I was wondering if anyone has experience at the Lunken Municipal (LUK) location? Looking to take the leap with ATP after I finish up training for my current career field.
What is the plane/instructor availability ratio to students like?
Weather wise, what delays are expected? My wife’s family is from Dayton, OH and they seem to have pretty bad weather.
I’ve read else where that some locations may not have flight simulators, is this one of the locations that lacks this capability?
Also, any prior service that can speak on how their time in the service helped prepare them for the ATP grind? I can only imagine that our experience working in a fast uptempo environment and time management skills are a plus.
I was the lead instructor at the ATP Cincinnati-LUK location from July 2021-November 2022, so hopefully I can help answer some of your questions!
I’ll start by saying that you should reach out to ATP and arrange either an intro flight or a tour to take a look at the location yourself (things might have changed a little since I left). Personally, I really enjoyed my time working there. It is a great training airport for someone learning how to fly. The airport staff are friendly, the air traffic controllers are very patient with students, and the airspace isn’t overly congested. I believe right now there are 6 instructors at the location. When I left we had around 20 students and averaged 3 Archers and 1 Seminole for multi engine training. Plane availability was occasionally an issue, but it would come in waves. Some weeks we’d have too many, some weeks we would have too few. You’ll find this at almost every location. Weather, maintenance, and constantly changing student loads can all affect the placement of aircraft.
Weather-wise I actually didn’t think it was too bad. We should have passed the worst months of the year now. December-February can be tough because of the low cloud ceilings and freezing temperatures, as well as the snow and ice. The rest of the year the weather was good. The spring and fall seasons will bring some great flying weather! One thing that will happen for a couple months of the year is the Lunken fog. The airport sits in a bowl next to the Ohio river, so occasionally we would have fog sit over the airport for the first few hours of the morning. (See my picture below)
We do have a PFC-CRX simulator at the location that we used for early private training, instrument training, and multi engine training. You’ll spend quite a bit of time in there during instrument training!
In terms of prepping for the rigors of the program, you can read through some of the topics in this forum on getting the written exams done early. I would definitely suggest at least coming in with the private one complete, but preferably some of the others too. Secondly, just be prepared to work hard and be flexible. The ground knowledge and studying is mostly on you. The instructors are there to help, but they can’t teach you everything. Be prepared to dedicate your life for the next year or so to flight training. Also, just be ready to fly 24/7 and understand that, as you’ve probably seen with commercial flights, delays, maintenance, and weather will happen. Having a flexible and positive mindset will go a long way in training.
I hope some of this insight helped. Try and get a tour or an intro flight, and an instructor will be with you to help answer any of the questions that you might have about the program!
Thank you so much for the insight Roscoe! I figured the winter months would be the brutal ones as far as flying was concerned. I already started studying for the written exams and plan on having those completed prior to starting my journey. I already plan on living and breathing aviation lol so whatever I need to do to successfully complete the program I will make sure to get done.
Virtually EVERY location in the US has its weather challenges depending on the time of year. Further ATP maintains the same student/instructor ratio throughout their network as well as the same available resources.
Oh definitely. Not that worried about the weather really, just wanted to get a feel for what are the typical months to expect weather delays. For example, I was a student at ERAU Daytona Beach campus and if you’re a flight student in that area good luck trying to get up in the air during the late summer months due to severe thunderstorms or heavy rain.
I’m so glad you asked this! I’m actually located over in Southeast Ohio and I’m also beginning the process of researching the Cincinnati training facility.
Welcome to the forum, happy to hear that not only the above information helped, but the forum as well. I would recommend if you’re doing some research, to contact the Admissions Department and inquire about an Admission Flight/Training Center Tour… to get firsthand experience of the Cincinnati location!
