What is a Typical Lesson Like?

In general I like to combine ground and flight in one lesson of approximately 2-2.5 hours. I believe learning is accelerated when we immediately apply the concepts discussed on the ground in the air. The following describes the general flow of a lesson.

Pre-Work / Homework

Before most lessons I'll assign some pre-work or study for you to do. This study material will be directly related to what we will discuss and do during the lesson.

Pre-Lesson

Once you've been taught to pre-flight the airplane (or you've demonstrated your pre-flight process to me) you will complete the pre-flight inspection of the plane before we meet for our lesson. This will help us use our time together more efficiently.

Ground

In the "ground" portion of the lesson we will start by covering any questions you have as a result of your study or from previous lessons. Then I will introduce you to the new concepts and/or maneuvers that we will practice in the aircraft. At this point we will discuss what we will do in the flight and cover any questions you may have before the flight portion.

Depending on where we are in the course of learning the "ground" portion of the lesson may take an hour or it may be brief. If you demonstrate a strong understanding of the material I asked you to study earlier this can shorten the time spent on the ground. If you did not have time to study we will spend more time covering the material together on the ground.

Flight

We will go out to the aircraft and fly the flight we discussed on the ground. Sometime weather or air traffic may cause us to change our plans. If it does we may switch to another task or move to another location to accomplish what we want to do. This portion will typically be an hour in length. Towards the end of a course of training we will be spending more time flying.

Debrief

After the flight we will debrief on the ground. We'll discuss what went well, what needs to improve and how to improve. We answer any new questions you may have. Finally, we will discuss what we will do in the next lesson and I'll assign study materials for the next lesson.

Total Time

You can expect the entire lesson (not including your time to pre-flight the aircraft before we meet) to be 2-2.5 hours. Plan on spending about 2.5-3 hours total including preparing the plane for the flight.

There are a couple lessons that will take longer than 2.5 hours. You will know ahead of time when these will happen so you can plan for them.