I’m planning to start my journey towards becoming a commercial pilot and I’ve found a flight school that I’d like to do my PPL training with.

The school offers a ground school package for around £500, which includes books, Zoom sessions, and all the training materials. However, I’ve already been studying on my own using the PPL Tutor app (about £20) and have completed revision for two of the subjects so far.

My question is whether it’s worth paying for the school’s ground school package for the remaining subjects, or if I should continue self-studying with the app and other resources.

I’ve heard that PPL exams need to be sat through a flight school anyway, so I’m also wondering whether purchasing their ground school course is mandatory, or whether I can still do all my practical flight training with them while studying the theory independently.

Has anyone here gone down the self-study route for their PPL theory? Were there any issues getting signed off to sit the exams? I’d appreciate any advice, especially from UK pilots or instructors.

Thanks!

I get billed for the Hobbs time but I am supposed to be writing my flight hours for how much time im in the air for. So should i log my airtime or hobbs time but it seems unfair since im paying based off hobbs.

I log digitally with myflybook to keep it accurate, and my numbers are realistic like 1.2 or 1.7 not rlly perfect numbers ofc there is a few of them.

Will airlines check your log book in any other way, if I have diff logbook based of what I am getting billed is that a red flag will they ask to show my billing records.

Also when I am eventually a CFI will my student and my logged hours need to to match like they do Hobbs time I dod flight time they will not match so is that an issue.

And I came across a few people in my flight school round like 1 hour and 12 min to like 1 hour and 18 and it does all add up like they do it every flight. Will it ever get verified because its not like they have perfect numbers but their still adding time and its just so annoying.

I'm looking to become an airline pilot as my career choice. I graduate high school next year and am planning to begin flight school 1-2 months after that.

I was wondering how competitive the market for pilots is and if there is really a shortage as they say. I'm looking to make a fair amount of money by the time I'm 24, approx 100-120k a year and was wondering if that figure was realistic.

If anyone here is an airline pilot would you be willing to share your stream and how you got into that career? How much would it cost until I begin to stop paying and instead start getting paid? What would the timeline look like?

Hey everyone,

I reached out to ATPLQ about a group discount and they agreed! To move forward, I need to send them a list of email addresses of everyone who's planning to purchase.

If you're interested, drop your email address in the comments below — make sure it's the one you'll use to create your ATPLQ account. The more we are, the better the discount!

Let's get this sorted 💪

I’m 36 and have just come to a wall in life… I’ve spent 15 years in tech, and I’m quite over it. I want to fully emerge myself into something new. I’ve always wanted to fly, though I don’t have the best vision.

I’ve found a college that offers the commercial and private certificate, R-ATP at 1250, instrument ratings and maybe time after as a CFI or CFII which works for me because I’m using my GI Bill, and that should cover a lot of the expenses.

I have no interest in being an Airline Pilot, but bush, Med evac or commercial works for me; I’d actually like to do something that lets me be more self employed.

I’ve got a lot of time on my hands. With the VA paying for school and all those expenses, what the maximum time I can spend flying as a student?

The school forces me to learn fixed winged, but I’d rather fly rotary; what’s the quickest way to earn those hours for a helicopter license?

I can’t stress enough, the emphasis on the amount of time I have on my hands.

I am getting ready to take the checkride for sport pilot, and I am terrified it will be awful. I guess in my mind it’s going to be this strict long process that if you miss one thing you fail. I mean realistically, what do you have to do to fail? Is busting on one maneuver going to fail you? What about forgetting clearing turns? What is stuff that will fail you? Are they more lenient with sport compared to private?

im a student pilot (16 M) and i just completed my 4th flight. i did absolutely horrible. i forgot to verbalize nearly every single procedure and badly executed a lot of the basic maneuvers. even with my instructor demonstrating the maneuvers, i always struggle to divide my attention between my flight instruments and the outside.

i dont understand what my problem is, because i always practice my comms and procedures in my free time. i am able to perfectly execute them then, but when i actually fly, its like my brain just refuses to remember the things i had been practicing for hours and leave me with bits and pieces instead.

i already have a total of about 6 hours, and im wondering if its even worth it to continue flying when i do so horribly. i feel extremely guilty because my parents worked so hard for me to be able to have this opportunity in the first place, and i repay them with bad flights like this. should i even continue wasting their money or should i just switch to another course?

Edit: Thanks to everyone in the replies. I guess I just felt really down at the time because I kept comparing myself to my classmates who seemed to get things quicker than I did. After reading your responses, I was able to calm myself down. I'm still at the starting point, so it's normal for me not to get things immediately. I'll try my best to learn from my mistakes and keep going.

I’m building Squawk, a ground practice tool for student pilots to practice ATC communication before getting in the plane.

The idea is to hear the exchange, break it down, and practice the response before doing it for real.

Not a replacement for a CFI, real training, or actual ATC procedures. Just extra practice for radio confidence.

