Starting on the path to a PPL

[LimaDelta]

tr7v8 said:

LimaDelta said:

I just extended my SEP another 24 months last week.

Keep at it, it can be a challenge, especially with UK weather and the now added complications of Covid, but it is worth it in the end.

Oh, and the Air Law exam is a real test of commitment. The others are somewhat more interesting and less dry.

I will 4th Lesson Saturday so still trying.
Interesting the comment about Air Law. Everyone said it was their hardest but I've been bashing the books as I was told & PPLTutor on the phone & not found it too bad. Classes of airspace still does my head in but generally getting passes on most trial exams.
Once I settle in a bit more I'll ask the process at my school for exams & start on them.

It's no harder than the others, but they cover real-world practical aspects such as navigation, weather, etc, which most people find more interesting and therefore easier to absorb.

The exam question bank apps are great for passing the exams, but less good at teaching you the subjects. It can lead to people just memorising the correct multiple choice answer to each question, rather than building an understanding of the topics at hand, which is something to be wary of. They are a good aid to revision but don't rely on them for all of your ground school.

Are you using the Trevor Thom/Pooleys books?

[tr7v8]

LimaDelta said:

tr7v8 said:

LimaDelta said:

I just extended my SEP another 24 months last week.

Keep at it, it can be a challenge, especially with UK weather and the now added complications of Covid, but it is worth it in the end.

Oh, and the Air Law exam is a real test of commitment. The others are somewhat more interesting and less dry.

I will 4th Lesson Saturday so still trying.
Interesting the comment about Air Law. Everyone said it was their hardest but I've been bashing the books as I was told & PPLTutor on the phone & not found it too bad. Classes of airspace still does my head in but generally getting passes on most trial exams.
Once I settle in a bit more I'll ask the process at my school for exams & start on them.

It's no harder than the others, but they cover real-world practical aspects such as navigation, weather, etc, which most people find more interesting and therefore easier to absorb.

The exam question bank apps are great for passing the exams, but less good at teaching you the subjects. It can lead to people just memorising the correct multiple choice answer to each question, rather than building an understanding of the topics at hand, which is something to be wary of. They are a good aid to revision but don't rely on them for all of your ground school.

Are you using the Trevor Thom/Pooleys books?

Yup bought a full set of the Pooley books on Ebay all brand new for £100! I agree with the exam bank comment as well, there were a few holes in my knowledge which starting on reading the books has filled.
Last exam I did was ITIL for work a few years ago & that I found hard.
I think Met is going to be a challenge from a quick read through. Will need some more intensive study & thought.

[IforB]

tr7v8 said:

Well the lesson on the 1st was good apart from an 08:00 start! Compared with the previous lesson weather couldn't have been better, bright sunny with virtually no wind. 1 Hour flying learning what flaps do & power variations change the handling. This was on a different slightly older C172 which threw me a bit as some of the minor controls & switches were slightly different. Also cockpit is some what tighter, especially getting in & out. The CFI got me to do the pre-flight check list so yet another bit ticked off. Also learnt FREDA which is check Fuel, Radio, Engine, Direction, Altitude.
The lesson last Thursday was cancelled which was no surprise, gusty (38kts +!) and low cloud base. Yesterdays was cancelled as well due to low cloudbase. Oh the joys of training in the UK.
Todays went ahead, still 10-15kts so a little bumpy. This is a two part lesson, this was the first part covering climbing & descending both power on & off. Started to come together a bit, also helped that I was back in the C172 I started with so slightly more familiar. I was astonished on how much muscle the controls need at times.
Someone told me about a brilliant app for the phone, PPLTutor. Which covers the 9 exams both revision & dummy Q & A. All for £20. Been bashing away at that & the works in spare time.
Next lesson Saturday which will be a continuation of diving & climbing.

Glad you are having fun. Don't worry about the weather, that is standard stuff and you'll soon learn how to manage gusty and bumpy conditions.

You shouldn't need to muscle the aircraft at all. I suspect that you are very tense on the controls (totally normal) and you may need a bit of trimming practice to take the control loads out. Getting the basics like trimming sorted early on pays huge dividends later. Being able to get the aircraft stable and trimmed out means you aren't having to spend brain power on controlling the thing and that bit of capacity is massively important.

As El Stovey suggests, run drills and procedures outside the aircraft. Everything you do helps you build up the capacity you need. What you need to develop is moving things from your conscious brain, into your unconscious mind. That frees up your conscious brain to deal with the things happening to you. You will learn faster, spend less and enjoy it more.

