Not a recommendation (shock horror) but I would assume there would be flight schools at Biggin Hill, Redhill and Headcorn (in fact I know someone learning at Headcorn so there must be one there). All not too far from London.

I don't think Google do flying lessons any more, do they? .

 

True but totally meaningless - Google don't airline flights either but we use it to check on airlines.  Had you not realised is that Google is a search engine?

 

 

Had you not realised is that Google is a search engine?

 

No s**t?

It's difficult to recommend an airfield if one has not tried many others. I had three different instructors at White Waltham who were all very different. The best instructor left half way through my training to fly for Cathay Pacific, the next guy was a Frenchman and nowhere in the same league (nothing to do with the fact he was French) and the last was a young lady....who was ok. edit* (I had a lady instructor on a Tiger Moth at Duxford ...she was really something!)

 

White Waltham is a very special field ....the clubhouse has been in a few movies . It has a Russian engineering section. I chose it because I prefer low wing to high wing (Piper PA-28's to Cessna 152/172's)....and it has three runways.

 

http://www.wlac.co.uk/wlac/

 

I have put my PPL on hold since my first solo to Kemble from White Waltham (where my beloved MK 742's are stored) ....what an experience to leave a grass field and land on a tarmac runway that could handle a 747!

 

The main aim and I certainly learnt the difference between real flying and the sim.....you don't wanna see bad weather flying for real!....in the sim I'm looking for it!

 

 

I had three different instructors at White Waltham who were all very different.

 

I know of one student pilot had to change flying school because of the the attitude of the flying instructor - not of the school.

I know of one student pilot had to change flying school because of the the attitude of the flying instructor - not of the school.

 

I can understand that. I would say the instructor is the most important part. A friend of mine training at Biggin Hill was flying for hours before learning emergency landings etc..It was the the first thing I learnt with my Cathay Instructor.

 

Mind you like instructors there are the students ...there are all types....my mate at Biggin Hill. I'd tell him to try yacht master ocean. 

 

Actually I could tell you all a little story (I've had a few glasses of vino collapso :blink: )

 

On my very first lesson the conditions were awful (Britain) so my instructor took me above the clouds and just gave me an exciting ride through the troughs in the clouds. On our way back down through the clouds he told me to hold a decent rate and heading while he contacted ATC ...expecting me to lose my spacial awareness through the clouds. Thanks to my FS IFR training I was faultless ....in fact my problem was always VFR flight.

 

I'm still in contact with the club and if I was a millionaire I would so be in the Friday afternoon or Saturday set ......who just pop over to France for lunch! lucky B's! :wub:

Many thanks for all the comments and suggestions guys.

 

Yes, I of course used Google to get an idea of what flight schools were in the area. But as several posters noted, I wasn't asking for the location of possible flight schools, I was asking for *recommendations* - I've found word-of-mouth by reasonably like-minded individuals to be the quickest and most accurate way to understand the good and bad points about just about any object or service I'm looking to purchase. I don't base every single hotel decision on TripAdvisor - ultimately I make my own decision - but it's a good starting point. 

 

While I think the personality of the flight instructor and how well we mesh is by far the most important factor, I am also going on the (perhaps naive) assumption that good schools will get and keep good instructors, for the most part. 

 

I'm in north London, so the Stapleford Airport was the initial obvious choice, but I don't mind moving a bit farther afield for the right school.

 

 

I'm in north London, so the Stapleford Airport was the initial obvious choice

 

I've had a couple of lessons at Stapleford and while their aircraft, at least the ones I went in, were a bit...tatty the staff are very good. I just wish I could afford to go more often.