing and will ship with their next shipment. I'll most likely buy an Nvidia 880 when those come out.
 
My work schedule is sometimes more flexible than others. When I did my primary training, I had some flexibility, so established a schedule of flying early morning on Tue and Thur, plus either Sat or Sun.

A year after I got my PPL, when I wanted to get my IR, I no longer had that flexibility. Instead, I was able to identify a two-week window, so I elected to use one of the intensive-training schools. Did a lot of reading/studying in the months before, so understood all the concepts and just needed to put them into practice.

Both approaches worked well for me.
 
Bman. said:
I've got a day job (architect), 2 kids in elementary school and it seems an evening event all the time. I am getting my flight training underway and wonder - when did you guys get most of your flight training completed? Obviously a change in my schedule is going to occur, I am just trying to figure out how most folks fit flying into their schedule - little lone 2 or 3 times a week.

I know everyone is different and my schedule is not yours - but when you are juggling time, what did you find most conducive to your flight training?

Benjamin
Click to expand...

I lived on an island off LA and had 2 consecutive days off a week. I would either fly to LGB with a freight BE-18 or my CFI would pick me up in a 152. Fly a lesson, study, have lunch, fly another lesson, head to my buddies or the marina for the night, go back to the airport, fly a lesson, study, have lunch, fly another lesson and drop off on the island.
 
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