Silly little exercises like working out timings whilst driving down a motorway. i.e you are doing 70mph down a motorway, it is 10 miles to the next junction, how long will it take?
If you are at 5000ft at 90kts g/s and descend at 500fpm how far will you travel and how long will it take to get to 3000ft? What about 60kts? 120kts? etc.etc.

Exercises like that to help you build up your mental arithmetic skills

I've been an FI for 20 odd years and the one thing I have learned is not to rush the core skills early on in your training. The better you get at just flying the thing before you move to other exercises, the better.

Any questions, just ask here. There are plenty of experienced pilots and instructors on here and all of us will help.

[tr7v8]

Thanks IforB.
Well just done lesson 5 of the package. 3 more booked but that will be pay as you go from now on.
Today was turning, both from S & L and also from climbing or diving. Probably did 70%+ of the flying today.
Trying to get out of: Death grip on the yoke (hard), both hands on the yoke, dragging the yoke down with my left hand when doing something with my right hand, main one which was better today was staring at the instruments rather than looking outside at what was going on.
Felt a lot better today, getting more into a rhythm with it. Will kick off exams maybe next week. They are going online on the 5/10 but until then are paper ones done there.

[anonymous-user]

tr7v8 said:

Thanks IforB.
Well just done lesson 5 of the package. 3 more booked but that will be pay as you go from now on.
Today was turning, both from S & L and also from climbing or diving. Probably did 70%+ of the flying today.
Trying to get out of: Death grip on the yoke (hard), both hands on the yoke, dragging the yoke down with my left hand when doing something with my right hand, main one which was better today was staring at the instruments rather than looking outside at what was going on.
Felt a lot better today, getting more into a rhythm with it. Will kick off exams maybe next week. They are going online on the 5/10 but until then are paper ones done there.

The keeping one hand (holding the controls) still while you do things with the other or look around is just muscle memory and something you can practice at home. Maybe with a full glass that will spill if you move your hand while you do other stuff? You can practice it while driving too, within reason.

Gripping the controls too tight is another common problem. One of my old instructors used to tell me to imagine I had to hold his cock. So you keep hold of it but as light as possible, definitely not gripping it hard. Worked for me anyway.

If you’re tense the whole tension goes up your arm and hand to the controls and makes controlling much less smooth. Much like driving.

[IforB]

El stovey said:

tr7v8 said:

Thanks IforB.
Well just done lesson 5 of the package. 3 more booked but that will be pay as you go from now on.
Today was turning, both from S & L and also from climbing or diving. Probably did 70%+ of the flying today.
Trying to get out of: Death grip on the yoke (hard), both hands on the yoke, dragging the yoke down with my left hand when doing something with my right hand, main one which was better today was staring at the instruments rather than looking outside at what was going on.
Felt a lot better today, getting more into a rhythm with it. Will kick off exams maybe next week. They are going online on the 5/10 but until then are paper ones done there.

The keeping one hand (holding the controls) still while you do things with the other or look around is just muscle memory and something you can practice at home. Maybe with a full glass that will spill if you move your hand while you do other stuff? You can practice it while driving too, within reason.

Gripping the controls too tight is another common problem. One of my old instructors used to tell me to imagine I had to hold his cock. So you keep hold of it but as light as possible, definitely not gripping it hard. Worked for me anyway.

If you’re tense the whole tension goes up your arm and hand to the controls and makes controlling much less smooth. Much like driving.

100% this, though I might use a different analogy for how you hold on to it!

No matter what I fly, be it fixed wing, rotary wing, little bugsmasher or airliner, then I only ever use 2 finger tips and my thumb on the controls, unless it is really rough or I am doing aeros.

If you have that separation and light touch, you immediately reduce the problem of over-controlling and pulling the control column around when you turn your head or do something else, as you have built in a bit of flexibility. I also barce my elbow against the door or something else, as this again reduces the chance of accidentally pulling you arm around.

Getting your head up and looking where you are going will help massively. Being able to judge your attitude is much easier against the real horizon than the artificial one. It's like trying to pick out small changes on a 65" tv or using a screen on your phone to do the same thing. The image in the real world is just much bigger.

As you get used to it all, what you will notice is how you are picking up cues as to what is going on without having to look at the instruments. Sound and feel also play huge roles in keep you spatially aware of what is going on, particularly in an aircraft with a fixed pitch propellor. Slow down (i.e you are going up) then you will hear the revs die. This then tells you that you nose attitude is likely to be too high. The opposite is of course true.

