Ground School

 I fell into getting my PPL quite by accident. While it was always a dream of mine, it was always "someday." And we know how often "someday" happens. Well, sometimes the stars align and you can't help but to act. 

My union offered to pay for FAA commercial drone certification classes for any member interested; the class and the FAA test. Uh, yeah! Of course. I use drone footage in the news stories I produce, and being able to fly the drone myself means I don't have to worry about whether the photographer I'm working with is FAA certified to fly or not. Have drone, will travel. They partnered with an online training outfit called Pilot Institute which offers a very well laid out training course for those looking to get their Part 107 certificate. At the risk of this post sounding like a commercial for them, the instructor does a great job of explaining not only what you need to know, but why you need to know it. I started in October, and by the end of November, had passed my FAA exam. (One question short of a perfect score!) 

There’s a tremendous amount of common material for the part 107 exam and the private pilot exam—so much that I was able to score a 67% on an online practice private pilot written test just based on what I learned from the part 107 training. “Hmm” says I. I’m two-thirds there. What’s to stop me from learning the rest? As luck would have it, Pilot Institute also offers a training course for private pilots. As luck would have it, they had a Black Friday sale for said course. Sometimes, opportunity knocks quietly at your door and you have to wonder what's going on. Sometimes opportunity swings a sledgehammer straight at your head so hard you have no doubt whatsoever what you need to do. 

Once I signed up for the Part 61 course, it became very clear that while I may have cruised through 67% of the FAA practice test based on what I learned from my drone training, this course was far more in-depth and there was a whole lot more than just that extra 33% that I would have to learn. Dozens of hours of presentations, countless practice quizzes, and scenario-based training awaited me. This clearly was not going to be the same “watch the videos over a month and take the test” that the drone course was. I started in December, and it has taken me 6 months to get through everything. Now, it’s going to be a month or two of continual review reinforced by in-flight training before I think I’ll be confident enough to take the test. I know the material, but it’s not yet as automatic as I want it to be. I want to look at steam rising off of a warm pool on a cool night and not have to think “okay, what kind of fog is that???”