It wasn’t until 1926, when Calvin Coolidge enacted the Air Commerce Act, that a pilot’s license became a requirement. With this additional requirement, the first Flight School was born around the same time to help students pass the FAA exam.
Flight schools offer different types of certificates and ratings, from a sport pilot’s license to an air transport pilot’s license. A private pilot certificate requires a minimum of 35 hours of flight training, and a commercial pilot certificate requires at least 120 hours.
Each school is required to provide its students with ground training, which consists of an instructor teaching in the classroom, and aerial training where you fly the plane with the instructor.
Flight training schools themselves can be licensed under FAR Part 61 or FAR Part 141. FAR 141 flight schools can only have the “141” designation if the school and training program are FAA approved. In addition, the quality of student performance is measured through progressive flight exams throughout their training. Training is documented to FAA standards. Training conducted in accordance with FAR Part 61 generally requires more hours to become licensed than FAR Part 141, but stage checks (flight tests during training) are not required. Upon completion of the specific program, the student pilot must perform an FAA flight check to obtain a license or rating.
If you are planning a career as a pilot, you will most likely be training under FAR Part 141. If you are an international student, the US Department of State requires that you also train under FAR Part 141 standards.
Now the next step is how to determine a flight training school that best suits your needs. The basic steps below will help you make a good choice.
1. Create a checklist to use to evaluate each school you think you might be interested in attending.
2. Check the websites of these schools for more information. Then call or email to ask them for more information. Be sure to tell them if you’ve already logged a few hours or earned any flight certificates. Also, be sure to let the school know what your goal is: recreational flying or professional flying. Some flight training organizations are small and have part-time instructors. This might be perfectly adequate to train you to be a weekend aviator, but it’s probably not what you want if you hope to end up flying B-767s for an airline. And if professional flying is your goal, you may want to ask if the flight school is accredited by a national accrediting agency: an accredited school must have high standards in the quality of instruction, accuracy in its marketing, and must be financially solid. . If you plan to move for your education, another good question is the cost of living in the area.
If you’re like many flight training students, chances are you’re on a limited budget, so you’ll probably prefer your training in an area where you can live modestly. Of course, it would be preferable if the place has apartments available at low cost, as well as excellent recreational opportunities: after all, you will probably be living there for a year.
Another good question concerns the weather: does the area offer great weather? Otherwise, you will most likely not be able to fly as often as you would like due to bad weather. That means it will possibly take you longer to complete your flight training in, say, Oregon and Indiana than it will in Florida, simply because of the weather. Also, be sure to ask about the training plane. You’ll want lots of planes, and newer ones. Older aircraft are often “down” for maintenance, which again means you may not be able to fly as often as you’d like, extending the time it takes to get certified…
3. If possible, visit the top two or three schools on your list. Talk to instructors and students and ask to see the training plane. Do you like the way school “feels”? Do you feel you would fit in and feel comfortable studying and flying there? Of course, if you are an international student wanting to come to the US for flight training, you may not be able to visit. In that case, be sure to speak to an admissions officer and ask all your questions, and don’t hesitate to ask for advice if you’re not sure how to proceed with your flight training. An admissions officer at the flight school will be able to advise you, depending on what your goals are.
4. Once you are comfortable with choosing a school and have found one that meets the checklist you created in Step 1, you will also want to get a written agreement with the costs and the courses or programs you will receive. .
5. Now that you’ve gone through this very important selection process, get ready to study hard, learn new and exciting things, and have the time of your life! You will probably learn very quickly why so many pilots say that “flying is my passion”.
