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NAB
23rd Apr 2007, 22:25
Hello fellows!

I am reading for my PPL which I'll be taking this upcomming July. I will go to OBA and there for I'm reading the Jeremy M Pratt books.

Now my question to you guys who've also read theise books.
How am I supposed to read them. I goes from Vol. 1 to 5, and i have started with Vol. 1 which the "Flying Traning" book, that covers the 25 hours dual flying with an instructor. That is not a part og cylabus for the theory? However I do understand that it is a great help to be well prepared, and I do also appriciate it. The next book, Vol. 2, is the "Oporational Procedures and Cummunication". It just seems to be a strange ordre to read the stuff in? Why aren't you starting with Generel Aircraft knowledge or so?

I thought off reading it in my own ordre by starting with book Vol 4. (Generel Aircraft Knowledge ..) but on the very first page, they actually refered to book Vol. 3. So i thought, okay they should be read in ordre. But what did you guys do?

Help a young upcomming pilot, please! ;)

Cheers

Timo Mathiasson

davidathomas42
23rd Apr 2007, 23:54
I bought the trevor tom books before starting my training and read the first book, aircraft handeling i think cover to cover before sitting in the plane for my first time, and in fairness, i forgot everything i had read and leart 10x more in the first hour of actual instruction!

i found the met book usefull and navigation one to help me brush up on stuff in an evening, but for me it was on the job learning, pay attention, ask lots of questions and hang around the flight school talking to students behind and infront of you.

theres no substitute for doing the job, I went through the question banks before taking the tests and got high marks, but you learn by doing, the first thing we did on my first lesson was sit down and do a weight and balance and explain why its important and the forces acting due to correct and incorrect loading, and that one hour ground helped me so much with principals of flight, flight planning (fuel!) and all sorts.

NAB
24th Apr 2007, 05:52
Yeah, I would read it anyways, but I just dont know in which ordre. The first book covers the flyinglessons, but aren't you supposed to have read the theory before you start the practical flying? That leading to: Shouldn't you have read the 4 other volumes which contains the subject of a PPL, before you start to readabout how you fly during your first flyinglesson?

Cheers!

tiggermoth
24th Apr 2007, 12:05
Timo,

I would say don't bother reading Volume 1 (Flying Training) until you go and do your flying training itself. Then read the parts in the book that relate to the excercises you are doing.

The order that you read them in, or the order that you do your exams does not really matter if you are going for intensive flying training.

Try and complete all your exams before you go over for your flying training, or you will have a very very difficult time.

Most people start with "Air Law" because you need that exam passed before you go solo. Air Law is dull and boring. It's not difficult, just a lot of stuff to remember.

Write some notes while you read them, and they should make more sense.

T.

Slopey
24th Apr 2007, 12:33
As an Ex-OBA'er - the way I did it was this - your milage probably will vary!

You don't need to have passed Air Law to fly solo - but you must complete an open book FAA exam akin to it before you go solo in US airspace.

First up - get a copy of the PPL Confuser. It's invaluable.

Second up - learn how to use the whizz wheel - there's some very good stuff in the Nav book on that - you will be shown how to do the wind/drift calculations at the Nav lecture at OBA (when I was there they did wind-down) - DON'T miss that one. ;) If you can use the wheel before you go, you don't need to worry about it later.

Met - this takes a bit of learning - I'd start on this one sooner than later.

Human Performance - the least indepth of any of the exams - you can study for this one in a day and pass it - especially if you've done biology at school or are aware of reasonably general knowledge stuff - how long does 1 unit alchohol take to leave the body/symptoms of CO poisioning etc/hypoxia etc.

Air Law - this one is a grind - I found the Thom book better than Pratt for this. Just start reading, and keep hammering it in until you've got it - it's a big memory exercise this one. Takes quite a bit of memorising to shoehorn it all in.

Dont bother with the Flying Training manual until you're over there, and read up on what you're going to do before your next lesson - it makes much more sense once you've thrown a spam can around for a couple of hours.

Nav - Nav becomes much much much easier when you've been to the lecture, and you've started planning out routes in real life. Leave that until later if possible and it'll save a lot of head scratching when you don't have the real world examples/experience.

OBA have the excellent lectures by Mike on Aircraft Performance/General etc - go to them, they're well worth it, be prepared for tales of intrepid hero pilots and bugsmasher 3000s, and athough they at first seem to sometimes digress, everything that Mike tells you will (or may be) in the exam, and some of his tips might just keep the shiny side up if you're in a jam (ie advice about encountering ice etc). Don't miss em (they're good entertainment!).

Also use the CD rom presentations in the study room at OBA - they're a good break for the books and are condensed into what you need to know for the exam, the books, especially the Thom ones, are much more verbose.

Comparing the Thom/Pratt books, I found the Pratt books easier to digest, but after getting the ticket and studying up again, I found Thom much more informative. I sold the Pratt books on ebay and kept the Thoms on my shelf.

Also remember (as mike will tell you) the object is not to just get the ticket, but to keep yourself alive, so regardless how you get through the exams, take time to go back an properly digest the subject matter at a later date - it might be particularly useful one day in a tight spot! The licence after all is a "licence to learn"!

Oh, and learn conversions - 1nm = 1.15sm = 1.85km and distance equal to one minute of arc on the Earth's surface. 1 USG of Avgas weighs 6lbs. 1 USG = 3.75 litres. Or learn how to use the whizzwheel to work them out.

