San Diego Shout out

Pilot? Student pilot? Future pilot? Interested in learning to fly? If you're reading this forum, you've got flying in your blood! SportPilotTalk is a great place to ask questions about this exciting new segment of (more) affordable aviation!

Moderator: drseti

Post Reply
aviatordrool
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Dec 31, 2010 10:22 pm
Location: San Diego, CA

San Diego Shout out

Post by aviatordrool »

Hey Everyone,

I'm a new member here and hail from San Diego, CA. Currently saving up to fly; I want to get my PPL but will probably start with my sport pilot certificate.

I live pretty close to Montgomery Field (MYF). Saving up now and looking for a flight instructor & flight club to help guide me on my journey.

One question I have is, how many "discovery" flights should I do? Just enough to find the right instructor?

Glad to be a part of the community; looks like a bunch of passionate aviation enthusiasts.

Cheers,

Mark
Check out cool aircraft pictures at my blog AviatorDrool.com
User avatar
drseti
Posts: 7227
Joined: Sat Nov 28, 2009 6:42 pm
Location: Lock Haven PA
Contact:

Re: San Diego Shout out

Post by drseti »

aviatordrool wrote: One question I have is, how many "discovery" flights should I do? Just enough to find the right instructor?
I can only speak for my own flight school, of course, but as I see it, the purpose of a Discovery Flight is to get you enthused about beginning flight training. Sounds like you're already there, so the only advantage of doing multiple Discovery Flights is to save some money logging more hours.

You should bear in mind that most flight schools do Discovery Flights at cost (or less). The purpose of a loss leader is to attract new customers, not to give them cheap flight training. So, a flight school will probably have a strict limit on the number of Discovery Flights you can take. But, even if they don't, the extra hours logged may be of limited benefit to you. All such flights are essentially the same lesson - you can't expect successive ones to advance you through the curriculum. So, though five Discovery Flights might let you log five hours of air time, it's meaningless. You would not have five hours of flight experience, just one hour of experience, five times over.

The way to assess a flight instructor is to take a real lesson with him or her. Or two, or three. After that, if your learning style and the instructor's teaching style are mismatched, it's time to find another instructor. You can't determine the fit during a Discovery Flight, which is essentially just a marketing tool.

Good luck with your flight instruction, and enjoy!
The opinions posted are those of one CFI, and do not necessarily represent the FAA or its lawyers.
Prof H Paul Shuch
PhD CFII DPE LSRM-A/GL/WS/PPC iRMT
AvSport LLC, KLHV
[email protected]
AvSport.org
facebook.com/SportFlying
SportPilotExaminer.US
Post Reply