Learning to fly in the USA

I learned to fly in Orlando.

Now if you read a lot of the forums about this there appear to be differing views on whether this is a good thing or not. Generally, "If you're going to fly in the US it is a good thing. If you're going to fly in the UK it isn't."

I totally disagree (but with reservations)

Let me tell you some of the good things I learned from learning to fly in the US

1) Air Traffic Control : I flew from Kissimmee Airport in Orlando. It is underneath the main Orlando International approach paths and it is a controlled airfield. There are two guys in the tower at all times - one looking after the planes in the air and the other looking after the planes on the ground. Before you could move you needed permission from them, before you could cross a runway you needed permission from them, before you could take off you needed permission from them. Kissimmee airport is a busy place. At one point I was in a holding pattern about 3 miles east of the main runway waiting for a stream of Gulfstream and Cessna Citation jets to land. This a student pilot with about 12 hours on type at that point! I've also done circuit work where I was asked to extend upwind or downwind or turn at the towers discretion, make abnormal circuits to avoid traffic and - as already mention - sit in a holding pattern for 15 minutes at busy times. How many UK trained private pilots can say that?
2) ATIS: Kissimmee also has an automated weather recording that needed to be listened to prior to requesting taxi permission. It's amazing how that focuses the mind when starting up the engine knowing that before you make any calls to anyone on the radio you need to take your time to listen and make notes. It is calming and focusing at the same time
3) Weather: Of the whole time I was there I missed 3 hours of flying through 'bad' weather. These three hours were 3 single hour delays at 7am due to mist needing to be burnt off before VFR flight was possible
4) No landing fees: I flew from Kissimmee to 5 other airports during my training, including two fields which were uncontrolled, for almost 75 landings in total. My accumulated costs for landing at these airports: $0. That's right, the USA does not charge you for landing. On top of that one of the flights was into Melbourne International Airport where my instructor and I decided to make a quick touch and go - without PPR - and followed a 737 on approach. We just radioed the tower from about 8 miles out, asked for a touch and go and they said 'Yes'
5) Time: How long was I in the US to do my PPL course? 3 months? 6 months? 6 weeks? Nope. None of the above. I left Orlando airport 14 days after I arrived with a grand total of 42 hours flying time and ALL my exams completed. Had the 3 weather delays I mentioned earlier not happened I could have completed the skills test prior to leaving and come back with all that was needed.
6) The cost : Price to hire a PA28 at my local airfield here in the UK - approx £2 per minute (wet). Price to hire a PA28 in the US - approx $2 per minute (wet). That's a huge difference and accounts for one of the reasons lots of people follow the route I took and learn in the US. Total cost for the two weeks course (including tuition, ground school, dedicated insructor, US medical, student visa processing, examination fees, accomodation & hire car) for 42 hours flying - $9500.

What didn't I like about flying in the US

1) Instructor availability : Luckily I had a dedicated instructor for my tuition. Aaron and I flew three times a day every day and he was great. But that's because I paid a little extra to get that assurance. The last thing I wanted to do was to take time off from work, fly to the US, spend a good amount of cash to learn to fly and come away with only a few hours flying time because the instructors weren't available. I met several people, though, who were there for their 3rd week of tuition and had amassed a grand total of 13 hours flying time. Considering they were spending all day every day at the flying school that wasn't good.
2) Curriculum: One of the areas I missed out on with my instruction was flying under the hood. (using vision restrictors in VFR to simulate IFR conditions). Aaron and I went through the steps of tracking a VOR and following the needle, talked about reverse sensing etc., until I was comfortable with the process, but I never actually spent any time flying simulated IFR. This is a condition of passing a UK based skills test but not a US based one.
3) FAA vs JAA My course was a JAA course taken under FAA conditions. This was fine for a lot of the time, but did cause problems under certain conditions. For example learning to stall. Under JAR standards the stall must fully develop prior to recovery. Under FAA examination standards it just has to go to the stall wanring before you can recover. Being in an environment where the instructors has both standards to learn it was easy to get confused or miss things.
4) Good weather : I know it sounds funny, but because the weather in Florida was basically superb for the whole time I was there I never got into the situation where I had to make decisions due to prevailing bad weather. All my weather related flying has occured since I arrived back in the UK (It's fun trying to fly a skills test in the UK with a decending 1500 foot ceiling over ground where the minimum safe altitude is 1000 feet!)

Overall I think I received excellent flight training in the US. It took my 2 weeks to do 42 hours and pass all the exams and it took my almost 6 months in the UK to get the remaining hours and the skills test, so I shudder to think how long it would have taken if I had done it all in the UK!

Were there things I would have learned in the UK that I didn't learn in the US? Of course. My UK instructors have already taught me lots of things we didn't cover in Florida. But Aaron in the US did also teach me short field take-off and landings which are not part of the JAR curriculum

I'll cover the Orlando flying school experience in more detail in a later post.