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Originally Posted by Purdue_Pilot The best part about learning from an FBO, as I did, was the ability to go out and explore. All of my time building for commercial was cross country IFR flying to all corners of the country. That was the greatest experience in the world! While some of my coworkers from collegiate flight schools have 2 hours actual IFR and lots of hours flight university designated routes to the next state and back, I was accumulating 70 hours actual instrument time learning how mother nature and the IFR system worked. |
For sure!
I did my private license and some XC timebuilding at an FBO, then went to a college program. At the FBO I could walk in, ask if the plane was available for the afternoon and if it was, say, "I'm going flying! See ya!" No paperwork, no CFI approval, nothing. Just take the keys and go. They trusted me to not do anything stupid. But that's what I expected. I was a licensed pilot so I was going to go out and use my license. I had to take care of myself, because certainly nobody else was going to keep me from getting into trouble.
At my first day in the college program they slapped a big fat packet of college pilot regulations in front of me. How to dispatch planes, what weather I could and couldn't fly in, what paperwork I needed to fill out for cross countries, when I did or didn't need approval from a CFI for a flight, blah blah blah. I didn't know what I'd gotten myself into. Over time I've come to realize those procedures are the only way to administrate a large program and my college is actually very loose compared to a lot of other schools. I'm happy with the way my training has turned out.
But still, I wouldn't trade that FBO flying for anything...