Training Challenges

Boat School

Boat School is the easiest of all the schools to complete, since it possesses only five tests, none of which are very difficult. Note that damaging your boat or hovercraft or hitting a bouy will deduct points from your final totals for each test, though.

Driving School (San Fierro)

You'll have to complete all of the driving school missions in order to access the Race Tournaments around Los Santos. Most of the challenges here are fairly simple, and so long as you avoid the cones, you shouldn't have a problem completing them, or at least getting bronze medals. The toughest one is the final challenge, where you have to race across the city and back without taking too much damage. See our tips for the “Back To School” mission in the main walkthrough for details.

Motorcycle School (Las Venturas)

Again, not too difficult, for the most part. The exception, though, is again the last mission, which will require a buttload of repeat attempts before you get it right. Said mission requires you to hit a jump, land in a stoppie, then keep the stoppie going until you reach the target zone. The two difficulties here include actually landing in a stoppie (if your rear wheel touches down, you lose) and getting into the end zone without spinning the bike around (because if you're off-axis, you lose a massive amount of points).

Landing in a stoppie is the easier of the two; just make sure you land with your front wheel forward and the brake depressed. After you land, though, you'll probably want to tap the gas a bit to get yourself into the end zone. The trouble here is that your bike will almost always spin around on the front tire, draining almost all of your points towards a medal. There's no easy answer to this; you might want to experiment with different weight-shifts as you land, or try lowering the stoppie before you hit the finish zone, and hope you don't get disqualified. In its favor, the test is only eight seconds long, and you can try it as long as you like. We had to try it probably a hundred times or more to even bronze this one, so don't get discouraged; you'll hit it eventually.

Flying School

You'll have to complete flying school as part of the core missions of the game, so hopefully you're good at flying! Unlike the other schools, this one actually consists of lessons revolving around two different vehicles: airplanes and helicopters. Since your flight school training will likely be the first time you encounter real flight mechanics in San Andreas, you can be pardoned for crashing a few times, or feeling immensely frustrated with the tests laid out before you, but you should find that failed missions get a little bit easier each time you re-try them, as you get more used to the flight mechanics.

If you're ever prompted to land anywhere on the runway, but are given a target location, try to hit the target location for extra points.

For the airplane missions, you have to adjust to the light touch that planes require. The controls are very sensitive, and it's easy to oversteer and go out of control, or lose just enough control to miss a corona. Luckily, most of the planes in these tests have some amount of auto-levelling which you can use to get yourself back on track after you turn; if you get used to making small turns after coming out of coronas, you should level off automatically. This will let you coast along to the next corona, where you can repeat the process until you reach the end of the course. Also try to utilize your square and X buttons to full effect; you can slam on the X button to get to the next corona quickly, then use the square button to slow down, allowing you to more easily make a turn through a corona.

Arguably the most difficult mission here is the Destroy Targets mission with the Hunter. If you used the Hunter a lot in Vice City, then hopefully you've retained some of those skills for this challenge, as it can be difficult for the unitiated. Even destroying the stationary targets on the runway can be difficult, since they can each take a couple of rocket blasts before they're destroyed. Try to stay a hundred feet or so off the ground and fire both your guns and rockets, floating slowly over them to increase your chances of landing missiles. It's important not to veer off to the left or right after take-off; just press the analog stick forward, since you're already perfectly aligned with the trucks themselves. Unfortunately, the trucks will usually get blown into the air when they're destroyed, which can lead to some extremely frustrating early ends to your challenge if the debris hits you. Hence the need to stay a hundred feet or so off the ground....

After the semis are destroyed, though, you'll have to veer around and take out two moving targets on the highway. These guys don't move too quickly, though, so if you can get behind them and line up rockets and guns, you should be able to take them down without too much of a hassle, and after that, all that's required is a nice landing. If you want a gold medal, though, you'll need to have both a low overall time for the challenge and a perfect landing inside the target area.

After the Destroy Targets mission, though, the remaining challenges are a walk in the park.

Ammu-Nation

You have to complete three rounds of target practice with four different weapons in the Ammu-Nation challenge in order to win. If you are already a pro with the weapons (which consist of 9mm Pistol, MicroSMG, Shotgun, and an AK-47), then you shouldn't have any trouble with the challenges, but they're perfectly doable even if you haven't maxed your weapon stats.

In rounds one and two, you have to completely destroy three target boards before your opponents manage to destroy their own targets. You have a bit of an advantage in accuracy, assuming you've gotten good with the manual-aiming controls, so take advantage of that fact and spray bullets as quickly as possible towards the seven red circles on the target. The third trial involves shooting the same target that the other two contestants are hitting; the first person to hit 20 segments wins the challenge.

You can try this challenge fairly early in the game, but, as mentioned, it'll be a little easier when you've increased your weapon skill with the chosen weapons. The toughest of these challenges is actually the shotgun, since your rate of fire will be reduced significantly when compared to the other weapons; you'll need to aim carefully if you want to come out the victor there, especially on the third segment. The Pistol and Uzi segments are obviously easier if you've become capable of dual-wielding those weapons, but it isn't necessary to win.