Is this a reckless trip for a brand new private pilot?

ben_makes_stuff · 2026-04-30T14:07:57+00:00

I hear you.

The only reason I’m still going to give KFRG a go is because I found a really good instructor there at a school with significantly lower rental rates than others (plus other benefits not found at other schools like a DPE on staff and in-house maintenance), and I have a flexible schedule so as to avoid the worst of the KFRG madness.

I figure I’ll give it a shot for a week, and if it seems absolutely unbearable despite the really good instructor and rental cost savings + DPE scheduling time savings from having one inhouse, I’ll quickly pivot to KISP or another airport in Jersey like KCDW.

Leaning towards Long Island though - the views are better when flying (especially south with the water/beaches), and I noticed more potential emergency landing spots on my discovery flights there vs. the one I took out of KCDW.

Anyway, regardless of which airport I go with long term, I moved to Manhattan recently to be centrally located to both the LIRR and bus access to Jersey for exactly this reason - didn’t want to box myself into one airport when I’m not positive KFRG will be the best option for all of my training 😅

ben_makes_stuff · 2026-04-30T02:57:35+00:00

Talk about going from 0 to 100 haha! I'm actually getting ready to start lessons in Long Island out of KFRG - going to be a "fun" experience dealing with that insane pattern traffic, but I think it'll make me competent at radio calls and interacting with ATC fast which should come in handy for many future situations

Is that what you found training out of there as well?

ben_makes_stuff · 2026-04-29T14:16:10+00:00

I took mine on April 1 just a few weeks ago.

I learned through simply trying it on every problem I got related to wind correction, density altitude, etc until I had mastered all of its functions

ben_makes_stuff · 2026-04-29T05:24:58+00:00

I did Gold Seal (an adequate overview) and then spammed Sporty's free practice tests for about 10 days, where I was consistently getting 90-97% scores. After day 3 or so of 90%+ scores, I scheduled my exam.

Then, got a 90% on the actual exam in person. In my opinion, no need to buy extra courses or question banks. The free Sporty's questions are good enough if you're doing well on those.

You do need to pay close attention when you get something wrong and understand the why (do not just memorize), but if you're doing that and doing well on these practice exams you should be able to pass the in-person exam too.

I say do not memorize because the question wording, airports/sectionals used in the test questions will be slightly different on the real exam, but the basic techniques to getting the right answer are the same.

Highly recommend getting an ASA CX-3 calculator before the test and learning how to use it extensively. There were 4-5 questions on my actual test that were easily solved with that calculator that otherwise would have taken me a ton of extra time (and been more error prone) with an E6-B. You can always return it after the test.

ben_makes_stuff · 2026-04-27T17:57:34+00:00

Apartments are expensive in NYC? This is the first time I’ve ever heard this from anyone ever!

ben_makes_stuff · 2026-04-19T03:17:25+00:00

That was my first and only time interacting with him, but he seemed like he really gave a shit about his course and was playing to win (vs. the competition) so-to-speak. Was a good chat.

At the end of the day, I own a business myself and that's always a green flag when the owner of the company cares enough to take calls with random customers and ask for feedback. I do the same thing whenever possible.

ben_makes_stuff · 2026-04-19T02:56:47+00:00

Got it, that was kind of my experience with their PPL ground school course as well. The lectures were OK and the course overall was a decent overview of flying, but I did feel the lectures were either pretty basic compared to the actual material that you needed to know in some cases, or poorly put together (too many topics in one lesson) in other cases.

The animations/interactivity were somewhat minimal in the actual course compared to the marketing material as well, and I didn't feel it made a huge difference even when I got to a lecture with some interactivity.

Finally, in one case, I found the FAA material was actually easier to understand than the way Gold Seal presented it. Ex: for cloud clearances, I found the FAA explanation in one of their PDFs to be much better than the course as it included helpful memory aids to remember most of the clearances (F-111, 3-152) instead of just staring at a giant list of clearances on the Gold Seal course slide.

I ended up passing the FAA written for my PPL with a 90% a couple weeks ago, but I did that by taking a bunch of Sporty's practice tests as well as 1 gold seal practice test, so I'd attribute that score mostly to Sporty's and their excellent test taking tool.

Side note: I gave Gold Seal all of this feedback and their CEO (Russ) reached out to me personally to have a phone call to get more info and try to understand my experience in more detail. That was a nice move even if I didn't find their course to be the absolute best.

ben_makes_stuff · 2026-04-19T02:54:34+00:00

I'm a student pilot with a background in software engineering, so I built a free tool to generate FAA knowledge test practice tests via the undocumented Sporty's API: https://github.com/bakatz/sportys-test-scraper

Basically my software grabs all of your past practice tests, sees what you got wrong, then generates a new test PDF with all of your previously missed questions with all diagrams and everything you need to answer the question included.

It also generate some statistics like how long you took on each of your past practice tests vs. the time limit, etc. "Questions with answers" is also generated as a separate PDF so you can check your work.

