[hobo]

sorry about the confusion it should be read as
total time 134
asel 134
complex 0
i have yet to be in a complex

yes dca is part 141 and the minimum is 5 hours solo for private

as for buying a cessna 150 instead of going to school i explored that option and found that yes i could have got an airworthy plane and gone that route but as you said then its harder for multi and of course theres the airport fees for storing the plane, insurance, and maintenance. besides getting a bank loan for a plane is harder than getting a school loan when i already had plenty of college loans.

as for the quality of training and my satisfaction
the quality of training seems great to me, i have a little experience from long ago of some fbo flying i did but its been 10 years since so i have to rely more on what i can compare with my brother who is doing part 61 up north. i learned more than him in a shorter period of time.

as far as instructors like every school fbo workplace and house in the entire world there are good bad mediocre great ignorant intelligent absent minded and the sharpest minded people here. more good than bad more intelligent than not. can you find a great instructor here? easily, i have worked with at least ten different guys and nine of those ten were great instructors. they know their stuff better than is needed and fly great and know how to teach. if you do get an instructor that you dont get along with or dont like in any way all it takes it walking into the office and saying id like a new instructor and you fly with someone else the next day.

ground school at dca is good too. to me it was a little slow paced after college but i studied a lot in college. if you havent been to college ground school will seem fast to you. it goes above and beyond the required FARs here and makes you very prepared for the written tests and the many oral exams youll take.

as for my satisfaction
I like how much ive learned. I feel that i am a very safe and competent pilot when I go up in the air. I have experienced a lot of different flying situations here that I dont think are possible at a small fbo at a small airport. Ive had the chance to deal with busy airports towered and nontowered. Ive been to some really small out of the way airports too.
The only thing I dont like about the program is the cost. Its expensive and everyone knows it. a lot of people i have talked to are shocked when they start going over the projected costs which for my class started on the first day when they told us that we would spend about 2500 on books and materials that wasnt included in the 62000 estimate we were given. I think that they could publish how much the average student spends because it would help future students to plan better. I was lucky that the admissions rep told me to be prepared to spend between 70 and 75000. I planned more accordingly than some who took out a 62000 loan.
i appologize for another super long post. theres just so much that can be said since ive been here for seven months