How I did it: I tried to study on my own.  I joined www.aopa.org.  I bought a FAR/AIM.  I studied the stuff at the FAA government site.  But I just couldn't do it on my own.  Eventually I plunked down $250 (and another $150 for books) and took the class at the local Jr. College.  Best decision I made.  It forced me to study every week and to show up to class.  It also helped to be with other people who were highly motivated to accomplish this - taking the class made me see them every week.  Our instructor made sure that we didn't just "learn enough for the test" but tried to make sure that we learned things to KNOW it.  As he said, "some of those things can save your life."  He was really good at pointing out things that were important for the test and things that were important for flying .The kind people at B08 gave me lots of encouragement, too.

Lessons & tips: For me, it was really hard to do it myself without taking a class.  I have a full time, demanding career, travel a lot for work, and am a semi-single parent (husband works in another state), so finding time and motivation was difficult without "someone else" imposing some discipline.

• Take a class
  
• Imerse yourself
  
• Study in airplane like places - i.e. on a comercial plane or in the airport if you travel a lot, sitting in the pilots' lounge of your local GA airport, under a busy flight path
  
• Don't give up
  
• Don't give up
  
• Don't give up

Resources: www.aopa.org - subscribe to their Flight Training magazine and take their little mini-on-line classes

www.faa.gov - lots of stuff there, too.  not as fancy as aopa, but still, everything you need is there

Jeppesen's latest set of books - way easier to digest than the FAR/AIM book of government procedures and regulations.  It's called "Jeppesen’s  Guided Flight Discovery Private Pilot ."  The set comes with a text book, test book and workbook.  Get the whole set.  I got mine through school, but you can also get it here: http://www.marvgolden.com/jeppesen/private.htm
I still use mine even though I passed the test more than a year ago.


FAR/AIM - a new version comes out each year - it's your bible.  You can get it at Barns and Nobel, Amazon.com and many other places.

Jan 18, 2009, 09:53AM PST | 0 comments | 1 cheer