> Within my previous thread "Advise on PPL Training" someone suggested flight training in the states.
>
> This has raised my curiosity some what, since I've always wanted to travel to Florida to see a large Rocket launch down at the cape.
>
> I would love to do a full time course overseas, but I do hope to fit in ok @ Tyabb or Moorabbin as a recreational flyer. It would be nice to travel back to the states in future and do some cross country flying provided I get the FAA license and convert to JAA for here.
>
> Whats peoples opinions on this, good or bad idea?
Not quite what you asked; I attended a school at FTW (Meacham Field) and they
were geared to move me through the course - no stuffing around. The met me at
the downtown airline office (I transferred from Love field to Fort Worth -
Dallas) - they found me great priced motel accom. nearby and picked me up and
dropped off each day. My written FAA ATR result was 94%% after six days tuition.
Just looking now, I couldn't find the actual school that I went to (maybe
merged, went elswhere or whatever - it was a long time ago) but it seemed a
bit similar to this one:
http://www.americanflyersftworth.net/
I would also tend to look at the ones at Denton as I am sure that Meacham
would be a lot busier with RPT now - and that usually stuffs up ones stick and
rudder time big time. They are likely to look at full-time courses in weeks -
not months.
At the time I did my course, I met a guy who was flying 727's and was ready
for the left seat and was doing a course - he showed me real Texan hospitality
by inviting me into his home - a meal with his great family - water skiing on
the nearby lake and a personal tour of FTW/DAL region in his Caddy. My
ground-school instructor (one-on-one) whose name was Tex (a local no doubt)
was a retired USAF KC135 driver and really knew his stuff. Another guy doing
a course was a retired USAF Colonel with over 7,000 HRS jet-fighter time who
never bothered to get a civvy licence - since that had been eons previous and
he had just married a woman who was a company CEO with their own corporate jet
fleet he had to redo his licences to get the fly 'em.
When I did my course, I was planning on going to work for Continental Airlines
in Laos (before the movie) - the actual operator depicted as 'Air America' in
the movie of the same name. Air America (CIA) operated under that name in
Vietnam - not Laos.
Plenty of "characters" in TX including real cowboys with 45 colts, at large.
Enough of this scattered bullshit - Talk to them or the like........ It may be
worth the effort and a great experience - north americans tend to rely less on
bullshit and more on real practical stick-and-rudder stuff - yet the
requirements are almost identical to AU - you can DL the FAA sample exams off
the net.
Good luck with whatever you choose.
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