This past Saturday I did an introductory flight at the ATP facility in Addison, TX. Gelan the flight instructor was awesome, and we had a great time flying.
My question for current ATP students and graduates is, how do you best manage your time as a student so that you do not burn yourself out and can truely enjoy the journey of becoming a Proffssional Pilot? What are some of your Do’s and Don’ts?
Gelan did explain there is large amount of self study involved in your training and it is best to study at the facility so that when there is an available aircraft and or the weather is appropriate for your stage of training you can head into the sky’s. In the event that you have good weather and aircrafts are available, would you be able to fly with an instructor that is not your primary instructor if your instructor isn’t available? Is this something that is frowned on or does ATP like for student have some flight time with other instructors as a way to build relationships and learn from different styles of teaching?
I’m sure others will chime in but as far as burning out goes I don’t believe that’s really an issue. There’s been debate recently regarding completing the FAA knowledge exams prior to starting. Burning out is one of the reasons. By completing the writtens early you’ve eliminated an entire segment of the training. While you’ll find others cramming for the writtens while trying to manage everything else, you’ll have yours done and can take some time to chill. More important due to the examiner shortage the program has been lengthened considerably. While it’s still accelerated that extra time should provide more than enough down time.
While instructors will share students or help each other out (particularly if you’re stuck and need a second opinion), flight training is best built on consistency. No one will know exactly where you are, your strengths and weaknesses and what you need to work on better than your instructor. You asked about burning out. The goal isn’t to fly as much as possible to check off hours to get done asap, it’s to learn and become a competent pilot.
Getting the writtens done early is huge, I cannot emphasize that enough.
I found that even in the old, very accelerated program, I was still able to have some free time to decompress. I often went for walks at a nearby battlefield from the War Between the States. I found it a good way to clear my mind, while also still going over aviation related things in my head.
During your program you will fly with different instructors, but overall it is best to have consistency. It isn’t a race to build hours, it is a race to get licenses and that means alot more ground time than it does flight time.
Your primary instructor is the one to provide you with the endorsement for the check ride. So, it will be up to your instructor to decide if they will allow you to fly with another instructor. It’s a great idea. I did this when I was an instructor.
Thank you for your time to share with me your experience and advice. The link you provided is to a topic in regards to Aviation Stats. What is the tittle of the topic you created to help students with time management?