Your opinion is needed!

mrivc211

Well-Known Member
What type of ground school appeals to you? And what price would you be willing to pay?(remember, don't go with the cheapest price because thats what you would like to pay, you have to ask yourself what you would be willing to pay if this course was offered)

Would you rather have the ground school that is taught over the weekend? Or attend a course that goes twice a week, for 4 hours per night, over four weeks?

Also, if an option of being able to take the course in the future at no cost as a recurrent/refresher course, entice you to sign up for the course?

If the course was being taught by experienced airline pilots, would this make a difference to you?

The course being offered would be for sport/private pilot/IFR.
 
is it that hard to take a market survey?? comeon.. help the guy out!! he even asked our permission to do so (and got it :D)
 
I'd go for the all in one weekend. As far as being taught by airline pilots, it really doesn't make a difference as long as they are current CFI/CFII or AGI/IGI and the curriculum is FSDO approved
 
I'd go for the all in one weekend. As far as being taught by airline pilots, it really doesn't make a difference as long as they are current CFI/CFII or AGI/IGI and the curriculum is FSDO approved


Same as above with the exception that I would rather take two classes a week (or three).

I wouldn't mind to pay up to three hundred dollars if the quality of the instruction is good.
 
:yeahthat:

I would take the two classes a week. You need more time to ponder because you will be thinking about flying for weeks. What happens when? If I lose my engine..? How should I say this..?

You will have more time to come up with more questions to ask. Personally I learn more on the drive home. As far as airline pilots vs AGI/CFI. the CFI's talk about the smaller stuff more, and its fresher on there mind of how to explain things to newbies.
 
I'm not sure price is as important as the value I can get for taking the course. Your stated price is + or - $25. Not a deal killer either way. But what is the value? What kind of ground school covers PPL, sport, and IFR? I've never seen a refresher like that.

Of course, playing the "airline pilot" card is great eye candy. I'd do it. Also push years as a CFI and any advanced CFI ratings and experience.

Good luck to you, bro. I'm in PSP half the month and still trying to figure out how to put my Apache to work....
 
What type of ground school appeals to you? And what price would you be willing to pay?(remember, don't go with the cheapest price because thats what you would like to pay, you have to ask yourself what you would be willing to pay if this course was offered)

Would you rather have the ground school that is taught over the weekend? Or attend a course that goes twice a week, for 4 hours per night, over four weeks?

Also, if an option of being able to take the course in the future at no cost as a recurrent/refresher course, entice you to sign up for the course?

If the course was being taught by experienced airline pilots, would this make a difference to you?

The course being offered would be for sport/private pilot/IFR.

I'd actually say $299 would be a steal if the class was taught by airline pilots (who know their vfr stuff), conveniently timed, and could be retaken at no charge.

I think I paid 300 bucks, and that was 7 years ago, could not be retaken, and taught by some guy who couldn't wait to be hired at a 'real job'.
 
Back in my flight instructing days, I was offered the oppourtunity to do a very similar deal to this one. I had free range to charge whatever I want and to teach it however I felt.

My plan was to have a decent size class and charge each individual $35 a lesson for 10 lessons. It would have been for the private pilot certificate. I was also interested in getting a instrument course set up with 13-15 lessons at $35 a lesson.

The flight school that wanted me to do this was located over 200 miles from where I lived and wanted me to teach on a weeknight instead of on a weekend. This posed a problem because I was a full time flight instructor with major obligations to my own students.

The final problem was that the flight school was not able to create enough business to make it profitable enough for me to want to do it. I ended up declining the job offer.
 
I never took a formal ground school when I was learning to fly; I preferred the self study format with CBTs and/or interactive video courses (like King). But anyway, you need to look at what your course objectives are and what your likely target audience would prefer when it comes to scheduling issues. You stated that two options would be to 1) offer a weekend course (presumably approx. 16 hours of instruction), or 2) offer a four week course, 2 days per week, four hours per night (presumably 32 hours of instruction), so obviously one format can go way more in-depth than the other. You also said this course would be sport/private/IFR, so you're really talking about three separate courses, right? 16 hours, or the weekend format, is probably sufficient to prepare a student for a single written test. If you're trying to put together a course that would prepare a student for BOTH the private and the instrument writtens, you're probably looking at the 32-hour (or more) format. Or is the objective to go "beyond the written" and more in-depth into the individual topics by offering a 32-hour private course or instrument course over four weeks? Again, you have to look at your clientele. If you're dealing with professionals who have a day job, I doubt they're willing to hang around for more than four hours on a work night and would prefer a weekend course; if you're dealing with students who aren't doing anything other than learning how to fly, then you have a bit more flexability and could maybe even run a M-F class during normal "school hours".

I think I paid $189 for the King private course back in the day; would probably be willing to pay up to $250 for a quality groundschool with the option of free recurrent training. As for a course taught by airline pilots; that's a great marketing gimick, although I'd expect the instructor of a sport/private/instrument course to have general aviation credentials. Airline captains are great at instructing first officers who are already qualified pilots in that specific airline's way of doing things, but I know many airline pilots who don't know squat about VFR flying or how to take someone off the street from zero hours to a PPL. I haven't instructed in years, so I'm probably not the guy you want teaching a PPL groundschool since I'm not as "up to date" on that kind of flying as the CFIs who are actively instructing new students. If you can find an airline pilot who is still very active in the general aviation community (especially if they're one of the local DPEs), I'd call that a plus.
 
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