Online pilot training?

[nosborne48]

This seems really strange to me...next to dentistry, I'd have thought pilot training would be a finalist for Least Likely to Succeed in Distance Learning. I'd be wrong. Even resident flight schools use it.

So how does this work? Does the student take the on-line ground school at the same time as flight training or do you do it in advance?

[hierophant]

This seems really strange to me...next to dentistry, I'd have thought pilot training would be a finalist for Least Likely to Succeed in Distance Learning. I'd be wrong. Even resident flight schools use it.

So how does this work? Does the student take the on-line ground school at the same time as flight training or do you do it in advance?

I looked at it several years ago. As I understand it, there's a written component and a hand's on component to getting a pilot's license. The DL classes prepare people for the written component. Student pilots still need to get x number of hours of hand's-on flying instruction in a flight school. Online simulators won't do.

So pilot training can't be entirely by distance learning. It can be hybrid though, and we are seeing hybrid course design more and more, not just in pilot training but in many subjects that one wouldn't normally associate with DL.