"Anthony L" wrote in message
news:0dyic.14841$YP5.1090710@attbi_s02...
Hello everyone...pretty simple question. I am interested in doing
self-study for my ground school. I feel like I would do better at my own
pace, and I have a lot of experience working with industry certifications
at
home, so I don't think I will lose any quality training.

I have read about many different companies that sell self-study packages.
I
have received paperwork from Sporty, King, and some other one's via email.
Does anyone have any comments on the different packages? Anyone want to
recommend one over the other, or are they all just about the same? Any
specific packages you would suggest, maybe comeplete with practice tests
and
such?


I did my training about 2 years ago, and about 95% of my ground school was
self-taught.

My school gave me the Cessna multimedia ground school (essentially the same
package as the King course), and I thought it was great, overall. The
package includes CD-ROMs for interactive video training, as well as a highly
useful textbook, and a few other tools. The CDs have informative and easy to
swallow video lessons and practice quizzes. My one criticism would be that
it does not cover weather theory in enough detail; but nothing that can't be
filled in by your instructor and other sources.

In addition to this package, I made it a point to read as much as I possibly
could about aviation in general. This newsgroup is a really valuable
resource, and there are some great websites out there as well
(www.ipilot.com is one that I recommend). Get a couple of magazine
subscriptions (you should get AOPA Flight Training for sure), and buy a
couple of other textbooks, especially pretaining to weather, just to round
yourself out and compare notes between the different sources. You'll find
that hearing the same thing from several different places will not only
reinforce the information, but will often provide different ways of
presenting the same issue, giving you valuable insight into not only the
black-and-white of the facts, but also the how and why these determinations
were made.

Overall, my training took just under a year, and I got a 98% on the written.

Good luck!