All of these little things will help you work out what is going on and eventually it will just become part of what you do, so don't try to force it, just be aware of it all.

You are at an early stage, but what I like from what you are saying, is that you are aware of what you are doing and thinking about it. You never stop learning in flying, so this will stand you in good stead going forwards. All of us can improve, all the time, you just have to be open to it.

I haven't done much flying since this whole nonsense kicked off an no instructing at all, so I'm quite enjoying this too, so feel free to keep asking questions, as it is making me think about it all and is helping me keep my flying brain active!

[ben_h100]

For me, stopping the ‘death grip’ was a combination of chilling the f out and trimming the aircraft effectively.

Thumb and middle finger on the yoke, then trigger the mic with forefinger works well.

[Flooble]

I was "lucky" in already riding motorbikes when I came to learning to fly. I carried two things over to the flying.

1) When I was trying to master motorbikes, I started off with a white knuckled grip on the handlebars with the results I am sure you can imagine. Someone pointed out to me (and proved it) that the bike will stay upright even if you don't have your hands on the bars (for a while, anyway). After I relaxed the death-grip it became much easier to control the bike as I was only making minor corrections, not oscillating from one extreme to the other.

Same applies to the aircraft. I'm not the most muscular guy but I can't remember flying anything small that needed significant amounts of muscle other than go-around type situations where the aircraft is wildly out of trim. The less force you are applying, the more refined your input can be.

2) When you are learning you can only really do one or two things at a time. On the bike I struggled to do the "riding in a circle" thing. Until I was told "set the throttle and clutch to walking pace then modulate the speed with the rear brake". Prior to that I was adjusting throttle, clutch, brake, steering and getting overloaded. So, same with the aircraft. You can do your APT or PAT, but you don't have to do them at the same time (in fact, that's rather the point of the acronyms!). Experienced pilots might anticipate and so it appears they are doing "A and P" at the same time, and some instructors are quite bad at demonstrating that you can do one thing and then do the next thing. The less controls you are fiddling with at the same time, the more chance you will succeed. Same with the trimmer - set your yoke and then trim it out. Don't "fly on the trimmer".

[Siko]

Good luck with your flying - warning though it can get very expensive very fast

I’ve been a military pilot now commercial rotary offshore, best thing I did during training was buying the latest Microsoft Flight Sim and flying circuits etc. Helped me a great deal and relatively inexpensive too - the latest version is just out, give it a try and it might help

[48k]

ben_h100 said:

For me, stopping the ‘death grip’ was a combination of chilling the f out

I remember that. Took me a few lessons to get the "fking hell, I'm flying an aeroplane!!" excitement out of my system.

[ben_h100]

Completed my QXC yesterday. Kemble - Shobdon - Turweston - Kemble. Quite hazy, but little wind, so the Nav was fairly straightforward and all I had to do was keep telling myself to focus on flying the correct heading, trust the maths with my timing, keep a good lookout and enjoy the experience. It’s funny how when you are on your own, you offload the self induced stress/pressure and enjoy the ride.

Treated myself to a meal at Turweston - definitely an airfield that I want to bring the wife and our dog to (they do doggy treats!). A great view from the balcony watching the aircraft land and depart.

I’ve booked a few more lessons to prep for the skills test; my instructor has me tied that I’ll only need a couple, so fingers crossed I’ll have my PPL soon.

[drd63]

I’ve always wanted to get my PPL since not taking up a place for RAF pilot training in the 80’s.
So I recently had my first lesson and totally underwhelmed. I’m really disappointed but can’t ever see me getting into it. I now have the dilemma of whether or not to continue as frankly I can think of other ways to spend my time and money.
How often do those with PPL’s fly and is it just for the sake of flying or do you use a plane as a practical means of transport. I’m struggling with the latter as in most instances you’ll need a car at your destination?

[Flooble]

drd63 said:

I’ve always wanted to get my PPL since not taking up a place for RAF pilot training in the 80’s.
So I recently had my first lesson and totally underwhelmed. I’m really disappointed but can’t ever see me getting into it. I now have the dilemma of whether or not to continue as frankly I can think of other ways to spend my time and money.
How often do those with PPL’s fly and is it just for the sake of flying or do you use a plane as a practical means of transport. I’m struggling with the latter as in most instances you’ll need a car at your destination?

