how to pick a flight school it can be one of the most stressful part of how to
become a pilot in this video I'm gonna cover 5 points you should consider
when you're choosing your flight school coming up hey 74 crew welcome
back if you don't know me my name is Kelsey I'm a 747 pilot my channel 74
gear is all about aviation so whether you're a pilot or an aviation enthusiast
consider subscribe in this video I'm gonna cover the five main things you
should consider when you're choosing your flight school let's get into it if
you haven't seen the video that led up to this where I talked about the two
different types of flight schools and I'll put that in the link up here it's
important that you watch that first if you've already watched that I just want
you to know I spoke to several of my friends at different stages in their
careers that were flying charters and that at the airlines to help put this
list together because it's a very complex subject every pilot has
different situations as far as what school is the best fit for them kind of
like a college your friend may say hey this college is the best fit for me and
you might think well that doesn't work for me this is a better deal for me
so in this video I'm going to cover the five main topics to consider so that way
you can choose what's best for you first is location and this is really important
if speed is a factor if you're planning to get do flights go as quickly as
possible I mean you're not going through a
aviation university and doing a 141 program then speed may be a factor of
how quickly you can finish flight school so location becomes important because if
you can't fly you can't learn how to fly you're smart so then the location of
where you're doing your flight training is really important some examples of
really good areas to do flight training where the weather is gonna be good most of
the year gonna be Southern California Arizona Texas Florida has a lot of flight
schools has some thunderstorms in the summer time but for the most part of the
year it's clear so though there's some great locations of where you can
generally find good weather and that's why you find a lot of flight schools
along the southern part of the u.s. some areas that wouldn't be great would be
places like upstate New York or maybe Seattle or Portland where there's a lot
more clouds and rainy weather that will be fine as you get later on through
flight school but especially for your initial stages when you're learning
maneuvers and things like that you're not gonna be able to go out and fly in that
weather again if the speed is important than location is important if speed is
not a factor then it doesn't really matter
second is budget obviously if you're gonna go to flight school it's gonna
cost you some money anyway you could lend me some money maybe it's a million
dollars budget is a factor the things you want to look at and consider are
what types of planes do they have and how much do they rent for what is the
cost of a CFI which is your certified flight instructor who's gonna be helping
you to fly what is the cost of ground school do they charge for ground school
and reason that's important for example when I did my private pilot license they
didn't charge for ground school which was a happy surprise I didn't even know
that I should be asking about that I did my private pilot license at a part 61
school my instructor Sean didn't charge me for ground school maybe it was
because we were such good friends I don't know but he didn't charge anything
for that and the school didn't charge anything for that it's important to find
out what do they charge for ground school because that may or may not be a
factor when you're weighing everything out another point to consider when
you're looking at budget is are you military are you planning to use your GI
Bill towards your flight school at this time I believe only 141 schools allow
you to use your GI Bill so if you're planning to use your GI Bill towards
paying for your flight school I believe right now it's only 141 that's taking
that money so that's definitely something you need to consider and if
you're leaving where you're living right now to go out of state or out of city to
do your flight school housing is housing cheap or is it expensive are you gonna
need a car to get to and from flight school so those are all things to factor
in when you're looking at your budget the third thing to consider is your
ability to fly you're gonna want to look at what is the ratio between the flight
instructors and the students a bad example would be if you had a flight
school with one instructor and for every one instructor you had 30 to 40
full-time students it's gonna be really hard everyone's gonna be fighting for
the attention of the flight instructor to have him or her take you up and work
on your flight training so that is one thing to consider the other thing to
consider is how many planes do they have if that flight school only has two
planes and they have 30 students so one plane gets broken or goes into
maintenance then everybody's gonna be fighting to get on that other plane to
learn how to fly you need to fly you sat down on Friday it's just important to
weigh out what is your ability to fly at that flight school when you're weighing
out flight schools so the fourth step is go and kick the tires and what I mean
by that is go out and check out some of these flight schools like when you pick
a college it's good to go there and see for yourself
what is it like talk to the flight instructors talk to the students just
walk around and take a tour and see what it looks like look at the aircraft do
the aircraft look like they're completely beat up or they look like
they're okay to fly I'll tell you my very first plane that I flew was a
Cessna 172 and it was older than me it was okay it was in ok shape but the guy
