Years ago (1990’s through 2010 ish) the flying magazines were full of options for people to go and do 21 day residential PPL courses in USA/France etc. You could easily say there is a large segment who would rather this route wasn’t available, but it was a great option for people starting out. In 2003 I went and finished up my PPL with Ormond Beach Aviation and got my JAR PPL as it was at the time. It was brilliant fun, cheap, no BS and I made great friends over there. It was the complete opposite of the tosh I had to put up with at home learning to fly.
I often wonder why these courses haven’t become more common, and the norm for PPL training. Instead, they seem to have died off. I don’t think they produced pilots that were any less safe and competent. When I see student pilots landing locally landing a 172 at the approach speed of Beech Baron, there doesn’t seem to be any justification in the locally trained is better argument. The folks who were training with me were out doing night cross country flights with just a map and a VOR over the swamplands of Florida with 30hrs to their name. There are plenty of PPLs I know who would struggle with this today. I only view the PPL as a waypoint on the way to learning to fly properly. I know plenty of guys who went through Ormond Beach and similar, they all turned out fine safe pilots.
Seems a shame the options to trash out the PPL in 3 weeks are a lot more limited 20 years later.
More years ago I spent £135, and resented paying an additional £2.50) for a 30 hour UK PPL, including accommodation, at Thruxton, Hampshire.
I chose this route in 2012/2013 and thought it was then still pretty popular. AFAIK, this was always based on a UK PPL, which until Brexit was an EASA PPL, i.e. catering to students from all over Europe. This is obviously not possible anymore. There were options in Florida, California (which I did, at Gillespie), and Spain (Jerez). The school I did this with doesn’t market this on their website anymore (in fact, I think it has changed ownership and their fleet twice in the meantime or so).
I think these arrangements have always made sense in areas with predictable weather. Not sure there would be an appetite for such 3 week intensive courses in Northern Europe, where you could expect a significant percentage of these days to be unflyable for training. And with 3, even 4 weeks, you will want to fly every possible day.
Anybody with talent can do a 45hr PPL in 21 flying days. Any school will happily take your money at that rate. I think my son did that, more or less (largely in my TB20), but he’s a very good pilot, had a huge number of hours (100+, around Europe) as a passenger (this is an unspoken factor in nearly all cases of a PPL actually done in 45hrs) and had a very good instructor who enjoyed putting in the time.
Whether you can do it in 21 contiguous days needs very good wx. But it is much easier than doing it over 1-2 years because you build up currency and keep it. A good pilot could probably learn to fly an F16 at a basic level, in a short time, with intensive training 
In reality almost nobody does a PPL in 45hrs – because they fit it around their life.
This is obviously not possible anymore.
It may be in the US. For all classes of US certificates, training outside the US, with any authorised FI, is accepted. What I don’t know if whether a US school will generate an EASA license (you can’t do the IR outside Europe anyway) accepting training outside the EU; I would check that if it is applicable. They may not advertise it openly…
There were options in Florida, California (which I did, at Gillespie)
For many years there were ~6 in Florida and 1 in S California.
Spanish ops tended to be disorganised. I looked at these for the IR. Same in Greece.
Practically speaking, however, 45hrs in 21 flying days requires one to be young I did my FAA IR at that rate and had to sleep at lunchtime (aged 49)
I finished my ppl with a week at La Rochelle at a British flying school run by an ex naval officer. Great fun.
Peter wrote:
(this is an unspoken factor in nearly all cases of a PPL actually done in 45hrs)
Certainly was with mine. Well, not actually time as a passenger (I had never been in a light aircraft before) but I had played with MS Flight Sim on and off through my teenage years, had an interest in aviation and knew what everything on the panel was. This made a big difference in that not much needed explaining from first principles – we just got on with it.
45 hours over 147 days, April to August in the UK and I don’t recall losing a single lesson to the weather. I often flew the 6pm slot, and evenings tend to have reliable weather in the British summer – certainly fog is virtually eliminated as a risk.
I often see these ads: Instrument Rating in 10 days
https://www.venturenorthaviation.com/index-1.html
A PPL in 21 flying days is possible, because if you assume prior experience (basically a requirement) you just need to ask whether it is physically possible to log the 40/45hrs: 2hrs/day. However an IR in 10 flying days is harder: 4hrs/day. I think you would definitely need prior experience and prior logged hours (e.g. the UK IMCR training).
„prior experience (basically a requirement)“: I beg to differ.
In 1990 at age 31 I earned my US-PPL during a 4 week stay at flight school in North Carolina, equalling more or less to 21 flying days. I didn‘t have any flight experience whatsoever, but was committed to the goal. It helped immensly that I was there alone without any distraction from family or job.
Is it feasable: yes. Is it for everyone: no.
It’s all about age. At 20 you need 20 hours. At 50 you need 50 hours.