Remember - no calculator in the exams, so if like me your mental arithmetic is sometimes quite mental, learn how to use the whizz wheel for multiplication/divison to get the solution (or at least an idea if you're right or not)!

Above all - enjoy it! It's a fantastic place to fly. (And drop in to see the Tower guys - they always welcome visitors :) )

NAB
24th Apr 2007, 18:15
Okay, thanks alot for the advice guys! :)

What I can conclude for now is that I am reading the wrong book at the moment. I will start right away with the airlaws.
However, my own suggestion of readingordre would be something like this:

1st: (vol. 4) Principles of Flight, Aircraft Generel Knowledge, Flightperformance and Planning

2nd: (vol. 3) Navigation, Meteorology

3rd: (vol. 2) Airlaws, Oporational Procedure, Communications

4rd: (vol. 5) Human Factors, Flight Safety

5rd: (vol. 1) Flying Traning

This is my suggestion, becouse you get to learn the basics about how flying works?

What do you say? Why would you start out with Airlaws youself?

Cheers

Timo Mathiasson! :)

PompeyPaul
24th Apr 2007, 18:51
My own personal journey through the Pratt books:

1. Air Law - You need it for Solo. It's also quite interesting
2. Radio Telephony - Should've left this to later, it's pretty hardcore, but easy when you get into the swing of things
3. Navigation. Makes sense of a lot of things
4. Radio Telephony - CAP416? - Getting to grips with it now
5. Metereology

All of the while I've been reading PPL1 back and forth throughout.

My first FI told me to read chapters 1,2,3,4,5 the first week (a chapter a night) and then 2,3,4,5,6 the following week etc etc.

Fair play to anybody who is going to do the exams with zero flight time, I've now idea how you guys do it. It's impossible to make sense of all of the theory if you never see it exercised....

Slopey
24th Apr 2007, 20:00
This is my suggestion, becouse you get to learn the basics about how flying works?

All the theory is incidental - once you start flying you get the feel for it pretty quickly - it does'nt make any difference if you've read the "how it works" books - you're concentrating on how to fly the maneouver.

But in essence, try and get some exams out of the way before you go - if I had my time again, I'd try and clear Human Perf (easy), Met (hard) and Airlaw (slog) before heading to OBA.

Pompey - you do not need Air law to go solo in the US. You need to pass an open book FAA exam which you can look up all the answers in the FAR-AIM - not tricky.

Get CAP413 (google) and read it for RT, get a handheld air band scanner and tune in, and there are a couple of RT CDs which I played in the car which were quite useful.

Also - get to your local club, and do 2 hours before you go - it'll be invaluable - honest - and get the instructor there to demonstrate and get used to using Trim. Trim is the greatest single thing on the entire aircraft when you're learning. :)

VFE
24th Apr 2007, 20:25
The whole groundschool aspect starts to make much more sense after your first 5 hours, or so, in the air. So don't overwork now by reading all those volumes of AFE books before you go to OBE because you'll soon realise it was a waste of time. You have no frame of reference prior to airwork unless you've alread done some significant flying time therefore I;d advise you save your brain batteries for when you get out to the USA.

VFE.

jamestkirk
25th Apr 2007, 12:51
For giving such sound and beautiful advice, you should wear 5 bars not 4, when, say, at French regional airports.

WALSue
25th Apr 2007, 14:25
Any advice on actually buying the books? At the mo I' reading Thom vol 1 Flight Training
Noticed on their website there are new issues available but I've seen the whole set of older issues on Ebay for around £35 - how much do the books change issue to issue?

Going back to the original question tho, I found it very useful to read at least the first few chapters of the Principles of Flight/Flight Training, book before starting your first lesson.
If nothing else it impresses your instructor :)

NAB
25th Apr 2007, 14:25
Okay guys!

Just to explain my situation a little better. First of all, I am one off those real hardcore simulator guys, with equepment for above 1000 GBP at my room! So I have got like maybe 1000 to 2000 hours on the simulator, flying small aircrafts like C172 and so.

Further more I have got like 50 to 60 hours off reallife flying in a DA40. A very good freind of mine, who lives in Gotenborg, Sweden, did a lot of timebuilding last summer. So I flew with him over 4 weeks! (best time of my life:ok: ) So...

I can fly an entire trip (I did that this easter. We flew from Gotenborg to Tallin, and I flew the aircraft, both taxi, landing and takeoff aswell as enroute, I did the flightplanning, I communicated with ATC, I did the preflight calculations and incpection and so on. Ofcourse he monitored me at all time.)

So I think I'm pretty well prepared, but I also think that my abilities may be a problem if I don't look out! I'm trying to read everything, even the things I know how to do. (It is so boring reading 25 pages about how to read a METAR or TAF when u perfectly know how everything works. I do this because i fear that I might find something in the books that I didnt know!

Coclusion is that I am gonna read it all before I go to OBA. But if any of you have any suggestions about how to prepare for cearten things during the course please let me know.

jamestkirk
26th Apr 2007, 09:27
A little off the beaten track but;

MET seems to be a bit of a headache for students (well, most of us). I have found the met-office website really good for getting info on nearly everything weather related, in relation to learning.

They have a section for students and teachers for learning and teaching the subject. You can type in pretty much anything and it will have a section on it.

Came in handy when I was asked about frontolysis (which i knew about) and frontogenesis (which stumped me a bit).