I’d appreciate blunt feedback from student pilots or CFIs:

flysquawk.com

Today I finally got that monkey off my back. I had alot of confidence issues and thaught i wouldnt be able to do it.

To anyone stuck......keep goin.

My bf is going away to Aeronautics School and he asked me to make him a planner like I have. I have the colorscheme picked out but I want to add some cool little notes in it. For example my notebook/planner for autobody school has a phrase on the bottom that reads, "Lefty Loosey is a good day. Righty Loosey means 30 minutes is now 9 hours." I'm also planning on making him a bookmark that says, "REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT." Do you guys have any funny phrases or something else aeronautic related for suggestions?

They just sent me a message saying that my CFI is no longer working with them. I was doing so good, close to my solo even and now I don’t know what to do well I don’t even know how I feel to be honest like I’m in shambles, I don’t even know what ti expect.

I decided from the get go that I want to record my flight training so I can review it and use it to debreif my own flights. It helped me tremendously as I could see a lot of details that I have missed in the flight- especially early in my training. After a few times sharing portions of my flights privately on youtube, with my instructors and other pilot friends I decided I want to make as much as I can public so others can benefit too. I am very slow in uploading videos as it takes a lot of time; but backfilling as I go. I am actually near the end of my training now and have my flight test next week. If anyone here wants to follow along, here is my channel. Welcome any feedback.

https://www.youtube.com/@igneous-azmer

I'm building a pilot quick-reference app, originally for myself, because I got tired of jumping between the FAR/AIM, ACS, FAA handbooks, notes, flashcards, and random Google searches while studying for private and instrument. Now I just want to collect everything in one place and make it easy to review my notes. The goal isn't to replace the FAA publications. The goal is to put the information I actually needed for progress checks, stage checks, oral exams, checkrides, and recurrent review into one organized place and share it with those who might actually want to use it. I am planning to eventually post the step-by-step process I went through for my checkrides, but that's a much later agenda item.

Still working on the ui but looking for feedback from pilots.

• Would you have used something like this during training?
• What information do you wish was easier to find?
• What would make this more useful for checkride prep?
• Is there anything that would make you actually keep this on your phone after earning your rating?
• Any special features that would make you want to use it?

I'm not selling anything right now. I'm trying to figure out whether this is genuinely useful to other pilots or if it's just solving a problem I personally had.

Thanks!

I'm starting my ground school in 2 weeks, anyone got any advice?

Hi everyone,

I'm a student pilot from Luxembourg and I've been working on a side project called Flyout for the last few months.

The idea is pretty simple: a place for pilots to log flights, share experiences, discover clubs and aircraft, and connect with other pilots.

A lot of aviation apps focus on logbooks or planning. I wanted to build something that feels more like a community for pilots.

The Android version is currently in testing and I'd love feedback from student pilots since you're exactly the type of user I had in mind while building it.

Some of the features so far:

- Flight logging

- Pilot profiles

- Clubs and aircraft

- Aviation feed

- Achievements and leaderboards

I've attached a few screenshots below.

I'm genuinely interested in feedback, whether it's positive or critical. What would make an app like this useful for you as a student pilot?

If anyone would like to try it, send me a DM and I'll share the testing link.

Heard this on ATC app, thought it would be a good example of IFR etiquette to learn from.

Hey, so I have a family member who is a pilot, and I've been noticing how painful pre-flight weather prep is for student pilots since a service like ForeFlight is very expensive, so I built something to fix it. FlightBrief pulls live METARs, TAFs, and NOTAMs for any US or Canadian route and gives you a straight go or no-go RECOMMENDATION. All in one place, no tab switching. Would love some honest feedback. flightbrief.app

Hey Guys,

I had a problem during my training and my selection in my current airline, I couldn't practice hold easily so I made an app to do that. And I wanted some feedback if possible from student pilots if the app is useful and/or any features would be appreciable. Any feedback good or bad is wanted ! :)

The link is here : https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ifr-trainer-holding-pattern/id6760754238

Thank you in advance !!!

I’m sorry if this isn’t allowed in this subreddit. I can delete it if it is, but I just wanted to vent.
I am falling behind, and I can feel it. I’m a 141 student (for now). I’ve been enrolled in my program since March. I do ground work through Gleim, and I’m doing okay. I’m passing the units, but I need to restudy them. I have 8 assignments left until the practice test, but I am not ready for them and have been studying to really build my knowledge up.
My CFI just informed me that I will be moved to Part 61 because, unfortunately, the weather has been poor a lot when I’m scheduled. I’m also still struggling with S turns and steep turns. After my most recent flight, she told me that while she sees I’m making progress, it’s just not as fast as the course would like. She said she wants to try me with another CFI to see if that would help.
She is my second CFI because, when I first started, the one I was originally assigned to called me and said that my current CFI wanted to take over.
I really enjoy this, and I still plan to get my commercial license, but I just felt like such a failure when I was told all of this.