Faking Flight

Pia Bergqvist

Tuesday, February 01, 2011 at 10:04 PM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Traditional flight training often exceeds minimum required hours due to real-world distractions, busy environments, and inefficient use of flight time.
Flight simulators, from home-based computer games to certified devices, significantly improve learning efficiency by offering a distraction-free, repeatable environment for mastering maneuvers and procedures.
Simulators are especially beneficial for complex instrument flight training and certain maneuvers that are difficult to practice efficiently in an actual aircraft, with certified devices allowing hours to count towards ratings and offering cost savings.

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During my time as a full time flight instructor, most of my students (including myself when I was training) took upwards of 70-80 hours to complete their private pilot certificates. This is about twice the number of hours the FAA requires to get the rating. There were many reasons for this, the most significant being the very busy training environment.

Santa Monica airport has several flight schools and many corporate and charter operators, and it lies below the Class B veil of Los Angeles International airport. There was often a wait for takeoff and we had to fly for about 10 to 15 minutes each way to get to the local practice area. This was great for student-instructor bonding, but highly inefficient for training.