King Schools has added a new course–Part 135 initial and recurrent training–to its series of professional online courses. The course is designed for Part 135 operators that don’t have a training officer to create course content or that need a comprehensive course that covers all the general knowledge topics required in 14CFR Part 135.345.

The Part 135 initial/recurrent course costs $279 and includes downloadable cockpit reference cards covering flight- and duty-time limitations, takeoff and landing requirements and IFR lost-comm procedures.

The course consists of 15 labs, each of which covers pertinent subjects such as regulations, operational control, rest and duty periods, weight-and-balance, general operating procedures, severe weather operations and avoidance, ramp checks, the nuances of on-demand versus commuter operations, the meaning of eligible on-demand operations and much more.

Each lab is divided into multiple lessons focusing on a single subject area. The student reads the lesson and then moves on to the multiple-choice quizzes. The student must answer all of the questions correctly before moving on to the next lesson. The student can choose to study any lab in any sequence, which is helpful if he wishes to focus on a particular area of knowledge.

Where appropriate, the King course includes links to external information, such as FAA advisory circulars or NBAA’s Part 135 checklist for eligible on-demand operations.
King Schools offers a course completion status report for companies to keep track of their employees’ progress. King will also provide a syllabus and course key to an operator’s FAA principal operations inspector to review the program.

While some might think that $279 is a high price to pay for what seems like a simple text-based training course, the content is comprehensive and carefully developed. King Schools estimates that the 15 labs should take about 30 hours to complete, and I can vouch for that.

The Part 135 initial/recurrent course does have one drawback. The longer the lesson, the more questions in the quiz and the more complex the navigation. When I answered a question incorrectly, the system showed me where I went wrong, and I read the brief description at the bottom of the question that explained the answer. If I wanted to review the lesson information, however, I clicked on a “review” button. This took me back to the beginning of the lesson, unfortunately, and then I had to click through each page of material not only to find the background information for the quiz question but also to return to where I left the quiz. After clicking through each lesson page again, I also had to click through all the questions that I had already answered. What’s missing is a “return to last question” button.

Students can stop the lessons at any time and return and finish uncompleted lessons later. Once all the lessons are complete, the student can print a course completion certificate and logbook endorsement. There is no final exam.