I did not purchase any additional flight time, nor did anybody I know. When I was in the program the FTDs were not billed hourly, you could get as much time in them as you needed, as long as your instructor could fit you on the schedule.
Just to add on:
How were weekends like (i.e how much studying was required during them/were you given an assignment to complete?), and can you use the simulators on the weekends w/o having to do anything special?
Same here. Neither I nor anyone I know ever had to purchase any additional time. Thing is there’s a little “fudge” factor built into each phase so if you need an hour here or there worse case you can usually “borrow” it from another phase. As for the sim we were allowed unlimited sim time BUt you couldn’t just go in there and play around. It had to be supervised.
When I attended ATP we trained on weekends but from what I understand students now get weekends off for independent study? I believe you’ll have access to the sim as needed. Not sure what you mean by “anything special” but know the sim is not a toy and all the time is logged in a sim log.
I personally did not have to purchase any flight time and I actually finished the program with a few hours left to fly which I forfeited (not that it mattered too much to me when I passed my last checkride). But with that said, there are people (few) who need extra training.
The program, like Adam said, has some extra “fudge” time built in. Usually if a student needs some extra time, it is taken from the 35hr XC time-build bank that you have, which is not needed for any particular reason other than building your hours (meaning it does not take away from instruction).
Students who need extra time usually fit into one of two cases:
A student who is doing very poorly from the get go and needs a significant amount of extra training to get through solos or the PPL checkride. If the number of hours becomes significantly high, there becomes a need to pay for extra hours because the 35hr bank mentioned above needs to be flown as PIC, which is not the case before you get the PPL.
CFI applicants (typically applicants for the CFII, which is the last checkride), might need an extra hour or two sometimes. This is the last checkride and obviously the student has more than likely already flown all of the allotted time, so if you’d need some extra training, it would be at an extra cost.
In general, I wouldn’t be worried about it. I’d say 95% of students get through without the need for extra time. You have all the resources at your disposal to succeed and there shouldn’t be a reason for any extra time if you put in the effort. Sims (at least at KIWA) are for you to use as you wish as long as it isn’t being used for a syllabus lesson.