Quick thoughts on Ground School

Hi all,

Currently I am two weeks into four weeks of ground school. Hopefully the following gives you some idea of what it's like:


The Class - LGCV 1 2010
There are only four other students - I was expecting many more.  Either very few people knew about the program or there weren't very many places in the program to begin with.  Whatever the cause, the lack of students is good for me; it makes for a less formal classroom situation, where there is time to address everybody's questions.
What's more, all of the other students seem quite friendly and reasonable.  The lecturers have been good, too - in addition to the course material, they relate many of their more interesting flying experiences, which only serves to get me even more psyched to fly!

Time
For these first four weeks, there are four hours of lectures, three days a week.  This schedule slackens when the flying begins - down to two hours of lectures, twice a week.  Home study is probably at least twelve hours a week. This is just a guess - I spent most of the last two months studying in order to avoid having to study so much right now.  I still spend about five hours each week revising and continuing to study ahead...when the schedule changes in a couple of weeks I will plunge back into deep study.

Difficulty
My early study has prepared me well for the lectures - I am finding them a useful for revision, and for picking up extra detail that wasn't revealed in the textbooks.  I can see that the course could be overwhelming without having done all of that study, so I recommend getting into the books far in advance of starting a course like this!

The material itself is quite straightforward and practical...I think my early studies in physics have helped me tie together many of the aerodynamics and meteorology concepts. If it wasn't for this, I would probably have the feeling of trying to remember a bunch of details, which is harder on the mind than just applying known concepts to new situations.  I definitely get that feeling from studying air law! Navigation, loading and performance so far are all nice and logical, and what I've read about human factors is interesting enough to be memorable.

Still, looking at the stack of textbooks next to this desk, I am reminded of the information that remains to be crammed into my skull.  These four weeks of ground school cover only a minute fraction of what is required at the end of the course...I will have to work hard to maintain a good lead on the lectures and have time to process all of the new ideas.

Hope this helps! I will return to this topic once the first four weeks have finished and the lectures begin to accompany flight training!