2 Week PPL

[Driving Comet]

Anyone heard of this?

http://tailwheelsetc.com/index.html

Thoughts? Kind of puts my year long quest for a PPL to shame... Should I call bullshit?

DC

[Cat Driver]

Two weeks to PPL would really be a busy schedule, but the rest sure looks good.

I got my PPL in tail wheel airplanes in thirty hours and around three months.

[AEROBAT]

They claim they can do the private in two weeks however they say it takes 7 to 10 hours to master a taildragger Something doesn't add up.

[shamrock104]

Yes, it can be done and was done during the Summer by a fellow Canadian.

[AEROBAT]

Why would it take 7 to 10 hours to transition to a taildragger then?

[Tango01]

I have read of a guy in the States who did his PPL in 9 days. Its possible.

[AEROBAT]

I have no doubt that some people could do their private in 2 weeks, allthough it would take great dedication. What I thought was strange was the 7 to 10 hours they quote to learn how to fly a Champ. That is as much as they quote for their multi endorsement. I would say 5 hours tops to learn a Champ.

[Cat Driver]

If you start on a tail wheel airplane you will solo in about the same time frame you will in a nose wheel airplane.

The reason it takes seven to ten hours to check out some nose wheel pilots is they can take that long to learn how to use the rudder during take off and landing.

[AEROBAT]

Old habits can be hard to break I suppose. I was flying a borrowed 172 a couple of years ago and was coming in to land during a strong cross wind when I realized I was setting up for a wheel landing just before touchdown

[Cat Driver]

[rotateandfly]

2 weeks... i imagine this guy really lucked out with the weather also!

[The Old Fogducker]

I had an excellent student get a PPL on his summer vacation, which was 2 weeks, plus 2 extra weekends ... He was a Professor of Education at UBC, and really understood how his brain worked for learning, how to retain information, and had above average motor skills. He flew 3 times a day, and the wx was great for the whole time.

That was before Boundary Bay was open, and we flew from YVR over to PK for most of our training and all of the solo work in the north or south practice area.

To his credit, he had done his medical, and a lot of reading of the Flight Training Manual & FTGU well beforehand, and wrote the exam at the minimum of 10 hours ... on day 2 or 3. He did his flight test,and scored well. After awhile, it got to the point where he would preflight brief me on the objective of the lesson, and I would just correct as required.

It was something he had wanted to do for many, many years and I don't think he flew after obtaining his licence.

So, it can be done, but not without a lot of preparation, and total dedication...... and not likely by your average guy off the street.

As a treat, he took me for lunch at the UBC Faculty Club one day, where I met David Suzuki ... he was strange even then..... before he began to smell the money associated with perpetrating the hoax of man-made global warming.

OFD

[shamrock104]

The trick with the US PPL is to get all the studying out of the way beforehand and get the written done on arrival in the US, also be aware of the thunderstorms around Florida in July/ August and two weeks will do it for you.

[Spokes]

I taught a guy a PPL in 10 days. Much of it was done on a float plane. If you got a real sharp student who works hard, it is no problem.

[MichaelP]

This is all very good, and it is possible with a student who has done all the groundschool beforehand.
It is also OK if the student has been flying all his life like a lively 16 year old who grew up in his/her father/mother's aeroplane.
Or if not grew up bulding model aeroplanes and flying them.

But for even the smartest of people with no prior aviation experience no-one but absolutely no-one should be given a PPL after only two weeks of training regardless of how many hours that person has done.
I'll stick my neck out on this one... Three months to PPL should be an absolute minimum for 90% or more of people with no prior knowledge.

Why do I stick my neck out like this?
Experience.
I used to rent my aeroplanes to people. Some went to the USA and did the three week PPL... I had to be very very careful and I'd rather they go to the local spamcan school and fly there for a while before I risked my aeroplanes with them.

It's not a question of hours as much as what you have seen and absorbed in those hours.
The three week FAA PPL holders who had flown in the open clear skies of Texas were not adequately trained for British weather and more complicated airspace.
Most of them could not read a map!
Then there's decision making... In three weeks how much decision making did they do, what weather did they see?

