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Flight School: Training Take Off

While driving does not present all that significant a challenge for most players in the GTA games, flying does -- and to address that in GTA V they have introduced a formal (if very basic) flight training program that in addition to teaching you the basics of flight will also improve the Flying Skill Stat for your characters almost to 100 by simply doing the training. That is win-win.

Note that to obtain the gold medal you have to complete this lesson in under 32 seconds; to get silver in under 50 seconds; to get bronze in under 1 minute.

The first lesson is in how to take off -- which while it may seem obvious, you get in a plane, hit the throttle, go fast then go up! Yes, true, but in this instance you are looking to also collect the gold medal for this and that means doing it in a manner that is consistent with how the GAME wants you to do it, which is not always the same thing as how you want to do it... Just saying.

In this case though, once you take your character to the flight school marker at the airport and enter it, you start with the Take Off training (everything else is locked).

Take Off Training

To complete this in the way that the game wants you to, it will help a lot to listen to the CS and Jackson (the instructor) and then follow his instructions during your actual learning flight.

To get gold on this you need to complete the entire process from take off and passing through the pair of target markers in under 32 seconds. You do this by simply doing the following:

(1) When you get control of the plane push the Right Trigger (throttle) down and hold it the entire time you are doing this mission.

(2) Let the plane accelerate down the runway until just before the double white lines on either side are about to end - you are now going fast enough to do the primary rotation into the air. So ease back on the Left Joystick and the plane will gently go into the air, at which point when you are twenty of so feet up, you should push down on the Left Joystick to raise the landing gear.

(3) Point the nose of the plane at the first yellow marker ahead at about 100 feet and remember to keep the Right Trigger pushed or you will not do this inside the required time.

(4) After you pass through the first marker, point the nose at the second marker and keep the Right Trigger pulled - you should easily be able to hit that marker with a second or more to spare on the timer!

When you hit the second marker that ends the mission -- and you get your score. You should easily be able to get a gold on this the first time if you follow the directions above.