Frequently Asked Questions
Learn to fly this year and you will accomplish something special….something unique…something that will remain with you the rest of your life. It’s freedom as you’ve never known it. You can soar over the crowded highways, laugh off complaints about security screening at Hopkins and even depart at times that work for you. You can choose your route, your destination…your adventure – for the day, the weekend, even the hour. You are your own pilot. When you’re flying, you really are the captain of your own soul. It’s all part of what we call General Aviation. You can even rent aircraft by the hour. Beyond the fun of flying – it can also be a career. We offer more training options for the career minded pilot than anyone in Northeast Ohio. We offer a two or four-year college degree with one program; or we get you jet training and guarantee you an interview with a major air carrier in another program. Just tell us what your goals are and we’ll find the right program for you. How difficult is it to become a pilot? As in any instructional process, you have things to learn and skills to master. It is a fascinating experience, but not a particularly difficult one. It can be learned easily by practically anyone who is willing to invest a relatively modest amount of time and effort. There are two aspects to becoming a plot. You learn to fly by actually handling the controls of the airplane yourself. Under the supervision of your certified flight instructor, you will learn how to take off, land and fly cross-country. The other aspect of your training takes place on the ground where you cover flight planning, navigation, radio procedures, flight rules and regulations and weather. When you have acquired all this knowledge and practiced the skills involved in controlling an airplane, you will be ready for your private license, which is official recognition that you are prepared to be a safe, competent pilot. How long does it take to become a pilot? Government regulations are specific about minimum requirements to receive a private pilot’s license. You must pass a written examination given by the FAA and hold a Class III FAA medical certificate. There are two regulations governing the minimum amount of flight training hours you must have in order to qualify for a private pilot’s license. Regulations require a minimum of 40 hours. The flight training hours are divided between solo and dual (with flight instructor) time, night flying, instrument flying and cross-country experience. The actual number of hours of flight training you must take is determined by your ability and effort expended in study. Statistics indicate that the average student pilot will complete the requirements between three and five months. Depending on the schedule and the time spent in flying, some people will complete it sooner and others will take longer. The average number of hours is about 60. How much does it cost to become a pilot? Compared to the costs of training in other business skills, becoming a licensed private pilot is relatively inexpensive. Spread over a lifetime, it is one of the biggest bargains you’ll ever find. And when you consider the returns in increased productivity, the cost of becoming a pilot is not a cost at all, but rather a solid investment in your future. What are the benefits of training with a Cessna Pilot Center? Due to our agreement with Cessna, we must maintain a fleet of Cessnas that include at least one Cessna which is still under warranty at each location. This will ensure that AirSports students will continue to see our fleet grow and stay young while other schools continue to fly 30-year old aircraft. The Cessna Pilot Center affiliation also means you have access to our exclusive Cessna Computer-Based Instruction. What is Computer-Based Training? AirSports Aviation is the only Cessna Pilot Center in Northeast Ohio. When you start training, we will encourage you to buy our Cessna Pilot Training Kit complete with a 20+ interactive DVD set that will cover most of what you need to know. This is our “Ground School”. Sure, our instructors are good, but the folks on these DVDs are recognized as some of the best instructors in the nation. You can follow the training at your pace, when you have the free time. You will also own this information, so you can go back and review old lessons whenever you want. For a demonstration on this program, click here. How about the physical and other qualifications? There are minimum age requirements – 16 for a student certificate and 17 for a private license – but nothing in the regulations about a maximum. In fact, assuming continued general good health advancing years have little to do with a person’s ability to fly safely. A medical exam, by a physician designated by the FAA, is required for private pilots. It is a routine examination and is designated only to insure that the applicant has no problems that would interfere with his/her ability to fly safely. Physical handicaps are not automatic barriers. As a matter of fact, there are many pilots who are handicapped. Actually – simple as it may sound – the basic requisites to becoming a pilot (and a good one) are common sense, and a willingness to stay within the boundaries of both flight regulations and your own flying ability. The first test is a medical exam, which is rather easy to pass. You may need corrective lenses, or have some minor physical ailment and still fly. We had one member with only one eye who passed his medical. The medical certificate also serves as your student certificate. Your next test is the written exam, which is a 2.5 hour exam consisting of 60 multiple-choice questions. Well before your exam, you will have access to all of the questions and answers the FAA might ask you. Think of it as a legal cheat sheet. Finally, you will have your “Check Ride” – largely an oral exam in which you will be asked about flying rules and regulations and to work out the details of a hypothetical flight. You will have done it all before in planning the cross-country flights you actually will make as part or your training program. Following this is a practical examination of flying ability in which the student takes a designated examiner for a check flight to demonstrate that he or she can handle the plane safely. The flying portion consists of very specific maneuvers that you will be asked to perform to demonstrate clearly defined levels of proficiency. Don’t worry – we’ll train you well so you will pass these tests with flying colors. Airplanes are built to very rigid specifications and they are constantly checked and re-checked to make sure they are mechanically and structurally safe. People who fly are safety conscious because no one is permitted to fly until a certified instructor is convinced that they are ready to fly safely and because proficiency must be demonstrated before a pilot can take anyone with them. The vast majority of pilots – even those with thousands of hours recorded in their log book – have never been involved