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Overview of Learning to Fly/ Getting Your License:

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Here are some recommendations we've given to interested members to fill them in on the general process on learning to fly, or get your PPL.

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Overview of Getting Your License:

• FAR 61.103 outlines the general requirements to get your PPL. In includes:

  • Ground Training + Written Exam (items d and e)

  • Flight Training + Oral/Practical Exam (f,g,h)

  • The Airmen’s Certification Standards has a list of everything you’ll need to show for the oral/practical exam. Your instructor will work to teach you all of this. However, this is what the examiner will use to evaluate you.​

• A valid Medical Certificate is required to exercise the privileges of a student pilot certificate, or private pilot certificate. (FAR 61.23)

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Our Recommendations For Training:

1. Get your medical first, to make sure you are cleared to fly. Otherwise you’ll waste the money training if you don’t get your medical clearance.

2. Knock out your ground training + written exam prior to starting your flight training. You’ll get a good baseline of everything, and will be able to hit the ground running with your instructor in the airplane.

3. If you do items (1) and (2), you’ll have a large majority of the requirements needed to get your license done before you ever start flying.

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Getting your Medical:

• In general, you need an Aviation Medical Examiner (AME) to evaluate your health and give you medical clearance to fly.  You can find them online by searching up “FAA AME Look Up” on Google, or with the below link:

  • https://designee.faa.gov/#/designeeLocator

  • You are looking for an “AME” near Charleston.

• Once you find one, you can call and make an appointment. They should be able to walk you through what paperwork you need to bring to them. There are a few forms you need to fill out online before you show up.

• There are a few AME’s around the area that different folks have used/recommended:

  • CHSFlightPhysicals.com

  • CharlestonFlightDoc.com

• You can look at FAR 61.23 to see which medical you want. But typically if you’re only interested in getting your PPL, you’d just need a Class 3 medical, which lasts for 5 years. If you eventually want to be an airline pilot or something like that, it might be worth getting a Class 1 or 2 medical to make sure you can actually get it. Otherwise you won’t be able to fly without it.

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Ground School Options:

• LTP will cover the Embry Riddle Ground school like any other course, however this is a full semester course with set times to meet, homework, quizzes, etc. Its doable, but not my thing.

  • There are multiple online courses like King’s Schools, Sportys, or ASA. Each of these should teach you the fundamentals and give you the option to request an endorsement for the written exam. My personal recommendation is Sporty’s. (LTP will not cover these types of courses, only ones at approved institutions). These online courses must meet the requirements of FAR 61.105(b).

• I used Sporty’s for my instrument and PPL, and like their format. Their videos are well produced, easy to follow, and entertaining. (You should be able to find a discount code online to get that price knocked down. I got mine for $200 when it was $250)

  • Each video has summary points and a full transcript that you can review.

  • Sporty’s also has practice tests/flash cards/supplemental resources (like online versions of books and resources) that you have access to.

  • Once you review all the videos and pass 2 of their practice tests, you can request an endorsement from them, and use that to take your written exam. You don’t need to pay an instructor for ground instruction ($50/hr) to get set up for your written exam.

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My “Best Practices” for Ground Training with Sporty’s (or any home course)

• As you watch the videos, take notes on what you’re learning/hearing. I used Microsoft OneNote.

  • Each video has a transcript and summary points that are good to check too.

• For each video, I made a new OneNote page for it, each volume of videos was a new section in OneNote.

  • When I was done with my videos, I was able to use the Control + F function in One-Note to study items based on key words, and the review points for each video helped me to review/refresh myself on topics I may not have remembered.

• After you’re done with the ground course, and you have taken the practice tests + gotten the endorsement for the written exam, study for the written exam with the Prepware Private Pilot (made by ASA) app on the app store. This will ask you questions, and give you references for where the answers are coming from. Its 10$. If you’re successfully passing those review quizzes, you’re good to go for the written.

 

If you do the above, you’ll have you ground training knocked out for like $300 total, which is the equivalent of 6 ground sessions with a CFI. Well worth it in my opinion.