Best of luck, Ankel! I’m currently studying for my PAR, and I start June 17th. Super excited and looking forward to the future!
Nice Michael Thank you very much! what location you starting in?
I am currently studying for my PAR with the kings videos. What did you find most dry or hard to grasp? How long did you study it for? Personally, I am down to just practicing questions, but it sure is A LOT of material.
1 Like
Denver, CO! I think it’s a prime location to learn flight because of our extreme weather conditions, it’ll definitely make me a stronger pilot.
Awesome Timothy, it was dry and to be honest i can’t exactly tell you what because the knowledge is literally like you said A LOT so i can’t really recite what i learned unless i’m asked specifically so it triggers the files in my brain containing that answer if you will. There were 2 questions i did not confidently know the answer to ( one was something like what is the definition of load factor and all 3 answers seemed a bit similar which made it difficult, not only that, it was a different question than the ones on the practice Kings Test( reason for critical thinking), also load factor was literally like one of the first things in the course and well as you go through new material, some tiny old material escapes away even when you review.) Funny thing is i actually picked the correct answers but also marked them to come back to them later. After a solid 5 minutes pondering each of the 2 questions and analyzing the answers and nearly changing them i thought ( i felt most comfortable with the answer i had chosen and in addition everyone, literally everyone on this forum says dont change your answer so i followed that and welp got a 100%. As for studying id say it was about 2-5 hours a day depending on how much material was on the " Labs" some days didn’t study at all honestly. I also took notes to help with retention(audio in the videos, visual on my notebook, as well as mentally cause i would repeat as i write, what i’m writing) yes literally pausing and going every 10 seconds for small details i knew i would not remember. Towards the end before the actual test i reviewed areas i felt i had weak as i went through the whole question bank. Feel free to ask me anything
Yea i agree i’ve thought about it that way too being that some say the North East coast has rough weather days. I’m starting at MMU New Jersey. Feel free to ask me anything as ill be updating this thread consistently with the sole focus on documenting my journey and well helping others who are in my seat if not one step behind me.
1 Like
Good too see your initiative and dedication early on, Ankel! Just think about it, if you stay dedicated and on top of it, you will be a CFI/CFII/MEI before I even interview for the airlines. 
1 Like
Thanks Sergy that sounds really motivating!
Hello everyone, just updating my post for those interested in the experience. I too like @Tolento47 have completed my first week at ATP except I’m starting from Zero Time. Day one is scanning your documents and verifying you have the things you need and I was excited at the fact that we flew day 1. I spoke with my instructor about flexibility and told him I’m willing to fly literally any day and hour of the week as I want to progress as much as I can and as I’m currently ahead of schedule, hopefully weather allows it to remain that way. After day 2 we jump straight into maneuvers and so on so right off the bat your accelerated training begins. Our location only has Archers with G500s, I saw 1 Seminole a couple times. Everything is layed out for you, the schedule is simple and easy to read, it tells you exactly what you will be doing on this and that day so you know what to read up on and what to study. The instructors are just there to teach you how to fly and make a pilot out you, studywise it’s all you. A couple times a week we have a classroom ground session if you are there to participate but if not you miss out. Everyone is super cool and so far I’m having a great experience. Started talking to ground and tower for the very first time on Thursday which was intimidating as it’s like the anxiety of going up in high school to present your presentation in the front of the class haha. Luckily I did well as I practiced before hand but always room for improvement. It’s all overwhelming at the moment as this is a whole new machine and field of play, I’m just aching for everything to become second nature already because there is a TON of multitasking. It’s like a 16 year old getting thrown in a car for the very first time in prime time traffic in the streets of Manhattan, NY(Lived there for a little bit).
4 Likes
Awesome! I couldn’t imagine doing this from Day 1! Keep at it and keep your eye on each small win!
1 Like
Ankle,
I like the analogy. Thank you for the update.
Chris
1 Like
Thanks Chris, and I know that’s how it seems to be pronounced but it’s not pronounced ankle nor spelled that way it’s Ankel 
just auto correct I’m guessing
Yep, autocorrect.
Hello everyone, just giving a quick update of the journey so far. Recently passed my Takeoff and Landing Evaluation 18 days into the program within the first few minutes of the allotted 2 hour flight block. We are supposed to finish the entire block of time so soon after that we had a little fun; landed at another nearby airport for the first time and afterwards we went to fly over my house which was super exciting and cool. So far i’m enjoying the program, i’m enjoying my instructors they truly are great people and if you perform you get a lot of flexibility and fun. Just because its accelerated doesn’t mean you can’t have fun which i hear is something people forget to do. On to my next phase of Solo Prep 
4 Likes
Ankel,
Congrats on passing the evaluation! Also, thank you for keeping us up to date.
Chris
2 Likes
I start ATP, credit for private on Monday at KCRQ in San Diego. I met my commitment to myself and completed all 5 writtens with scores 92-98%. I’ve reviewed all “Instrument Basics” topics that is the subject of next week’s ground sessions using the King online training and met my instructor. I’ve flown twice this week and going up again today and tomorrow. I’m confident I’m fully prepared to start and am looking forward to it.
1 Like
Andy, great job on the writtens. Hope you enjoy your experience in the program I’m sure you are excited to begin. Feel free to come in and tell us about your experiences and thoughts. I love to hear from everyone’s experiences. After all, it is the best teacher.
Andy,
How long did you spend on average studying for each of the exams? Particularly the Instrument?
I am most likely pulling the trigger on Monday after my medical exam and registering for an August start date in Tampa!
That would leave me just over 1.5 months to bang out as many as I can, I was going to try and do all of them, but at the very least would get Instrument, Instrument Instructor, and Commercial out of the way.
Thanks!
Thanks I will!
1 Like
Hi Michael,
Instrument and commercial are the toughest and Flight Instructor Airplane has the largest question database. Here’s how long it took me, bear in mind my last day at work was May 22 so I was able to focus full time (other than parenting duties of my 8 year old).
May 22 started studying for IRA using Sheppard Air
May 30 took and passed IRA (93%) and FII (98%).
June 4 took and passed CAX (93%)
June 11 took and passed FIA (92%) and FOI (92%)
Use Sheppard not Kings - Sheppard test prep is free to ATP students and WAY faster. Take the FII 5 minutes after finishing IRA (as Adam said the question database is almost entirely identical). On June 11 I did FIA at 8am after a week of studying, finished at 10am, studied FOI for 4 hours at the airport restaurant over coffee/lunch and then took that test at 3pm while my daughter watched a cartoon on my ipad. I finished the FOI test in 15 minutes - she never made it to the end of the cartoon!
So 3 weeks for all 5 and while I worked fairly hard, I took some days off and worked some half days.
Also you need to borrow or buy an electronic flight computer for a couple of the tests (unless you want to use a cardboard E6B). They cost about $100 and I get the impression I’ll never use one again after passing the writtens so I borrowed one.
Good luck to you!
Andy