What is Accelerated Instruction?
Over the past seven months, I’ve earned my instrument (10 days), commercial (4 days), multi-engine (3 days), and CFI ratings (4 days) using an approach called “accelerated instruction”. This has been one of the hardest things I’ve done as an adult but the approach was absolutely worth it.
Accelerated flight instruction was a game-changer for me. I spent close to two months flying once or twice a week moving at a snail’s pace towards instrument. It was incredibly frustrating trying to schedule my instructor, schedule the airplane and balance my own family obligations while trying to be ready for every lesson. Accelerated training is simply the best approach to achieving your aviation goals if you have a life outside of flying.
Dead engine training in a Cessna 310 during an intensive 4 day multi-engine course.
What is accelerated instruction?
Accelerated flight instruction is a focused and intensive approach to learning to fly (and other ratings), aimed at helping you achieve your certification efficiently while maximizing the quality of your training. In most cases an instructor will come to you, though there are several schools you can attend. You’ll spend upwards of 10 hours a day flying and talking about flying. It’s not about rushing—it’s about dedicating a concentrated block of time to immerse yourself in flying, away from the usual distractions of life. For me, what worked best was starting around 7 am with a lesson, a flight in the morning, a lesson over lunch, a flight in the afternoon and another lesson after, breaking around dinner time. Sometimes we would do another flight in the afternoon.
How long does it take?
It depends completely on you. What makes accelerated instruction so attractive to me is that I can go as fast as I can. I'm seldom the fastest person in any classroom, but I'm never the slowest. So I find virtually all classrooms to be BORING. Having a dedicated instruction instructor meant I could move at my own pace. Which ended up being pretty fast. My instrument reading took 10 days, commercial took four days, multi took three days and CFI took four days. That does not count considerable preparation before.
What do you have to do to prepare for accelerated instruction?
The two absolute requirements are that you 1) pass the written exam for the rating before you start (and get higher than a 90%). The 90% is arbitrary, but it's a signal that you understand most of the material and 2) Be familiar with the ACS requirements for the rating as if you were the instructor.
But the real switch in getting ready for accelerated instruction is more of a mental model: you need to think of yourself as the instructor responsible for getting you ready for the tests. That means you have to understand the requirements in detail, help to create the path to those requirements and constantly evaluate where you are relative to them. In essence, you are hiring a guide to help you get ready for the test. You're not hiring an instructor to spoon-feed you.
Accelerated flight instruction isn’t just a way to check boxes—it’s a way to immerse yourself in aviation, achieve your goals efficiently, and minimize the disruptions to the rest of your life. For people like me, with a family, a job, and limited time, it’s the ideal path.
