At Edenvale (CNV8) we train people in their own Challenger if they acquired it from us. The curriculum ranges from ab initio training for people who have not flown before to checkouts for licenced pilots. Training usually starts with the plane on wheels and then moves on to amphibious floats and/or wheel/skis as appropriate.
Lots of people get their Challenger first and then do their licence training in it. There are two main advantages to this approach: economics and proficiency.
On the economics front,
You will save a ton of money since you are not renting a flight school’s aircraft for $75-125/hour, you merely put a few dollars of gas in your own. The money you save goes straight towards the purchase of your plane.
To give you an idea of just how large the savings are, consider that there are several licenses which will allow you to fly a Challenger in Canada: Private Pilot Licence, Recreational Pilot Permit and Ultralight Pilot Permit. The differences between these are described in the Frequently Asked Questions section (FAQ) of our web site.
Typically, according to real world stats for middle-aged adults learning to fly on a part-time basis, by the time you have completed your training in a rental aircraft you will have spent with the flight school $17,600 for a Private Licence, $8,575 for a Recreational Permit, $8,175 for an Ultralight Permit with Passenger Carrying, or $4,300 for an Ultralight Permit without Passenger Carrying.
For example, an Ultralight Permit legally only requires 10 hours of flight training but in the real world it usually takes at least 20 hours to achieve the required level of competency. You can save $2,000 in aircraft rental by learning in your own Challenger.
==> Canadian Licence Comparison
If you want to add Passenger Carrying privileges to your Ultralight Permit, whether by getting a Recreational permit or by adding the Passenger Carrying Endorsement, the legal minimum flight time is 25 hours. In the real world though it typically takes 40 hours. Do that in your own Challenger and you will enjoy a net savings of nearly $4,000. In my book that’s a significant sum!
If you eventually want to continue on to a Private license, which requires flight time in certified conventional airplanes, a portion of your hours in the Challenger will count toward that license. More importantly, the experience you gain with your Challenger will make it inevitable that you will complete your training in far fewer hours than someone starting out from scratch. Here again you will realize significant savings.
On the proficiency front,
By training in your own plane you become intimately familiar with the “personality” of the type of plane you’re going to be flying in the real world after graduation. This is significant from the perspectives of both safety and self-confidence because different airplane types have quite different flying characteristics as well as different target speeds and normal and emergency procedures.
If you train in another type of airplane you will also have to figure in the cost of transition training to your own type. For a newly licensed pilot that would typically be 5 to 10 hours of flight time.
Sometimes people end up doing training a day or two a week and other times they take some vacation and go at it full time. The more frequently you fly the less total hours it takes because you remember more between lessons!
Lots of good reasons to consider! Let me know if you have any questions.
Best regards,
Bryan
The longer you wait for the future, the shorter it will be.
— Loesje —
Bryan Quickmire (705) 721-9811
http://www.challenger.ca bdq@challenger.ca
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