In my case, mostly just for the sake of flying and exploring other airfields. I've flown around the UK and to nearby countries.

Without wanting to dishearten you, it's not a practical means of transportation if you have to be somewhere at a specific time. The UK weather does not co-operate. You can get an instrument rating (*) which opens up a lot more opportunities but if you destination is weathered in you will need an instrument approach to land and the UK has been very slow at rolling out approaches that are anything other than the expensive ILS type used by airliners. Some smaller airports have them, e.g. Gloucestershire, but that's not a lot of use if you want to be in Leamington Spa.

And yes, when you arrive you are going to need a car, public transport or a bike. Quite a few pilots I know have folding e-bikes now that they take with them so they can get around.

However, when it works, it's excellent. I popped to France for lunch, it took about 7 hours there and back and having lunch. The airport had bikes for us to use so we cycled down to the beach. By car that would have just got me Calais.

I've been over to Anglesey and back in an afternoon - if I drove it, it would be a two day trip.

I did a round-britain tour in the summer (not this summer) where between us we logged about 20 hours of flying and flew around most of the southern half of the UK coastline - in a long weekend. Doing that by car would have been a week or more.

So it depends what you want out of it. If you were looking to replace the car for business travel, no way. But for fun you can't beat it. We are a very privileged people, out of all humanity there is a tiny fraction who are in the right place at the right time with the right resources to be able to fly for fun.



(*) That's now become a bit of a broad term compared with the past but I'm just going to let it slide

[LimaDelta]

drd63 said:

I’ve always wanted to get my PPL since not taking up a place for RAF pilot training in the 80’s.
So I recently had my first lesson and totally underwhelmed. I’m really disappointed but can’t ever see me getting into it. I now have the dilemma of whether or not to continue as frankly I can think of other ways to spend my time and money.
How often do those with PPL’s fly and is it just for the sake of flying or do you use a plane as a practical means of transport. I’m struggling with the latter as in most instances you’ll need a car at your destination?

I get that. As a frustrated fighter pilot myself I know that pootling along at 120kts just isn't the same as my dreams of 600kts at 200ft through the highlands, and circuit bashing in a tired C152 is about as far from TopGun as its possible to get, buuuut, it is still flying, and IMHO there is little to match that feeling. The first lessons aren't the most exciting, particularly if you already have experience of small aircraft. Nobody really enjoys their driving lessons, but they do it because they know it is going to bring them freedom and excitememt and adventure. Flying is no different. You need to go through that process before you can do the fun stuff, whether it be aeros, touring, £100 bacon butties, or just burning holes in the sky.

Flying is not cheap, and a lot of pilots once they have the licence and feel they've ticked that box then fall by the wayside because they don't really know what to use it for. I guess you need to have that desire to be flying otherwise it is all a bit of a waste of time and effort.

As for a means of transport, then yes and no. Last year I dropped the kids at school, flew to Islay to pick up a bottle of whiskey, had lunch and flew back in time to pick up the kids. There is no way you could do that any other way (it would have been 5 hours driving each way plus ferries!), so it opens up different opportunities for travel. However, GA airfields are few and far between in some parts of the country and the weather fickle so I personally would never rely on flying to get me somewhere I really needed to be (though there are plenty of others who do I'm sure).

Maybe find someone at your local club/school who is willing to take you on a longer flying day out, rather than a structured 1 hour lesson and see if you feel any differently after seeing what is possible post-training?

[anonymous-user]

drd63 said:

I’ve always wanted to get my PPL since not taking up a place for RAF pilot training in the 80’s.
So I recently had my first lesson and totally underwhelmed. I’m really disappointed but can’t ever see me getting into it. I now have the dilemma of whether or not to continue as frankly I can think of other ways to spend my time and money.
How often do those with PPL’s fly and is it just for the sake of flying or do you use a plane as a practical means of transport. I’m struggling with the latter as in most instances you’ll need a car at your destination?

I really enjoyed my first few lessons, just being in an aircraft and flying was great. I’d happily sit in the back if someone else was having a lesson or a joy flight or whatever. I just love being up there.

I could fly before I could drive though so even just being in control of a vehicle alone was a bit of a thrill for me.

I probably find gliding a purer form of flight though and there’s also micro lights and things like paragliding to try also.

