Ground school for getting started

Can anyone recommend a free or cheap ground school course to get started with aviation? I want to learn the right way from the ground up before playing the sim. I want to learn things like the physics involved, making flight plans, VFR and IMC, and ATC communication. Thanks in advance!

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Apart from buying some pilot training books like I did, youtube is your friend, there are many good videos on there. Pick a plane for training - the Cessna 152 or 172 is the most popular, do a YT search for “Cessna 152 beginners” etc and you will find them.

Simhangar, KipOnTheGround, FlightInsight and many others are all good. Once you see a few you will notice they all preach from the same book so all good to go. Then you can move on to specific topics like “G1000…” and so on.

Its great fun :wink:

As an example only, online ground school here (Pilot Institute) is quoted currently at $249 US. I have no relationship with this organization so it’s just a random example. Another random example is “King School” here quoting $279. I have no idea if these courses are any good.

Good luck.
Thanks. --Redeye

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Here is a playlist for my Learn To Fly Here series. There are only 13 videos, but it’s a work in progress. Straight and Level | Climbs | Turns | Descent | Standard Rate Turns - YouTube

There are also videos on my channel dealing with ATC communications, but they are mostly for IFR.

You can also get several free publications with basics from the FAA website here - https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation
The Airplane Flying Handbook and The Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge are the ones to start out with.

Thanks for the suggestions! Very excited to start learning.

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Shoot my flight school uses the Jeppessen Ground school. I can’t remember the price of it. I think I paid 600 ish but that included everything i needed for flight school.

King Schools is popular and recommended. Fun, old-school pilots with a safety frame of mine. I’m finishing with my ground school for private pilot training, and I only have 1 hour of actual flight time. I fly in the simulator mostly. Pro Tip: Check out the courses you want and wait for a sale. They recently had a sale in April and discounted courses by like 23%. There are free courses available as well, though they are limited.

Gleim Aviation also has some free courses too.

I do Sporty’s. I think you can try some of the videos for free before buying:
https://courses.sportys.com/training/portal/course/PRIVATE/welcome