Hey guys,
Had my first ATP flight today. Did my single engine PIC cross country to Gainesville and back, and got to log some actual with a couple different approaches. Once again, the flight gave me the feeling that I definitely made the right choice! This place is awesome and I can’t wait to get into the meat of the instrument training. And Tampa is great as well! Not to mention I have been to 4 baseball games in 5 days so I’m in heaven 
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Kamrin,
I am glad that you are happy with your experiences so far, thanks for letting us know.
Now no more baseball games, seriously, you have time for nothing but studying for the next six months.
Chris
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Great to hear Kamrin but didn’t we tell you so? 
Adam
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Sorry for the delay, but because of bad weather in Florida I’ve only been doing the PIC XC time build portion of my training. It was great, 20 hours of flying and getting to go to some cool places I hadn’t been to before. In fact, I practically criss-crossed the entire state of Florida. I visited the following cities on my trips: Gainesville, Titusville, Punta Gorda, Lake City, Tallahassee, and Crystal River (see attached picture). On the days we didn’t fly due to weather or other issues, we would go ahead and do some of the instrument sims in the FTD. Because we used our delayed time wisely I’m still ahead of schedule in the program and begin my actual flights for the instrument training tomorrow or Wednesday. In the sims so far we’ve covered the basics of attitude instrument flying, GPS flying, VOR flying, holds, and DME arcs. And like others have stated, the sims are open for students at any time of day, so some evenings I would just go over to the airport and play in the sim for a couple hours. 3 weeks in and still loving it here, and I’m definitely glad I decided to do ATP. I’ll also try to post an update as I get closer to my instrument checkride on a month or so!
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That’s exactly the reason I asked them to create the "student experiences " section! I’ll let you know if I ever make it down that way. I toured a couple locations in VA and NC and chose tampa sight unseen. I highly recommend this location to you. The students, instructors, and everyone else are great. You’ll have a blast, as well as learning to fly in all weather and a great airspace setup!
Hi! I’m currently from Daytona and using housing. Honestly I like it, you have everything included (yes water/electricity too). Now I am paying around 850 for housing (as everyone else I assume). I too questioned this to higher ups but they explained to me about the extra 50 dollars. Regardless, I am happy with it as water/electricity, washer/dryer and furnitures are included. If anything becomes defective just send a text and they will fix it asap with no extra charge.
@kcbaker I flew to PIE last week as part of my time build! I was performing an ILS to one of the rwy(I forgot which one) and they closed it at that moment making me do a circling approach to rwy 4 and land. Pretty cool! Great experience!
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FYI, 4 weeks does not equal a month. It’s actually 4.3 (52 weeks in a year / 12 mos = 4.3). 4.3 x $200 = $860.
Adam
Yes it’s $200 a week and I feel it’s worth it. I know I could get a cheaper place, but who’s going to rent an open lease that I would leave after 6 months? No one. It’s me and 3 other guys in a 2 bedroom apartment but it’s not bad at all. We all get along well and like said above, anything is fixed simply with a text. I was weary of housing as well, but being from a place 16 hours away, I didn’t have much choice. It’s a tried and true method that’s worked for hundreds of students around the country for years so don’t worry too much about it.
As for the runway closure, kpie is doing a lot of work lately, and closing 18/36 except for scheduled air carrier has been common so we have been using 4/22 a lot during the days.
Hey Kamrin! It’s good to hear you are having a great time.
To everyone else: I too, trained at Tampa. I finished up there in June. I loved the location and miss it very much. If anyone else has questions regarding training at Tampa, feel free to ask. I’d love to help.
I know the feeling man, I just paid my last month of rent at my college apartment that I haven’t lived in for four months because no one wanted to sublet. So I just spent $2200 and got absolutely no return from it 
Well there’s 3 others and me so technically no one has their own room. But there’s also a bed in the “sun room” for some reason so one pretty much livess in there. So in a way, yeah I got lucky to kind of have my own. I had the same experience as you with dorms and loving my own room at an apartment, but it wouldn’t bother me at all to share a room here. It’s really a great setup, and I feel like you’d enjoy the living arrangements honestly
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Does housing have fitness center included? I hit the gym regularly and it is a big stress reliever for me.
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No, I do not believe so. Check with the admissions counselors for specifics.
Yep! They do. We can go to that or the pool at the location until 10pm when they close!
Thanks kamrin, that’s great to know!
Thomas,
While it’s definitely nice I wouldn’t call it essential. Where there’s a will there’s a way. I just woke up in HND and there’s no gym in the hotel. It’s a beautiful day so I’m going for a run but if it wasn’t I would simply stream an Insanity video. If you do in fact consider it essential I’m sure there’s a gym nearby you can join.
Adam
Today was my first day of flying with ATP Starting with credit for private. Monday was my technical first day but I still had family down here with me so I just did some basic ground in the morning and got checked in. Today we flew from PIE to Ocala and then on to Dayton Beach before heading back to PIE. It was cool getting to do some actual IMC flying as well as doing some ILS and RNAV approaches under the hood. The weather in Florida is crazy. We left with clear skies and beautiful weather and a few hours later were working out way around some big storms. It was awesome. Looking forward to more IFR flying in the next few weeks!
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Tucker,
Thanks for keeping us in the loop, please continue to update as you go through the program!
Chris
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Good times!
Adam
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Time for another update. Passed my instrument ride today in Lakeland, FL. It was originally scheduled for the 29th of August but last Tuesday it got moved up to today. I had to fly 19.1 hours last week to burn off all of my assigned flight time for this phase. After about 7 hours of flying and some sim time on Friday, I was dead! I took a trip over the weekend and then got all of paperwork done late last night before going this morning for the test. My instructor had me well prepared for the flight portion and I was also well prepared for the oral portion. It was a very stressful day, but the feeling of getting the paper and the handshake was well worth it! Tomorrow I am flying back home to WV for a few days and then picking up on crew cross countries next week. I’ll post a review of my routes flown and experiences on crew afterwards!