I’ve done loads of experience flights and things like that and most people absolutely love a trial lesson or their first time in a light aircraft or first lesson. It seems a bit unusual that you’ve wanted to do a ppl and then not enjoyed your first lesson? Maybe you built it up too much or something?

Tbh though if you’ve not really enjoyed your first lesson and don’t see the point, it’s probably not going to be something you get into I’d expect.

Maybe you could get through the things you find boring and then get an aerobatic aircraft and pole that around?

It’s like any hobby, some love it and others don’t, it’s not for everyone.

Edited by anonymous-user on Saturday 26th September 11:24

[Flooble]

El stovey said:

...
I’ve done loads of experience flights and things like that and most people absolutely love a trial lesson or their first time in a light aircraft or first lesson. It seems a bit unusual that you’ve wanted to do a ppl and then not enjoyed your first lesson? Maybe you built it up too much or something?
...

Edited by El stovey on Saturday 26th September 11:24

Just a thought, maybe a trial lesson somewhere else. There are all sorts of instructors out there. I really didn't get on with one, to the extent that I actually went off to a different school (same aircraft) and was at QXC stage when I realised I needed to use up a few prepaid hours (I know, never prepay, but this was donkey's years ago when an hour's flying was peanuts).

Went back to the original place just to burn some holes in the sky and the instructor I didn't get on with, at the end of the lesson and unaware I hadn't just taken a couple of months off, declared I had gone backwards massively during my "time off" and would need loads of hours before I might be ready for solo.

Then there was the instructor who used to hover with his hands on the stick throughout every checkride, no matter who was being checked out.

Some instructors just don't transmit the joy of flying, they seem scared to be up there themselves.

[anonymous-user]

Flooble said:

Some instructors just don't transmit the joy of flying, they seem scared to be up there themselves.

I used to have a really miserable old instructor during some of my twin flying during my instrument rating. He was an ex lightning pilot and he was only there counting the days till he retired.

I remember in the old Seneca 2 you could get him to nod off if the props were slightly out of sync with the droning. I’d be tootling along IFR with the screens up so I couldn’t see (probably not that safe) and then wake him up before I commenced an NDB approach or whatever I was about to blunder gashly through.

He’d then pretend he hadn’t been asleep and start complaining about my tracking.

Another time I was in an old FRASCA trainer, which is an old school ground based basic instrument procedures trainer with a basic cockpit and a paper plot (or CRT green screen) of your course behind you so the instructor could see your hold entry or instrument procedures.

Like this,




My mate was in the same room on another one and we’d had a big night out the night before. I ended up feeling really rough and then couldn’t work out where I was so I tried to cheat and look at the plot on the screen behind me.

My instructor (another ex fast jet) saw me and started shouting about how we were only interested in drinking and shagging whilst he was whacking me with a folder.

I expect flying training has changed somewhat these days.

[Flooble]

Love it - the safety pilot nodding off is brilliant.

I don't think it's changed that much at the private level, I had some great instructors. There was one who was happy to go up and do an entire session of spins (not required, not on the syllabus, I just wanted to). Another who was happy to demonstrate actual FLs (i.e. we would turn the engine off for real, so you could see the difference in drag compared with a "P" FL).

The best one I had was able to pretend he wasn't paying any attention at all - you thought he was looking out the window talking about his wife and kids, or telling you some tale about the building you had just flown past. He would let you get deep into the "oops" envelope. If you sorted it out yourself you would probably think you had "got away with it" without him noticing but in reality if you reached the danger point he'd be on the controls in a split second and save you from disaster. Brilliant guy - I saw him take so many students through to qualification, they learned so much more quickly because he let them make the mistakes. I remember watching him once save someone who was clearly nibbling the stall down final and dropped a wing about 50 feet above the ground. He must have had nerves of steel and reactions like a cat.

[drd63]

Thanks for all of your thoughts about learning guys. Very helpful and constructive.

[tr7v8]

Interesting the above, thanks guys.
Lesson for today cancelled as cloudbase too low. Today was meant to be stalling (lesson 10 I think).
Did flying slowly last week which went better than expected. I think it started to come together, although mental overload for the last 5 mins or so which was a pain, so the FI took back control.
Was meant to have two lessons booked last week had the first but then no aeroplane for No.2 as it's due a 50 hour service & then it's annual this week so they've joined them all together, so will be away for a few weeks. There's another 172 available, an SP which is fuel injected, but that didn't come back until last Friday.

Booked Air Law exam for tomorrow. So will be hitting the books for the next 24 hours.