A flight school told me 3months to get my commercial liscense is it possible?

elpinoman · October 5, 2006

I have no flight experiance. They said from start to finish it would take roughly 3months if I went mon-fri 6-8hrs per day. Every other flight school told me roughly a year if I worked at it full time. What do you guys think?

PhotoFlyer · October 5, 2006

Three months for a commercial from scratch?!?! Wow, I think I can smell it from here. 3 months is a completly unrealistic amount of time. When you start flying you would be lucky to get 2 hours a day before you were mentally exhausted, and unable to learn anything else. I try to keep primary students flight lessons to 1.4 hours or less.

What school told you that?

Vaqueroaero · October 5, 2006

I have no flight experiance. They said from start to finish it would take roughly 3months if I went mon-fri 6-8hrs per day. Every other flight school told me roughly a year if I worked at it full time. What do you guys think?

I suppose in a perfect world where the weather was always great and aircraft didn't need 100 hour checks and breakdown it might be just about feasible. Would I try and do it in 3 months? No way, nor would I tell anyone that it could be done in that time period.

I would tend to go more with 6 months if you were doing it full time and all went well. I seem to remember that's how long it took me.

500E · October 5, 2006

When I started 1.5 hours at a go and brain was mush, then Cfi split it into 2 x 0.75 hr slots with a break\drink and discusion in between.

If I tried for longer I lost all concentration, & things went down hill at an alarming rate, then you beat yourself up because you should be doing better.

If you do not have any other job\family you may manage in 6

October 5, 2006

What school is this so other's can avoid it?

FauxZ · October 5, 2006

Don't forget to add in the book work out side of Flight and Ground lessons. For every hour of flight or ground I'd guess around another half hour, average, of book study if you count all the time studying for tests. Then again, I'm a poor book learner (ok, bad study habits).

I flew with a guy in my F/W training from Ketchikan. He came down to AZ for the winter months (6 months I think??) and he flew ALL THE TIME working from Private > CFII. It took him at least two seasons to get his Commercial, not sure if he got through CFI/II in that time too. He was seriously at the airport at least 6 days a week.

danter · October 6, 2006

I have no flight experiance. They said from start to finish it would take roughly 3months if I went mon-fri 6-8hrs per day. Every other flight school told me roughly a year if I worked at it full time. What do you guys think?

Sounds like the school that I went to. They said that if I moved to their Scottsdale, Arizona location I would be finished upto cfii in six months. What they meant was I would be out of money in six months with only my private. I would then need to take out $20,000 to get the rest of the ratings. In no time this money was gone, for a total of over $100,000. The instructors also overcharge the students by charging more for flight and ground. That added up to several thousand dollars for the ten months that I trained there, even though we were all told we would be done in six months. we are still trying to get our money back.

elpinoman · October 6, 2006

thanks for all the quick responses. California Aviation Services - Riverside, California is the company. I called them once before a month or so ago and they told me three months, so I had to call back and make sure. They say 3weeks for a private liscense, I think im going for a demo flight, and if I like the school maybe try my private liscense with them. O and they said its only 36k for a commercial liscense, including private, and instrument rating. Now that must be a lie. lol

Sounds like the school that I went to. They said that if I moved to their Scottsdale, Arizona location I would be finished upto cfii in six months. What they meant was I would be out of money in six months with only my private. I would then need to take out $20,000 to get the rest of the ratings. In no time this money was gone, for a total of over $100,000. The instructors also overcharge the students by charging more for flight and ground. That added up to several thousand dollars for the ten months that I trained there, even though we were all told we would be done in six months. we are still trying to get our money back.

WOW! thats horrible. I definatly won't even bother with that school. Everybody knows if it sounds to good to be true it must be fake. I was just hoping I was actully going to get a deal lol. thanks guys defiantly ignore my prior post.

67november · October 6, 2006

Eman, ask them about pay as you go instead of all at once, as danter did. (SSH I bet?)

Jackelope · October 6, 2006

Sounds like the school that I went to. They said that if I moved to their Scottsdale, Arizona location I would be finished upto cfii in six months. What they meant was I would be out of money in six months with only my private. I would then need to take out $20,000 to get the rest of the ratings. In no time this money was gone, for a total of over $100,000. The instructors also overcharge the students by charging more for flight and ground. That added up to several thousand dollars for the ten months that I trained there, even though we were all told we would be done in six months. we are still trying to get our money back.

Wow... what school was this?? I'm from Az and looking into starting up as soon as I get out of Iraq. I'd like to know the name of the school that way I can stay as far away from it as possible.

EAGLE1 · October 6, 2006

Before everyone writes this school off as a scam let me interject. First I want to say that I am NOT a super pilot and I do not consider myself any smarter than the next guy. I started my training on October 9th, with 75 hours fixed wing and no helicopter time. I flew Mon-Fri and spent 8 to 9 hours a day at the airport between flight time and ground study. I passed my Private on Nov 12th and continued with my Comm. I passed my Comm check ride on Dec 14th. I was lucky because my employer was paying for the training and I was being paid to be there. That said, if you go 5 days a week for three months you should be able to get to your commercial ticket, 4 months on the outside if you plan for unexpected delays. If you have to work and only get to fly on the side it will take longer. My employer has sent 4 people to flight school this way and everyone completes the training in 3-4 months. One part of the equation is does the school have the staff and the aircraft to train you full time? Many schools do not, so it is impossible to assign you to one instructor all day every day until you are done. 3 hours of ground school and 3 hours of flight per day is not unreasonable in my opinion. As always these are my observations and what has worked for me, your mileage may vary.

danter · October 9, 2006

Wow... what school was this?? I'm from Az and looking into starting up as soon as I get out of Iraq. I'd like to know the name of the school that way I can stay as far away from it as possible.

universal is the school, I and others were there full time. We did not have jobs so we could concentrate on ratings. I received my pri. in one month, Four months later before the comm and ins. checkride there was no more loan money. The loan money was in their hands, they did not let students know anything about how much loan money was left. There was also several thousand dollars that disappeared. Luckily they found it, only to lose it again. The next loan was gone three months later right after my cfi. This was their plan of course, because in order to work for them you need to have a cfii. They then said that I would need over $7,000 for the cfii. To top this all off, while this is going on the instructors are taking money from the students to by over charging the students for flight and ground to the amount of over $4,000. Also on several occasions the instructors were hung over and still flew. Nothing is good about this school, nothing.

FUSE · October 9, 2006

I agree Eagle1. It is totally possible if you are able to put in the time and energy. If I was single with no real responsiblities that is how long I think it would have taken me, approx 3 - 4 months. But I'm married w/ a family and a mortgage, so it took me a year and half just to get my private. I hope to get my commercial next year sometime and shortly after that get my CFI...

DeezNutz · October 15, 2006

I did my commercial and instrument training @ California Aviation Services.

I can tell you that my experience with them was great... they have excellent instructors, and the bossman, Leo Bell, is a verteran pilot and instructor with over 10,000 hours.

3 Months to Commerical is exceptionally abitious... but it can be done.

Just to meet FAA minimums you would by flying 2.1 hours each day 6 days each week to accumulate the time required to complete a commercial license.

The flight instruction industry has gotten way out of hand the last few years... and I am guessing companies like Universal and Silver State are putting a lot of pressure on the little mom and pop operations.

I would not expect to get your commercial license in 3 months at CAS, but you will get quality instruction if things have not changed since I was there.