So you decided to take flying lessons ? That’s great, congrats ! The next question is where do to that. There are two ways: find a local school and train where you live, or fly to one of the pilot’s paradise. The typical destinations are Florida, Arizon, or Spain, which all offer a spectacular number of flying-compatible days per year.

The big advantage of training in a pilot’s friendly weather is that it saves time. This is nearly always possible to make sure that your training will fit in a rather short time slot. If you’ve a busy agenda, this can be a decisive point.

I personally see two drawbacks in that approach: cost, and easiness. Cost is clear: you’ll have to pay for travel and local accommodation. Depending where you come from, the extra costs can be partially compensated by lower flying cost.

Why is easiness a negative thing ? I know I always say the same things, but a large part of being a pilot is about decision making. If you’re never faced-up with complex weather situation where you learn, and then go back home with your brand new license, you could get some bad surprises.

The same applies to getting an instument rating. Flying under a hood is something, but flying in clouds is very different. As we don’t control weather yet, the training requirements do not include any in-clouds flying time. I was lucky enough to train at a place where cloud flying could not be avoided, even if it lead to many cancellations because of icing.

When getting an instrument rating, the question of the simulator time follows the same concept. It’s possible to make up to 40 of the 50 hours on an FNPT-II. However, would you really fly IFR alone after only 10 hours of actual aircraft experience ?

If you train towards an airline or jet career, you’ll build experience as co-pilot, under supervision of a training captain, and later together with “normal” captains. In this perspective, flying in a pilot’s paradise, and flying as much simulator as possible is not a problem.

But if you simply want to flight light aircraft, possibly IFR, you should consider training in the environment in which you’ll fly later. A mixture of both modes is also possible: get your rating in an easy place, and then fly in your place with an instructor, until you feel comfortable with your specific environment.

If you have interesting training experiences you want to share, feel free to send a comment, they’re always welcome.