Hi from San Jose, California

[Jack Tyler]

Krish, back to your Q:

"What else one I can do?" (referring to a bunch of web collecting of info on IP's)

No doubt, it IS hard to select the best (for you) IP. This is not like shopping for a motel room or getting the best airline fare. First, you need to be clear on what is important for you from an instructor and the instruction program being offered. (That's one area where the AOPA info can be helpful). E.g. do you want a young person, who's also likely building time by instructing? If you're young, that might feel like a 'fit'. OTOH if you are hoping your IP will calibrate his/her instruction to suit what works for you, how do you find that except from an experienced (and therefore not so young) instructor? Do you want to fly with more than one instructor? (This is atypical...but there are a mix of benefits from being instructed by different pilots who see the world thru slightly different lenses). Do you want a syllabus that's concrete, sequential and specific? That makes flight prep (by you) more feasible...but might make others feel too constrained...and often the actual instruction from one lesson to the next might be less 'planned' than that. Thinking about what is important to you, when learning something, will help guide you in your shopping.

The goal here is to define a set of 'your' requirements as a student. And once those are clear and you then interview the IP's, you do NOT pose leading Y/N Q's (like: "Do you offer a structured syllabus?" or "Do you conduct a debrief after each flight?") [Great advice to any parent who wants to know what their kid thinks: Never ask a Q that can be answered with a 'Yes' or 'No'.] Instead, you accept the fact that what you are trying to learn is not going to be immediately accessible to you. You will have to use good listening skills and infer from the A's you get to the (better) Q's you pose. E.g. "Show me your syllabus and talk me through it, please." "Describe what your typical debrief includes, please." "Please help me understand the different learning styles you have seen as an instructor."

As instructors work their way thru these kinds of Q's, two things are likely to happen: The A's themselves will help you determine if there's a 'fit', and how they deal with the Q's will tell you the same thing.

[krish]

drseti,

That's a lot of info I was not aware of previously. I will keep that in mind when selecting the LSA and I also hope whoever IP I choose will be smart enought to tell me whether that LSA can be used for PPL or not.

Jack,

You have summarized pretty much what I had in mind about how to choose an IP.

I'm in my thirties and very flexible, quick learner and I can adjust with any instructor quickly and have no preference on the age/gender of the instructor. Someone who knows what to teach and willing to teach me everything without omitting things here and there would be an ideal fit for me.

So as for as syllabus, I would prefer (not mandatory) sporty's curriculum. I bought their flight training videos package recently and I like whatever I have seen so far and prefer to follow it wherever possible.

I guess I pretty much narrowed my search to two FBOs. Next step is to talk to few instructors, check their rates and pick one and call it Roger !!