Chunk-
Thanks for the info. Yeah, I have most of the gen ed done. I suppose it depends on how much transfer credit they allow me. I have an associates degree, & about another year of college on top of that. So hopefully with what I have done, what I am doing now at FSI, & the minimum of 30 credits needed at ERAU I can cobble together a bachelors degree without too much hassle.
I'm happy with FSI. To be honest, I didn't look at any other school. I had people who were actually working as pilots tell me that (other than ERAU) FlightSafety is the place to go. Sure, it isn't cheap, it doesn't have the newest fleet, but it has the best reputation in the industry. Right now there is something of a funk around the place, as veteran instructors aren't moving up, & newly minted CFI's are placed on waiting lists to instruct.
I sort of hesitate on giving advice, but I'll let you know some things that I did that I thought worked well for me. First, I hooked up with some one in my private ground school who was as mature & as motivated as I was to partner with. We study together, we fly together, we motivate each other. We seeked out an instructor that would be a good fit, rather than wait to be assigned one. We are also "crewing" together on flights, which is paying off big on the multi-time. FSI has a "Gemini" program that is good & a lot of people use, but if you are the Gemini student you don't get any flight time. The way we work it with our instructor is we schedule back to back lessons on one aircraft & do our lessons as we fly to an airport at least 50 miles away. One of us flys on the way out, switch at the destination airport, then the other flys back & does his lesson on the return leg. That way all of your muti-time is loggable as cross country time as well!
The biggest mistake that I see people make here is, believe it or not, going at a slow pace. Coming straight out of the military I'm sure that that won't be a problem for you, but there are students here that take many long breaks in their training. They end up having to spend a lot of time reviewing lessons, if not having to redo them altogether, because they are not reinforcing their training by keeping what they learned fresh in their minds. Don't get me wrong, you need some time for yourself & your family too. But you can do both.
As far as my plans, I am going to do the CFI course here. I moved here to Vero with my family, so I will sit on the waiting list to instruct here at FSI. I won't let that time go to waste, though. I need to finish my degree, which will keep me busy. It's hard not to be in a hurry to get to the airlines or corporate world, but I plan to use this down time to get as much training as I can, so that when the inevitable upswing occurs, I will be prepared to take advantage of it.
'naut