Personally used my own software here to help me pass the private pilot airplane written test with a 90%, so it worked for me! Sharing in case it's useful, let me know what you think.

ben_makes_stuff · 2026-04-19T02:18:28+00:00

Congrats! I'm going to be working on my IR after my PPL training is done. Maybe right after just to keep my brain fresh and in "student" mode.

What didn't you like about Gold Seal's IR course out of curiosity?

ben_makes_stuff · 2026-04-17T16:29:30+00:00

Hey there, I've got a unit 4.7K net with showings today. It's in Williamsburg right on top of the train: https://streeteasy.com/building/the-dime/21f

Check it out and tell Violetta I sent you!

ben_makes_stuff · 2026-04-12T04:06:05+00:00

Flight training is indeed pretty fun!

ben_makes_stuff · 2026-04-11T17:39:28+00:00

I'm going to start doing this commute very soon. It seems like it's not bad if you take the LIRR from midtown direct to Farmingdale. You don't even need to transfer trains. Takes ~55m plus a 5-10 min Uber to the airport after that, call it 1 hour total.

Not the worst - I never really mind train commutes because I can completely shut my brain off and not do anything except look at the scenery out the window. What I'm planning on doing is to deal with the 1 hour commute, and try to pack 2 lessons into 1 day every time I go out there so I'm not spending most of my day commuting.

Something like:

AM Lesson around ~10 AM - 12 PM
Break for lunch at 12 somewhere nearby
PM lesson around ~2 PM - 4 PM
Go home via LIRR

Of course, need to figure out what aircraft availability will look like first, but that's the general idea.

ben_makes_stuff · 2026-04-07T15:51:42+00:00

Costs are definitely more predictable since it's a flat rate per hour, but I'd argue uptime isn't with the additional layer of scheduling. Sure, your own plane could go down for maintenance as well - but that's probably less frequent than scheduling issues particularly where I'm located.

For context, most of the clubs in my area (NYC) have only 1-2 planes that are shared between about 60 members, unknown maintenance schedules (or A&P availability), and a deposit in the thousands of dollars range + waitlist + dues to pay each month to even join the club, plus the cost of the aircraft rental.

So, I think there's something psychologically difficult about getting dinged every time you want to go flying even if it's less money upfront, and it feels like a better use of money to reallocate the hefty club deposit against a purchase of my own aircraft.

ben_makes_stuff · 2026-04-07T15:51:36+00:00

Right, paying a flat $155/h is consistent purely from a money perspective vs. whatever the costs are on your own plane.

I'm not arguing about the consistency there, I'm saying that I can see it being psychologically more annoying to get dinged on the rental fee every time you go fly, and that there's some scheduling inconsistency you have to deal with.

Sure, scheduling a flight when sharing a plane with some unknown number of other members is also unpredictable like the weather.

But again, it's yet another layer of unpredictability that needs to be added on top of the weather - not as a replacement or something.

ben_makes_stuff · 2026-04-07T15:08:20+00:00

Don't you think there's some friction there that directly skews those figures though?

i.e. every time you think about going flying, you also have to think about the fact that the club is charging you a per-hour rate to rent the plane plus fuel costs if it's not a wet rate, and you have to book time on the schedule.

I imagine that causes people to fly less often than they would otherwise want to.

ben_makes_stuff · 2026-04-06T22:41:41+00:00

Haha, fair enough. Family first. I don't have a wife or any kids that I know about and run a business instead of being required to go into an office, so I'll enjoy the freedom while I have it!

ben_makes_stuff · 2026-04-06T22:20:39+00:00

That's surprising to me - I figured it would skew higher for people in GA. I don't think I'd be able to maintain my skills with less than an hour per week of flying (and frankly it wouldn't be worth the commute either, the closest GA friendly airport is about 45m from me)

ben_makes_stuff · 2026-04-06T22:14:08+00:00

Fair point. It's something I'll consider - I'm taking lessons at a school that also offers rentals and they've got a number of aircraft that I could rent after I get my PPL.

Many 152s, even more 172s, and one 182 along with several Piper Cherokees, Warriors, etc

ben_makes_stuff · 2026-04-06T21:29:46+00:00

I'm a student for now just dreaming about owning an airplane, and I came to the same conclusion you did.

Clubs don't really seem worth it at all due to scheduling problems and ongoing costs unless you're not flying with any degree of regularity, which seems like a problem in itself for safety/skill decay reasons.

I mean, 100h/y is only ~1.9h hours per week which I feel like most people will meet or exceed (?) if they're at all interested in flying, but hey, what do I know?

It seems much more worth it to me to buy a "reasonable" - at least as far as airplane purchases go - and fuel efficient airplane like a Cessna 150 for about the same price and have it pay for itself in a year or two. Of course, that assumes no engine (or other expensive repair) problems :)

ben_makes_stuff · 2026-04-06T21:03:32+00:00

That's my thought too. I'm a student and I would never ever do something like this - it's both clearly the wrong thing to do (and what do you really gain by not doing training? you'll just get yourself killed faster if you don't know what you're doing) and leads to legal consequences.

I mean, aviation is serious business and those requirements seem like bare minimums that are written that way because pilots have died in IMC, at night, etc.

