Flying in the US. Part Two

In one of my earliest posts I talked about how I had learned to fly in Orlando, Florida. I want to go into some more detail about that training to help you understand if you want to take that decision yourself.

In the earlier post I mentioned several of the advantages of using somewhere like Kissimmee as a base for flying. These included Air Traffic Control and ATIS experience, no landing fees and excellent weather. But I want to talk about the downside for a few moments.

Downsides:
The school I used (which will rename nameless, but was a flight training organisation based in Orlando), is one of at least two based at the airport. They do helicopter and fixed wing training as well as PA28, C172 and the full ATPL course. The facility has training rooms, an IFR simulator and full weather and briefing stations. They have a complement of instructors who do FAA and JAR training as well as instrument training and all the associated ATPL ground school classes. All in all it was a well organised school. But the downside to this is that it was always incredibly busy. There was a shortage of instructors, a shortage of planes and a shortage of slots. Any weather delay compounded the problem dramatically. Luckily I had a dedicated instructor which helped immensely, but I met folks out there who were on limited time courses and were simply not able to get the hours they needed and went home disappointed.

Added to that were the issues of the chief pilot. He was a dour Englishman who was being pulled in too many directions at the same time resulting in him not having enough time to do anything. As chief pilot he was responsible for administering and marking all exam papers, reviewing and finalising all flying documentation, authorising all student flights, dealing with the 'head office' area located on a different site as well as performing all the skills tests. For a small school with 5 or six instructors and a constant stream of students that would be acceptable, however for a large school with up to 15 instructors and literally dozens of students this was a major overload of work for him. I remember one day waiting almost 4 hours for him to return from a skills test, complete a set of documentation, make a dozen phone calls, hold a meeting with three guys from the aircraft hire section and have his lunch, before I was able to go in and request an exam paper from him which I completed in 45 minutes and waited another 2 hours for him to mark. As this was a critical exam needed to progress my flying hours it effectively meant I spent 6 hours of one day unable to fly. Extremely frustrating! In addition to this my dedicated instructor was also unable to fly and therefore lost a days earnings.

Upsides:
So what are the upsides? Well, assuming you can get yourself airborne, the upsides are tremendous. I've already mentioned the weather which is usually good and - even if it isn't - is usually very predictable - if the weather forecast said rain showers at 10 am you would get rain showers at 10am. It made planning flights very easy! There is a great deal of freedom in flying across the pond. Whilst they are, obviously, governed by the same rules and regulations we are, the implementation of those rules has resulted in a more liberal attitude. What do I mean? Take PPR, for example. "Prior Permission Required". it is a prerequisite of most UK airports, aerodromes and landing fields. You have to contact them prior to departure to inform them that you will be arriving and when. Now I'm not saying there isn't a good reason for this (for some tricky approaches - such as those into Fairoaks which is under the Heathrow Class A airspace - it is usually a good idea to get a briefing), but why, then, can I take off in Orlando and pretty much fly where I want without having to let anyone know my destination and then land randomly at whichever field appeals to me? I've already told you how I flew into Melbourne International Airport on a whim for a touch and go, following a 737 on finals. I also trekked out to the Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral for some flying and - whilst the space centre itself is restricted, I was able to spend several hours doing touch and go's at Merritt Island which is the nearest field still on the Cape Canaveral peninsula. My first solo was taken at a field called Winter Haven near Cypress Gardens. It's another field with good concrete runways and a nice, tricky approach that takes you over a large lake just prior to touchdown (Extremely interesting if attempting a short field landing. Imagine aiming for the water as your landing spot and flaring out to land right on the end of the runway. A little scary!). All of these landings were done without PPR and none of them cost me a cent. There are no landing charges.

ATC :
How many of you have worked in a complex, ATC managed traffic pattern? There aren't many fields in the UK where this happens. Shoreham is one (although the definition of 'complex' in this case might not mean the same thing). At Kissimmee the airport is a genuine working regional airport with traffic arriving from all points of the US and the Bahamas. As well as training pilots there helicopters, tourists coming in from Key West and environs as well as a host of corporate jets of various sizes heading in from New York, Chicago and the West Coast, not to mention a group of P51 Mustang's based at the field doing military style 'bank-and-break' maneuvers over midfield and peeling off to land in sequence. Throw a 10 or 15 hour student into the middle of that with air traffic control and you get some interesting situations which, I feel, are unique to the area.

On more than one occasion I have been asked to extend a downwind leg to allow a jet to make an instrument approach. I've also been told (while on short finals) to 'go-around' because a Cessna Citation was approaching behind me and would have been forced to go around himself (jet's being more expensive to 'go-around' on than a little PA28).

Summary :
There is no doubt in my mind that the US is geared more towards the pleasure flying end of the spectrum than the UK. Things just seem 'easier' and less hassle when flying there. The weather is good and predictable, the costs are lower, and the administration overhead is lower.

Why wouldn't you fly in the US?

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.