FLIGHT TRAINING

Initial Flight Training, What to Expect:

At ZULUTIME PILOT we take a different approach to flight instruction. Based on our own experience training at many different kinds of flight schools, we’ve built a training model that emphasizes mastery of fundamentals, best practices and elimination of non-productive flight hours. It’s a model that promotes efficient and effective learning, and rewards and encourages students for slow and consistent progress. Our goal is to help you channel your passion into becoming a safe, proficient, knowledgeable pilot and member of the aviation community as productively as possible. By focusing on mastery of fundamentals from the beginning and by using a structured curriculum, we create safety-minded, confident, skilled pilots with sound aeronautical decision-making ability, well-equipped to pursue a lifetime of flying enjoyment. Our business model is similarly progressive relative to the rest of the flight training industry by encouraging efficient and productive training that gets students finished without unnecessary delay.

We don’t send students on expensive, aimless flights and won’t hold you back if you’re a superstar. If several training goals can be met on a training flight, we’ll make sure to combine them. Not only is this profitable for the school but it creates a thriving, positive and dynamic training environment for our students. Before training begins we work with you to set specific goals and organize a training plan that fits your schedule. Not everyone can train daily like a career-oriented pilot cadet, nor is full-time training necessary. We consider two training flights weekly and one hour of study daily a realistic minimum schedule that will allow you to complete your private pilot training within about six months. Sticking to your regular training schedule is the key to systematic progress and successful completion of your training course. Students enrolling in our professional pilot programs and all foreign students will coordinate with a dedicated training supervisor, who will advise you as you assemble the documentation required to accompany your Zulutime Pilot training application, including your TSA and visa applications.

Private Pilot Certificate:

Achieving a private pilot certificate is the starting point for nearly all pilots and is your “license to learn.” This is the basic pilot’s license that allows you to fly most light aircraft in most of the airspace in the United States. With this certificate you can fly in fair to good weather, day or night, with passengers, under visual flight rules or “VFR”. It does not allow you to fly in the clouds or for hire. The FAA requires that you have a minimum of forty (40) hours of flight time before you can take the practical test to become a private pilot (thirty-five (35) hours in a Part 141 program). The 40 hours of flight time will include at least twenty (20) hours of “dual” instruction and at least ten (10) hours “solo” flight (where you are the sole occupant of the aircraft).

During this training you will practice and master preflight procedures, airport operations, takeoffs and landings, ATC communication, navigation, slow flight, stalls, maneuvering, night operations, and emergency operations, all as set forth lesson-by-lesson in our private pilot training syllabus. These are only statutory minimums, however, and few students, in fact, actually take their private pilot checkride with only forty hours experience in an airplane. Based on national averages, most students will have accumulated 60 hours of flight time at the completion of their private pilot training, about 50% more than the FAA minimums. Keep this in mind when budgeting for your training. Each training flight will have a well-defined objective based on the course syllabus, and you will never be confused about what is the objective of the day’s training mission. A pre-flight briefing with your instructor immediately preceding the day’s flight will be the occasion for assessing the weather, the training flight plan, the training objectives and any temporary restrictions on flying in the airspace en route or at Witham Field.

During a post-flight briefing you will review with your instructor the strengths and weaknesses of your performance on the training flight, and receive constructive feedback. You will also spend significant time with our ground school curriculum learning the areas of aeronautical knowledge required by the FAA. The subject matter you will study includes: aerodynamics, aircraft systems, aeronautical decision making, weather and understanding aviation weather reports and forecasts, single pilot resource management, aircraft performance, various methods of navigation and flight planning, and will be available to you as an on-demand digital-online course.