SLAYER
Registered User
I just finished IFS (in 36 days) at Flight Training of Mobile and I had a really great experience there. Since every SNA/SNFO is going to be doing IFS down "in" Pensacola, I thought I'd share some about my time in IFS. There are a few different schools that people go to, hopefully others will post more about their schools.
FTM (www.flyftm.com) does a week and a day of ground school before you start flying. You learn the basics about flight, about the plane itself (C172 SP) how to plan a flight etc. You take the practice test for Private Pilot License the last day of ground school and then its on to scheduled flights. FTM was very good about getting flights scheduled daily, in fact the only times where I didn't have daily flights were due to bad weather. I felt this helped a lot in a new lesson when it came to building on skills learned in a previous one. There's also a King Schools at home course that you do before and during ground school on CDs.
Location: Mobile was about an 1.5 hr drive from my house (10 mins west of the back gate of NAS) The drive was a pretty tiring event everyday but it could have been worse, I only had to drive one way, my fiance (also SNA) would drive there and I would drive back. FTM was good about grouping up the flights of people that rode together and I'd definitely reccomend carpooling. FTM is located at Mobile Downtown airport which used to be a military air station so it has big runways and a control tower. FedEx and UPS fly out of Downtown. I liked getting practice talking to a tower, not all the IFS schools are based at airports with control towers.
Planes: IFS students learn to fly in Cessna 172 Skyhawks. I haven't yet flown anything else so I can't do any comparisons, but I can tell you I never feared for my life in the Skyhawk :icon_wink The planes were well maintained and never once did I miss a flight for mechanical problems and I never heard of anyone else missing any either.
Instructors: I had one instructor for all of my flights, other people had more than one. My instructor was a really great guy, he had lots of experience flying and had great stories. I feel that having a instructor as good as him will help me down the road in Navy flight training.
Some general IFS advice:
-Don't forget to log into the website everyday, even on weekends.
-Send your email the night before to the IFS office if you have an event the next day
-Have a good attitude when you go to IFS, don't have the idea that its a piece of cake and you don't have to work. Be eager to learn and respectful to your instructors.
*If you forget, you muster on the weekend at 0700, both days if you messed up twice.
FTM (www.flyftm.com) does a week and a day of ground school before you start flying. You learn the basics about flight, about the plane itself (C172 SP) how to plan a flight etc. You take the practice test for Private Pilot License the last day of ground school and then its on to scheduled flights. FTM was very good about getting flights scheduled daily, in fact the only times where I didn't have daily flights were due to bad weather. I felt this helped a lot in a new lesson when it came to building on skills learned in a previous one. There's also a King Schools at home course that you do before and during ground school on CDs.
Location: Mobile was about an 1.5 hr drive from my house (10 mins west of the back gate of NAS) The drive was a pretty tiring event everyday but it could have been worse, I only had to drive one way, my fiance (also SNA) would drive there and I would drive back. FTM was good about grouping up the flights of people that rode together and I'd definitely reccomend carpooling. FTM is located at Mobile Downtown airport which used to be a military air station so it has big runways and a control tower. FedEx and UPS fly out of Downtown. I liked getting practice talking to a tower, not all the IFS schools are based at airports with control towers.
Planes: IFS students learn to fly in Cessna 172 Skyhawks. I haven't yet flown anything else so I can't do any comparisons, but I can tell you I never feared for my life in the Skyhawk :icon_wink The planes were well maintained and never once did I miss a flight for mechanical problems and I never heard of anyone else missing any either.
Instructors: I had one instructor for all of my flights, other people had more than one. My instructor was a really great guy, he had lots of experience flying and had great stories. I feel that having a instructor as good as him will help me down the road in Navy flight training.
Some general IFS advice:
-Don't forget to log into the website everyday, even on weekends.
-Send your email the night before to the IFS office if you have an event the next day
-Have a good attitude when you go to IFS, don't have the idea that its a piece of cake and you don't have to work. Be eager to learn and respectful to your instructors.
*If you forget, you muster on the weekend at 0700, both days if you messed up twice.