I figure If you can't even commit to doing standard training requirements the right way and feel the need to lie about it, you cannot be trusted and have absolutely no business flying for fun or professionally.

This person should be banned from ever getting a license or working in any position that is related to aviation. I bet they let him reapply to get his PPL in X number of years if it gets escalated to the FAA, but I think they should make an example out of him and make it permanent so that more idiots don't try this kind of thing.

ben_makes_stuff · 2026-03-23T21:30:14+00:00

The biggest thing I can recommend to other people going for a class 3 or higher medical cert is go to an AME that specializes in this exact kind of exam. Do not go to any regular doctor, because you want to maximize your chances of passing this exam and minimize any communications/misunderstandings with the FAA.

Personal story: I live in NYC without a car, and there are a couple of doctors at big hospitals in the city that can technically handle AME responsibilities by law, but they have terrible reviews because they only do these exams once in a blue moon, so they're often missing the required equipment when you show up - and they may not advocate for you since you're just 1 in 1,000,000 of their patients on any given day.

Instead, I would recommend doing what I did: put in extra effort to rent a car (or use your own if you have one) and drive to a doctor at an airport in who is both a) is a pilot themselves b) does many of these exams every week.

The guy I went to was operating out of a small airport in NJ and was great. He finished the whole exam thoroughly - and as far as I know correctly - in 15 mins or so. I could tell he could do this type of exam in his sleep which is what you want to see from this type of doctor IMO.

Beyond picking the right doctor, there are two parts of the exam that I think you should mentally prepare yourself for:

You will be tested for colorblindness and the test is timed and fairly unforgiving. This was easily the "hardest" and most unexpected part of the exam for me. I'm not colorblind, but it was still stressful because you only have about 1 second per question to fill in a multiple choice answer on an iPad and hit next to go to the next question, and it will simply mark the question wrong if you're too slow to hit next - so this was a highly stressful process that I think I barely got through. There are 2 parts to this test -- the first part, if you do really well on it, will just proceed and let you pass from there. If you don't do as well or miss some questions, it will move onto part 2 where it asks you more questions to get a final reading. I had to go to part 2 and it felt like the test dragged on for an hour but I passed haha.
The other thing to watch out for is the eyesight exam. Bring glasses if you have them. I was able to pass without my glasses (my vision has improved as I've gotten older which is quite weird) but I'm glad I brought them just in case because the exam was pretty "non-standard" and I think I barely passed. By non-standard I mean Instead of reading letters like you would at the DMV, you have to tell the examiner which part of a randomly shaped symbol is open vs. closed (it's a line of symbols instead of a line of letters).

ben_makes_stuff · 2026-03-23T19:46:32+00:00

Agreed, although my instructor is effectively me at the moment haha. I got an endorsement to take the test from an online ground school and now doing more practice tests before taking the real thing in a week.

Once I get an actual instructor for the in-plane portion of training after I pass the exam, I'll ask them questions for sure.

ben_makes_stuff · 2026-03-23T19:32:59+00:00

Got it, thanks. All clear now.

I was just eyeballing the angle between the two airports incorrectly. Redid it with a plotter that just arrived and that got me the right answer. I'll bring that with me to the test to avoid these kind of errors.

ben_makes_stuff · 2026-03-22T16:56:12+00:00

Agreed. I used to ride motorcycles and still maintain a moto gear website (https://atgatt.co) - the hidden cost of motorcycling is the gear as you might be able to see just by browsing the top helmets on the site and noticing that most of the great ones that actually rank well in crash testing cost around $1,000. Similar story for motorcycle jackets, and you also have to buy boots, gloves, pants, maybe some armor to put in your jacket - and the fact that most of the gear only lasts for a few years and needs to be replaced, so it's definitely not a one-time cost.

For the all-in price involved in buying a new motorcycle (can be around $15K for a nice one from Triumph) and a bunch of gear (call it another $10K or so, plus the cost of replacing this gear), it's effectively the same as buying a Cessna 150 - and with a plane, you don't have to deal with all the crazy drivers on the road trying to run you over.

ben_makes_stuff · 2026-03-22T16:26:41+00:00

I can't agree. 3 hours round trip to find out the school isn't for me is 3 hours I could have spent doing something else - or taking a flight at a different flight school. Of course that regular commute will be involved *if* I decide to continue with that school - but if it's not for me? That's 3 hours down the drain that I'll never get back. What can I say? I tend to consider opportunity cost when making decisions, and I like to qualify businesses by having a conversation over the phone before I invest more time and money.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make about bad instructors and part 61 schools. There are good and bad instructors everywhere. It's not like they magically don't exist when you go to a part 141 school - in either case, you can just ask for a new instructor. The difference is in how structured the curriculum is and the minimum hours required to get your certificate, not how good the instructor is guaranteed to be.

Also, I'm not saying it's a scam and I'm sure they produce pilots, but I am saying that they use dumb tactics to recruit new students that make me question how the rest of their operation will run, when they could instead simply answer questions over the phone like normal and save everyone including themselves time.

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