Tailwheel vs nosewheel, that argument will go on forever.
A person trained in a Citabria will go solo in the same time as a person trained in a Cessna 152.
The difference being the quality of instructor required.
It's without question that the tailwheel instructor has to produce a better stick and rudder pilot.
A poorer instructor can get away with a poor standard in a Cessna nosedragger.
Habits learned or accepted in the nosedragger are dangerous in a tailwheel aeroplane.
They are so dangerous as has been made apparent here at CZBB in the past couple of years, that I worry, really worry.
You can check a person out in the Citabria, see as much as possible but not every circumstance.
Then an odd circumstance happens to the now PIC checked out pilot and some bad habit from his/her PPL 'training' in the Cessna nosedragger leads to a bad accident.

Typical is seeing pilots moving the stick forward and backwards during the hold-off... I've seen instructors do this! They don't realise they're doing it!
In a nosedragger it looks untidy but you get away with it... In the tailwheel aeroplane you'll end up bouncing all over the place!

[MichaelP]

I looked at the website.
This sort of thing incenses me.
Everyone who I have ever talked to about training has had realistic information given to them and nearly everyone of them has started at whatever school I was at.

I have just e-mailed the school in question and here is my e-mail:

Dear Mr Amundsen,

"Some people will tell you that its not possible to learn everything you need to know in two weeks. That simply is not true. You will have to pass the same checkride that everyone else takes."

I am one of those people.
I have been in this business for 36 years and you cannot produce a safe pilot who I'd rent an aeroplane to in two weeks.

What you are proposing to people is in my opinion dangerous and unrealistic.

If you believe that passing a checkride is all that should be necessary to be a PPL who can share our skies then you should not be teaching people to fly.

In my career I have seen many three week PPL trainees from the USA and they have all been almost dangerous.

I run a flying school myself and I believe in being honest with people from the start.
You are not honest in your advertising.

Regards,

MichaelP

(Last name and URL given)

[Shiny Side Up]

Possible in 2 weeks? Yes. Probable in two weeks? Very unlikely, given all the factors involved - in Canada especially, it can snow for any two weeks out of the given year, including June, July and August at any location North of the 49th. That alone could put a crimp on anyone attempting a record time to complete. I've already figured on how many man-hours is required to reasonably complete a PPL and its a tight schedule.

I'm also inclined to agree with MichaelP in that I don't believe such a course would produce a safe pilot given how quickly people's skills degrade - unless said pilot was subjected to some refresher training at least once a week for the period immediately following his/her training and once every two weeks for a period after that.

It is the doom of people that they forget... and often quicker than you'd think.

[MichaelP]

A review of the Flight Instructor Guide will show the "Curve of Remembering" on pages 3 and 4. IMHO the two week PPL course goes against this.

I had a reply to my e-mail as follows:

"Hi Michael
We have heard this before and actually the FAA examiners were very skeptical
when we started 5 years ago and felt the same way you do. Some of those
first checkrides were brutal. The examiners were determined to find out what
we left out. Instead the examiners came back to us and told us our students
were some of the best they had seen. This type of training is not for
everybody. There are some people that this does not work well for. The
fellow that is our chief flight instructor told us when he started as a CFI
that he did not believe we could produce good pilots in our program and
would not teach that way. He is now the biggest proponent of accelerated
training I have ever seen. The quality of training is so superior to
anything else we have ever done. I have been a CFI all my life and probably
would have felt like you 6 years ago. I am still astonished by the quality
of pilot we generate. It's actually a function of highly motivated students
and the best CFI's. Not all CFI's are able to teach in an accelerated
program and we have had to let several of them go. They were good people but
they could not adapt to our program. The first time a CFI works with an
accelerated student they find very quickly that the CFI (and it doesn't
matter how much experience or time the CFI already has) has a lot to learn
about the education process. We have sent many pilots home to their home
airport and the locals were very nervous about renting them a plane so they
gave them a more strenuous checkout than the actual checkride and have
always told the pilot that they could rent their planes anytime. If you
like I would be pleased to give you the number for several of the examiners
in this area. We do not have an in house examiner because we don't want
anyone saying that we just pass the students for their money. I am not
interested in that. The students can use any examiner that they want. Since
I was retired when we started this program I was able to make a few rules
about how things would be done. I wanted it to be fun for me. (I don't have
to work so I wasn't going to do something I didn't enjoy.) It should be fun
or enjoyable for the students. Yes its hard work and safety is of course
paramount. And third we had to make better pilots than anyone else. I feel
we have accomplished these goals very well. The FAA has determined that our
program is excellent and they have awarded us the coveted 141 designation as
a result.
Since we have trained over 500 pilots using these techniques I do not agree
with your assessment that we are doing false advertizing and are not honest.
Being honest with students is something we see very few flight schools
doing. We finish students that have been at another school for sometimes a
year or two and do not have the abilities to be a safe pilot prior to our
working with them.
You are doing a grave disservice to the aviation community by not checking
out what we are doing first before making negative comments.

