Post PPL regime

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I know this must have been asked before but doing various searches has not helped. I've recently gained my PPL and want some advice on the best way to keep and advance my (admittedly limited) skills. I am flying purely for fun on a limited budget. I will only be able to do about 20 hours a year and aim to fly at least once a month but hopefully twice most months. How often should I be doing circuits, PFLs and practice stall recoveries? I intend to do most of my flying in the local area and thought I'd do a session of circuits and PFLs about once every 3 months. I also thought I'd try and land at a different airfield every 6 months or so. Does this seem a reasonable regime? Also how often should I book a session with an instructor and what should I be asking him to do?

[neilgeddes]

Hi, try and find some like minded friend pilots to fly with. You'll be able to share experiences, practise your stalls and PFLs, visit new airfields you might not dare to on your own, and have fun. Going with another pilot friend is a great way to build and maintain confidence.

[Genghis the Engineer]

Buy a share in a good syndicate, go flying with the other pilots. That way you'll probably get well beyond 20 hours on the same money, and do a lot more than just local flying. If the budget is limited, something cheap - lots of hours in a cheap aeroplane trump few hours in an expensive rental, and if you are part owner, you'll get to know it much better, which makes you (in my opinion) a better pilot.

Personally I look to practice at-least a couple of circuits, couple of stalls and a PFL every month - otherwise I just don't feel current. Also I make a point of varying the circuits - flapless, powered, idle, constant aspect...

Use an aeroplane as god intended, and you'll land away much more than every 6 months! If money is limited, share it with other people in the syndicate. You'll still learn a lot and sharpen your skills, even if you can only log half the flying each.

And join the LAA (which may well be the best place to look for a share anyhow).

G

[Gertrude the Wombat]

If you're renting in a normal club environment, you'll find sufficiently many of your flights cancelled due to weather that you'll run out of club currency and have to fly with an instructor now and then. They'll want to see circuits, and of course you can do and do stalls and PFLs with them if you like even if the club doesn't require it - I don't go off and do these things myself, I see an instructor often enough!

[dublinpilot]

The advice you've gotten so far is good.

I think most people get fid up doing local flights after awhile.
For some the answer is to do another qualification to keep the interest.
For others it's doing aero's.
For others it's simply going further afield.

20 hours per year isn't really enough to get you much more than local flights, and I think eventually it will loose it's appear, or you'll find it hard to justify the money you spend, vs the reward you get.

Others have given you suggestions for ways to fly cheaper, and suggesting sharing your flights with someone else. I think these are great ideas.

Flying with a second pilot has a number of advantages.
1. You can go further because you're only paying for half the costs.
2. You can learn from each other.
3. You can work out stuff together, that you might not have been so confident on doing by yourself. Particularly true if trying to go abroad, to somewhere that things are different from what you are used to.
4. Other pilots will be more understanding if you decide to cancel at the last minute because of weather, or something not right on the aircraft.

I would say that it's also a good idea to do a longer flight once a month than a short flight twice a month. It will help keep things new and exciting for longer.

Please don't spend two hours a month doing circuits! You'll get fed up of that very quickly, and then won't have the confidence to go anywhere!

dp

[englishal]

Do you have any other local airfields near you? For example we have Old Sarum and Compton Abbas. So if we go for a bit of practice in the local area, after we'll drop into one of these for a cuppa. Also many airfields will do monthly landing cards (for example these two) for around £20 for the month. We buy one for our aeroplane so that any of the group can pop in for some circuits, lunch, whatever whenever they feel like it.

[Piper19]

As many here said, find yourself a flying buddy.
I have and I do some longer trips with him, airfields I wouldn't dare alone, because they're too difficult or they're too expensive without cost sharing.
2-3 times a year I also go on a 4 day flyout with club members, to visit airfields you never can do alone in 1 day.
For the rest I do some local airwork with friends who want to fly their first time. And once a year I oblige myself to do all the exercises of a PPL exam to stay current.
I still enjoy local airwork, just find some interesting stuff on google earth. (e.g. I just discovered 2 ex-airfields in my area on which you only could recognize the shapes of a runway underneath a pool of water now; so I made a navigation flight with a waypoint over them the old fashioned way, without GPS or VOR, to make it a challenge).
With all this, I make about 30 hours/year

When it's raining I sometimes just take a VFR chart of my area and find interesting flights. Problem is, it rains al lot here and have flights now till I'm 256 years old. But that list always gives me courage to do another flight.

[jxc]

where are you based ?

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Based in the East Midlands