Learn 2 Fly 4 Less
(214) 918-2432

Bringing the joy of piloting an aircraft to the rest of us

Learn 2 Fly 4 Less
(214) 918-2432

STUDENT
PILOTS

Come "fly" with us! Before you know it, you'll be flying on your own wherever you want to go with whomever you want to take!
No matter where you are on your journey to get your pilot’s certificate, nothing can help you achieve that goal faster than confidence. How do you gain confidence? Lots of practice! However, few of us pilots, no matter how experienced, have unlimited resources to rent an airplane to practice in. Even if you own your own plane, the cost of fuel and maintenance still makes it difficult financially to practice as much as you'd like. 
 
At Learn2Fly4Less, we have four fabulous simulators with hundreds of options. You can choose what type of airplane you want to fly, where you want to fly, and set up weather conditions so you can practice those pesky crosswind landings in a place where you don’t have to worry about mistakes. You'll be astonished at the realism of our simulators, especially the amazing photo-realistic scenery of the area you'll be flying in. And the best part is that an hour in one of our simulators costs about as much as it does to taxi an airplane to a runway.
 
If you’re ready to take your second lesson, or simply want to get that edge of certainty before you go up for your checkride, we can help you gain the confidence and fluidity you need to blow your instructor away, or ace that checkride and walk away with your certificate and the rights that go along with it. 

Phases of Instruction

  1. 1

    Pre-Solo

    You’ve had a lesson or a few, but you can’t even imagine yet how in the world you’re going to be ready to fly that airplane all by yourself with just a few more lessons. Everyone who has their pilot’s “license” (it’s really called a “certificate”, but no biggie) remembers that feeling well.
     
    For many of us, the part we remember more is the sense of exhilaration we felt when we lifted that airplane off the ground for the first time with our instructor watching closely on the tarmac, and the satisfaction felt when we had a “successful” landing and taxied back. (I put quotes around “successful”, because the definition when associated with landings changes from your first solo to the time of your checkride, and that’s totally normal and expected.) ;-)
     
    When I was getting close to my first solo, I would have given anything to have had a realistic simulator like the ones I now have in my office to practice with. While I was ready on that day (at least my instructor thought I was), if I'd had an hour or two in the simulator for every hour of experience I’d had with my instructor, I would have been even more prepared.
     
    You can have that invaluable experience that wasn’t available years ago. Even recently, simulators weren't as realistic as they are now because the hardware and software just weren't ready for that level of realism. Today they are.
     
    Fly the best solo you possibly can, by “soloing” successfully numerous times in our office before you do it for real!
     

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    Checkride Preparation

    As mentioned earlier, getting ready for your checkride is one of the most challenging preparations you will make for any endeavor. This is studying for a test that is unlike any you’ve ever taken before. Remember your driver’s test, and how nervous you were before it? Sorry, but this is no comparison. I don’t mean to scare you – on the contrary, I want you to ace it with flying colors! (I know)…
     
    The best way to ace your checkride is to take it with absolute certainty that there is nothing that the examiner will ask you to do that you cannot do with utmost precision. No matter how much of a “natural” you might be at flying, the only way to achieve the type of precision that will blow away your examiner is to practice every maneuver and calculation again and again in a variety of scenarios. Sure it’s ideal to be able to do all of this in the actual plane that you will be using for your checkride, however most of us don’t have the luxury of being able to afford to do that. Again, that’s where we can really help you!
     
    If I had to take my checkride over again, I would feel a lot more confident in my abilities and preparation than I did years ago, because I would have “taken” a rehearsal checkride many times in a simulator using all kinds of weather related scenarios. Of course this is no substitute for getting as much practice as possible in the actual airplane, but you can be certain that the actual airplane practice will be more efficient and productive than it would have been had you not already rehearsed that flight at least once in the simulator. Besides, you can practice in the simulator after dark or when the weather outside is nasty. The simulator will think that the weather is exactly how you program it to be.
     
    Finally, you can also gain confidence in those tricky emergency procedures and maneuvers in a place where you can emulate those situations without the risk of doing so while actually flying. At least once a week I perform an engine out emergency in all kinds of situations, and I take it all the way to the ground in my simulator. Please don’t try this in an actual plane (in any form or fashion)! Also, please never practice emergency procedures in your solo practice sessions without discussing in detail exactly what you are planning to practice with your CFI (Certified Flight Instructor) ahead of time. Many of the maneuvers you practice with him/her next to you should not be practiced on your own except in the simulator. The airline pilots practice these types of situations all the time…in simulators. Now you can too!
     
    Now, go out and ace that checkride!

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    Post-Solo Maneuvers, Solo Cross Country

    After you’ve soloed, you’re thinking “hey that wasn’t so hard, maybe I really can do this!” Of course you can. This next phase is a lot of fun and a lot of work. It requires a lot more practice, and now you can do that practice on your own in one of our airplane simulators. As before, your practice sessions in the plane will be much more beneficial, efficient, and most importantly, safer if you rehearse your entire practice session first on the ground with us.
     
    When you’re ready to take those solo cross country flights, you'll be glad you're a member of the Learn2Fly4Less “club." For most of us, the hardest (and scariest) part of our solo cross country flights was the uncertainty of flying into an unfamiliar area and locating the airport is in relation to the rest of the terrain. Even after you’ve made dozens of cross country flights, it's always much easier to fly to an airport you’ve been to a number of times. Even today, 35 years after I did my first solo cross country flight, I always try to “fly” to, from and all around a new airport in one of our simulators a day or two before my trip. With our incredibly realistic scenery, it's easy to get a feel for the area--where the major landmarks are in relation to the airport, how the traffic pattern feels, and how long the runway really is (rather than just referring to a number on a map). You can even simulate the density altitude of the airport by setting the temperature to be what is forecast for the day of your flight. (Don’t worry if you don’t know what density altitude is right now. You will know it well very soon.)
     
    At this point your confidence level will be sky high (sorry, couldn’t resist) and your tension and nervousness will be much lower if you “fly” to your destinations the safest way--on the ground in one of our simulators. It's a big bonus to have this key part of your training be more enjoyable and less stressful. While some might argue that confidence can be a bad thing in flying, the only time that might be true is if one is “over” confident, and therefore careless or even reckless. At this point in your training, I can’t really imagine anyone being overconfident, and thus I feel certain of my claim that this is the safest way to make your solo cross country flights.
     
    Others might consider this “cheating” because your flights will not be to an airport you’ve never flown to before. But you did make that flight for the first time. You just did it in a simulator. Trust me, when you can’t seem to find that airport and you feel as if you might be a bit lost temporarily, your heart will race almost as much in the simulator as it would in an airplane. It is never cheating to be as prepared as possible for a flight.