John Amundsen ATP,CFI,CFII,MEI,AGI,IGI
jamundsen@tampabay.rr.com
http://www.tailwheelsetc.com "

My reply:

Dear John,

I do not agree.
I have been at the receving end of many pilots who have done accelerated training, never as fast as your scheme but nevertheless they did their licences in 3 weeks to a month.

You enjoy very good weather in Florida and fairly open skies.
The training you provide there is not a good preparation for pilots who fly in many other parts of the world.

I too have taught within a Part 141 school. The training would have been effective in the gin clear skies of New Mexico, but it was hopeless in the poor visibility where I was.
I suppose that Part 141 schemes are different for each training school as ours included 1.6 hours instrument before solo, and the SOPs were written with some emphasis on instrument indications during different phases of flight. This was difficult for me as I believe in eyes outside the cockpit as much as possible (PPL VFR training).

We had a lot of original FAA instructors at the 141 school, nearly all of them failed the FAA commercial written exams they had to retake before teaching!
Few of them could land the aeroplane properly and while I was there there were five propeller strikes on aircraft that are nosewheel equipped and about as easy to land as you can get!
I was an assistant chief flight instructor and I flew with all of my instructors. Several of the US trained instructors would come in too fast and land too shallow and this transfered to students led to propeller attrition! There were no prop strikes on my watch!
But we had a wingtip strike... Most of the instructors only knew the side slip method of crosswind control and not the crab and kick it straight method!
I did not gain a favourable impression of many of these instructors, but there were a few who were willing to learn and so it wasn't all bad.

Your instructors would have to be exceptional.

The two week PPL would certainly be frowned upon here in Canada where Transport Canada is a more strict authority than perhaps the FAA is in many places. It is also not possible at most times of the year!

In my experience a lot of really important knowledge is forgotten very quickly if learned within a very short period of time and this tends to bear out what is written in Transport Canada's own publication the "Flight Instructor Guide".
If you go to the Transport Canada website you can see the "Curve of Remembering" graph on pages 3 and 4. See: http://www.tc.gc.ca/civilaviation/gener ... actors.htm

What you are doing appears to be counter to what Transport Canada here advocates in their Curve of Remembering.
Whereas it is possible to put a student through a PPL in good weather in two weeks there should be ongoing training support after the PPL is issued.

I do get annoyed by such claims as your school's as in my experience they are unrealistic for most people.
Here in Canada many schools promote the 45 hour PPL minimum while the average here is over 70! This too is false advertising.

In my opinion, learning over a few months rather than a few weeks is more likely to produce a competent and safe pilot.

Regards,

Michael

[FlaplessDork]

A review of the Flight Instructor Guide will show the "Curve of Remembering" on pages 3 and 4. IMHO the two week PPL course goes against this.

I don't see how it goes against the curve of remembering. The curve is based knowledge retention upon leaving the training environment. If you are constantly reviewing and never leave the training environment you are in essence not allowing the curve to drop in the first place.

