3 Things You Can Do Before Starting Flight School

Posted on: 8 June 2019

Learning how to fly is a big task, which is why you want to be equipped with all the necessary knowledge to ace your flying lessons and advance towards your pilot licenses. There are a lot of strategies you can employ to prepare before your first flight lesson.

1. Ask to Ride Along On Someone Else's Flight Lesson

Before you begin taking your own classes, ask and see if you can ride along on someone else's flight lesson. This will give you the opportunity to sit back and see how a lesson progresses when the student and teacher are in the air. You will be able to see the type of instruction and questions the instructor asks, and you will be able to see what your role as a student is when you are up in the air.

Watching the student/teacher dynamic by riding along on a flight lesson can help put you more at ease when you start your own flight lessons

2. Practice With a Flight Simulator

There is a wide range of flight simulators on the market today, from mobile apps to full desktop flight simulators. All these simulators offer training benefits. They expose you to flight principles and allow you to become more familiar with flight terms. Flight simulators are also designed to expose you to accurate aerodynamics as well.

Flight simulators are not just for newbies to the flight game. Experienced pilots use flight simulators to practice and tighten up their skills. Flight simulators are used to get pilots familiar with new planes and to help them learn to navigate tricky situations. Practicing with a flight simulator, no matter the level of the simulator, is a great way to gain valuable experience and knowledge.

3. Read a Pilot Textbook

Start your reading before you start your classes. Purchase one or more private pilot textbooks, and spend time reading and re-reading all the concepts in the book. If you don't want to purchase your own textbook, there are lots of free resources listed on the Federal Aviation Administration website. There is a lot of free and paid information out there that can help you learn about flight techniques and aerodynamics, as well as the history of aviation and the history of specific types of aircraft as well.

Before you even start flight school, there are multiple steps you can take to be prepared. You can read pilot textbooks and other print sources to learn important concepts and information. You can use flight simulators to learn more about the practical side. You can sit in on a flight lesson to see what they are like. These are all things you can do before you start flight school that will help with your flight training.