in a flying mishap of any kind. The risks inherent in an airplane or any other moving vehicle will never be eliminated as long as people are operating them. But a well-built and well-maintained airplane in the hands of a competent and prudent pilot makes flying safer than many other forms of transportation. What happens if the engine quits? An aircraft engine is a piece of finely built machinery that is specifically designed to keep on running. If the improbable should happen, you won’t fall out of the sky. The aircraft itself is built to fly – or glide – as the case may be. During your training, you will simulate engine-out procedures (the engine will not really be out) and you will see how smoothly the plane continues to glide. If this happens in reality, you would simply do what your instructor will have had you practice doing during your lessons; select a good emergency landing site and land. Your membership with AirSports ensures that you will be covered under our policies. We have always carried top-flight insurance; rarely have our students carried any additional insurance, but “Renters Insurance” is available to you as well. Is general aviation really safe? General aviation airplanes are built with maximum emphasis on safety. They are stressed for much greater load than they will ever be asked to tolerate and then inspected, tested, and certified to the specification of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Pilots too, are trained and reviewed according to the strict requirements for knowledge and skill by the FAA. When machine and man meet the requirements, they may fly. The mandatory requirements for periodic inspection of the airplane and pilot ensure a good safety record. Do I have to own an airplane to fly? A large part of general aviation flying is done in airplanes that pilots rent at their local airport. Rental fees are normally computed on the basis of specified dollar amount per hour. The fee normally covers everything, including fuel, oil and insurance on the airplane. Aircraft leasing is also a popular method of flying without buying, especially by business organizations. There are tax advantages to buying your own airplane and then leasing it to a flying club. At AirSports, virtually all of our aircraft are leased back. Somewhere there is someone just like you who has become a pilot. Virtually every occupational group and every geographic location in the nation is represented among those men and women who hold a pilot’s license. Pilots range in age from their middle teens to senior citizens. What happens after I get my pilot’s license? How much fuel does general aviation consume? General aviation…using so little fuel to do so much. We use an online scheduler. This is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but only for members. Non-Members must call our offices to schedule aircraft and priority is given to our members. How much training must I have to achieve a private pilot license? A minimum of 40 hours of training is required by the FAA to obtain a private license. Your personal skill level will determine if you can complete the course in the minimum hours. Average completion time is between 60 and 70 hours dual and solo flights. Is there much bookwork involved? Dual instruction is the teaching that is logged when you and your flight instructor are flying together in an aircraft, you receiving the instruction. Solo time is when you are the sole pilot in the aircraft. (As a student pilot, you may not carry passengers, and remain under the guidance of the instructor.) Oral instruction is the time logged when you and your instructor are face to face covering such things as chart reading, rules of the sky, etc. Traditional ground schools usually encompass coming to a classroom once a week at a set for 13 weeks or so. This can be inconvenient for many and generally may not be the best way to learn the material. Because of our affiliation as a Cessna Pilot Center, we offer a non-traditional ground school. When you enroll with AirSports, we will offer a Pilot Training Kit that consists of 20+ DVDs featuring some of the best instructors in the country teaching you just about everything you will need to know. And the equipment they use to demonstrate everything will be very similar to the equipment you will use – new Cessna 172s. All of this will help you not only in passing your written exam, but will expedite your overall training. How many hours of instruction are required before I fly by myself? There is no required amount of hours, however, many people fly their first “solo” in as little as 12 flight hours. How does one pay for flight instruction? Flight instruction is a pay-as-you-go situation. Many people keep an account with us on which we draw off of their credit card. Some pay after each lesson. We understand not everyone has the cash on hand to fly as often as they would like. If that is the case, we have several financing options available to enable you to continue flying often without financial burden. Feel free to ask us about helping you with any financing issues. Are there any other expenses that I will incur besides the foregoing? Yes. You will purchase school supplies, textbooks, charts, a headset, flight computer, and other items that will vary from student to student. Your exams will cost about $60 for the medical exam, $80 for the written and $250 to the examiner for the final oral and practical test. How long is my flying license valid? Your flying license is valid for your entire life, providing that you renew your medical every two years (for those over 40 – every 3 years for those under 40) and log a biennial flight review, by any flight instructor, every two years. How good are your airports for training? UTC (Coordinated Universal Time, Universal Time Coordinated, Universal Coordinated Time, Universal Time) is the standard time common to every place in the world. Formerly and still widely called GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) and also World Time, UTC nominally reflects the mean solar time along the Earth’s prime meridian. (The prime meridian is 0° longitude in the 360 lines of longitude on Earth. There are 179 meridians toward the East and 179 toward the West. The 180th meridian is also called the International Date Line.) The prime meridian is arbitrarily based on the meridian that runs through the Greenwich Observatory outside of London, where the present system originated. The UTC is based on an atomic clock to which adjustments of a second (called a leap second) are sometimes made to allow for variations in the solar cycle. Coordinated Universal Time is expressed using a 24-hour clock but can be converted into a 12-hour clock (AM and PM). UTC is used in plane and ship navigation, where it also sometimes known as Z (Zulu). UTC uses the Gregorian calendar. UTC was defined by the CCIR (International Radio Consultative Committee), a predecessor organization of the ITU-TS, and is maintained by the BIPM (Bureau International des Poids et Mesures). |