You are doing a grave disservice to the aviation community by not checking
out what we are doing first before making negative comments.

I agree with him on this point. You know what they say about people who assume...

I think you're making excuses to why you can't meet minimum requirements or guarantee completion within a set time frame and when you see others able to pull if off you cry foul.

[MichaelP]

If you are constantly reviewing and never leave the training environment you are in essence not allowing the curve to drop in the first place.

It's two weeks in the training environment and then you're out.
How much would you remember a month or two later when you decide to go flying?

I think you're making excuses to why you can't meet minimum requirements or guarantee completion within a set time frame and when you see others able to pull if off you cry foul.

Are you able to train someone within the minimums?

Would you rent an aeroplane to a person who did a two week PPL training course in the same way you would someone who took training over a longer period?

Would you yourself have been as good a pilot as you are now if you had done everything within two weeks?

I'm not making excuses for the way we train here. But I am questioning the efficacy of the two week course.
I have had a lot of experience with three week PPLs trained in the USA to return to the UK less than ideally prepared to fly in poor weather, and where there's plenty of controlled airspace.
I think the training standard here in Canada is higher than most places in the world, and I think this is not a bad thing.
It's like the RPP and UPP here. We cannot do it within the TC minimums, we operate in controlled airspace and busy airspace. There's a reasonable amount of time required for anyone to become comfortable flying here, both the student and the school has to be comfortable.
That Canadian schools 'fail' is written into the CADORS as people infringe the local controlled airspaces here... Imagine someone who has never seen controlled airspace!
Like soloing in 7 hours, a minimum 45 hour PPL is possible in the boondocks, but what happens when that person flies here?

We share the airspace, we need to be sure that people sharing it are as safe as is possible.

I think that all flying instructors and schools have an obligation to do the best they can to ensure we are all safe, whatever time that takes.

Would anyone on here recommend a student take this two week course in Florida while the security games are on?

[AEROBAT]

Michael,
My nephew did his private in 46 hours in Edmonton, and that is controlled airspace. I was very impressed. I can't remember how many weeks it took him though.

[Cat Driver]

Flying aircraft can be broken down into three segments.

Aviate:

Navigate:

Communicate:

Would it not make perfect sense to teach a new pilot to aviate ( fly ) from a grass field in a simple training airplane ( Like a Cub, Aeronca, Cessna 140 ) to the point they can pass the PPL flight test then introduce them to the navigate, communicate part of flying?

To me it makes sense if for no other reason than they will be taught how to actually fly the thing in a controlled environment without the outside interference of having to deal with the constant chatter on the radio at a busy controlled airport.

[AEROBAT]

Cat,

That would be ideal, especialy with a Cub or Aeronca. Probably a lot cheaper too than using some plastic airplane.

[FlaplessDork]

Flying aircraft can be broken down into three segments.

Aviate:

Navigate:

Communicate:

Would it not make perfect sense to teach a new pilot to aviate ( fly ) from a grass field in a simple training airplane ( Like a Cub, Aeronca, Cessna 140 ) to the point they can pass the PPL flight test then introduce them to the navigate, communicate part of flying?

To me it makes sense if for no other reason than they will be taught how to actually fly the thing in a controlled environment without the outside interference of having to deal with the constant chatter on the radio at a busy controlled airport.

I like this idea.

[FlaplessDork]

It's two weeks in the training environment and then you're out.
How much would you remember a month or two later when you decide to go flying?

Two week, two months, two years. It doesn't make a difference if you've instilled in your student an attitude of always needing to learn.

Are you able to train someone within the minimums?

Actually, I've done it often. Usually, its the people who do it at an accelerated pace.

Would you rent an aeroplane to a person who did a two week PPL training course in the same way you would someone who took training over a longer period?

Absolutely.

Would you yourself have been as good a pilot as you are now if you had done everything within two weeks?

Yes, and I would have saved a fare bit of money.

Would anyone on here recommend a student take this two week course in Florida while the security games are on?

If they are trained to think it shouldnt be a problem.