After I decided to look yet again for another certified flight instructor in the Atlanta area, I found Falcon Aviation Academy down at Falcon Field (KFFC) in Peachtree City, Georgia. I had heard of them before, but never checked them out. They are what is known as a Part 141 school because they adhere to Part 141 of the Federal Aviation Regulations. By adhering to these standards, one can actually proceed through the various certificates and ratings a bit faster. This is much like a traditional school with classes and a syllabus for each stage of your training. Pretty much what I was looking for.
Of course, I’m not planning at this point on being a professional pilot – in the sense of getting paid to fly. However, the idea of being a professional in the cockpit has always appealed to me. After all, if you are going to do something, you should do it well. After discussing my options and spewing forth my goals to the Chief Flight Instructor, he gave me some numbers on what it would cost and approximately how long it would take to finish up my instrument rating. Surprisingly, the hourly CFI rate was only $5 more per hour than what I was paying and the aircraft rental rate is higher because of what it is….more on that below. I can emphatically say that so far I am getting a great value for my money.
Don’t get me wrong – you can certainly get professional flight training outside of a non Part 141 environment. In fact, you should expect to get professional flight instruction no matter where you go. That is not always the case, of course.
I am not taking part in the Part 141 program, and am training under Part 61. However, I am benefitting from the Part 141 structure – the whole place is a very professional environment.
As for the aircraft – this was actually a very nice surprise. Thus far in my training I had flown old Cessna 152s and Cessna 172s, plus the thoroughly “plain jane” looking Alarus CH-2000. While I did like the fact that the Alarus had a Garmin 430 GPS, nothing I’ve flown thus far compares to my new bird – a DiamondStar DA-40 equipped with the Garmin G1000. That was the biggest cause of the increase in my hourly rate, but man is it oh so worth it! In my next post, I’ll discuss my flights so far in this very nice glass cockpit equipped aircraft. Needless to say, I’m definitely hooked on technically advanced aircraft (TAA).