who was running the flights who was the mechanics so I knew that the plane
itself was in great shape it was just the wear and tear of it it looked a
little bit old unless you want to pay a lot of money and that's what it's gonna
be your planes are gonna be older look at the plane but don't just look at the
aesthetics of it look to see what the maintenance of it looks like talk to the
maintenance guys it they'll let you just get an idea of how are they being taken
care of if you can do a demo flight go do a demo flight a demo flight is
usually an introductory flight and they'll take you around and either show
you some sights of the city or maybe give you a couple traffic patterns and
give you a taste of what it's like to fly and if you do a demo flight it's
important that you log that time meaning you get the flight instructors name you
get the tail number you get the total flight times because if you do decide to
pursue aviation as a career or you just want to go get your private pilot
license that flight time that you log during that introductory flight that is
countable towards your license so it's important to write all that set down
even if you don't have a logbook make a note of it somewhere so that way you can
log that time now keep in mind that you are the customer so if the flight
instructor you go up with on your demo fight you don't like him or your flight
instructor that while you're at that school you don't like them you are the
customer so you are able to change your flight instructor I had a lot of
different directors I really only had one that I didn't get along with and I
ended up using another guy at a different school for the vast majority
of that training whenever possible both of them were busy so I just used the guy
didn't like that much the least amount that I could but it's important to
remember you are the customer so keep that in mind if you don't like your
instructor you can get another one don't feel obligated if you don't feel that
you're learning from them go to another instructor and look up the reviews
online keep in mind that in some cases the reviews are gonna be from grumpy
people because they didn't get what it was that they wanted realize that pilots
are whiners we are big cry-baby so if you see 10 good reviews
and one bad review of guys saying I couldn't get the flight time that I want
to just realize and take it with a grain of salt it is good to do your research
on the flight schools and see what people are saying and see what the
people there when you're out doing your tour see what the pilots that are there
that are in flight school talk with them or go have lunch with them whatever get
a taste of what that school is like before you get into their program the
fifth thing to consider is payment options every flight schools got
different payment options of how they want you to pay in some places if you
pay for a bunch of flight training at one time you might get a discount other
places they'll have financing options to help you pay for everything that's the
last thing to consider when you're weighing out options and that's gonna be
dependent upon you and your family as far as what you can afford and what you
really need if that's a factor and that's definitely something to consider
I get a lot of comments from people and a lot of messages on DMS people sending
me on Instagram what's the best flight school first let me tell you this if you
send me a DM asking me about what your best flight school is I'm gonna tell you
to leave a comment here in the YouTube video save your time leave me a comment
if you have a question about anything that you want to know it's so much
easier for me to reply to a comment on here but if you're looking for the best
flight school in Dallas use these points that I talked about here make a list of
the questions that you have and then make a list of the schools you'd be
interested in call them up or send them an email and start talking to them ask
them hey I got a couple questions you have a minute and then just start asking
all the questions that you have make a list and do your research because every
flight school is different there's gonna be a flight tool that I could say hey
this is the best flight school in Dallas because I really had a great experience
there and you might say hell no I don't want to go that bye tool because X Y & Z
do your own research that's what Google is for you have a
cellphone I'm sure do your research and do your homework and figure out what is
the best one for you and another question that I get from people is how
much does flight school cost well it's different every flight school is
different and what flight tool cost two years ago and what it costs a day is
different you're gonna have to do some of your own legwork make a list call
them find out what it is that they're charging and then ask them hey what's
the average amount of time that guys need at this school to get your private
or to get your commercial if you know what it costs per hour for flight
instruction and you know how many hours you need because you've watched that
other video that I talked about you're gonna know how many
hours you're gonna need to complete you can do the math of how much it's gonna
cost to go to flight school so you're gonna have to do some legwork but then
you'll be able to sit down and do some math and weigh out everything and pick
the best option for you all right that's everything that I have on flight
school and pilot training share this video with any of your friends that are
looking or have questions about going to flight schools if you like this video
give it a thumbs up and hit the subscribe button in the comment section
below let me know where you're planning to do your flight training I look
forward to hearing from you until then keep the blue side up
you