Essential kit for new pilots

[Speedbird777]

PPruners,

I am about to finish my private pilots license and wondered what kit (beyond headset etc) you would suggest all pilots should have in their bag??

Handheld radio? Seatbelt cutter? Life vest??

Appreciate the advice,

Speedy

[Piltdown Man]

Paper towels for grubby hands, micro-fibre cloth/s for window cleaning, good sunglasses, cheap (<£5) calculator, paper and pencils. Forget about the other crap you'll never use. Put this lot into a cheap (non-pilot looking) bag. Spend the money saved on beer and other essentials.

PM

[mad_jock]

The list is endless for some and others can make do with a tescos bag with a headset, a bit of paper, chart and a pen and a watch on the wrist.

A charged mobile phone is pretty handy.

The frequency table that you get with the charts is also pretty useful.

Not saying the spare icom, spare fuel strainer, belt cutter, backup GPS etc etc won't be useful but thankfully for me they never have been. Could have done with a spare tesco's bag when the bottom fell out of the first one though.

[tomtytom]

White pilot shirt, 4 gold stripes, flashy private reg (** ## FLY) raf banter dictionary and thrase book for squiffys a fine handle bar tash and the dam busters theme on a ipod for those special take offs...

[douglasheld]

In my first year the stuff I actually used (or bought after learning the hard way) were:

1. Simple Knightson wind calculator. Buy one for the cruising speed of your airplane type you fly. I don't know why these aren't more popular. www.knightson.org.uk (http://www.knightson.org.uk/)

2. Aware GPS, if you ever fly near any controlled airspace. This is the subsidized one developed with NATS. It has a battery life of about 2-3 hours. Aware GPS | Nats Aware GPS Airspace Warning Device (http://www.airspaceaware.com/products/devices/awaregps/)

3. Hand held radio.

[douglasheld]

I also bought a cheap digital watch just for flying. I don't usually wear a watch, and this one had all sorts of functions and four buttons. Since I only want to know the current time, I set it to Z time, removed the buttons with pliers and sealed the holes. Now it goes on when I make the preflight technical log entry.

Also, a yellow vest.

And to Jock, the frequency cards I understand are part of your map. I think it's the law you have to have the card with you to fly under VFR in the UK.

[BackPacker]

When I fly aerobatics, the bare essentials I take with me are:

- Headset
- Sunglasses
- Kneeboard containing a map of the local area, license, pen & pencil and some scrap paper (plus the aerobatics sequence cards)
- Aircraft logbook (legal requirement) plus keys
- Spare glasses (medical requirement)
- Hi-viz vest (airfield requirement)
- Wristwatch

The personal logbook stays on the ground by the way, but is obviously a legal requirement. Fuel strainer and cellphone also stays on the ground. But leaving those on the ground is more because of the aerobatics. Otherwise I would take them with me into the air out of practical considerations.

And that's enough to get me flying, both legally and practically speaking. So that's the bare minimum you should probably consider. Some of the items on the list even belong to the aircraft and not the pilot so they are not normally carried in your flight bag. And I know pilots who fly without sunglasses so that's another thing less to worry about.

Anything else is extra. Feel free to spend your money, as long as you don't consider it "essential".

For me, the pile of "extra" stuff that sits in my flight bag or is waiting at home to be used, has so far limited itself to:
- Spare batteries
- GoPro Hero 2 Motorsports Edition
- 2 fuel testers
- Some microfiber rags
- iPad with SkyDemon and Air Nav Pro
- Handheld (outdoor) GPS
- Photo camera
- Life vest
- Drysuit
- Torches (mini Maglite, Petzl TacTikka)
- Leatherman-like tool
- Flight guides
- A roll of zip-lock freezer bags for trash and the inevitable 'accident'
- Something to eat in case I get hungry
- Bottle of water
- Chewing gum
- Small bottle of antibacterial hand soap/spray
- 3M scotch tape
- Duck tape (see item #2)

[mad_jock]

Nope douglas they only come with the CAA charts the jep charts you don't get it.

In fact there is no requirement to have a "produced" aviation chart on board an AA road map with all the required information added in will do.

There is always a debate when you slash your chart up and get rid of the excess blue bits and the other stuff you never look at. Some see it as a criminal crime against aviation. Others as thats sensible not having to wrestle in a cockpit with a huge chart most of which you will never use.

[Crash one]

In fact there is no requirement to have a "produced" aviation chart on board an AA road map with all the required information added in will do.


Jock,
Is there a legal requirement to have any form of chart at all?
Can I fly from Kingsmuir to Fife frinstance with no CAS in the way, VMC, VFR with no chart/map/piece of paper on board, legally? Until I have to divert to EGPH & get busted/jailed/shot.

[A and C]

Get a good headset from DAY ONE the money that you spend on a middle of the range D C headset you will save by not having to re-fly exercises because you did not properly hear your instructor.

All the rest of the stuff can come later when you have a bit more experience and know what you need.

[rmcb]

I second A and C's post - a decent ANR headset.

Forget the super Carlos Fandango, hands everywhere, waterproof to the depths of the Mariana Trench variety - a large faced analogue watch with no fancy distractions will suffice.

Two current charts - one to butcher, the other to cover the pen pushers alluded to in mad jock's post.

[mad_jock]

You have to have something Crash even if you know the local area like the back of your hand. I think there is a requirement for it but it used to just say something along the lines of "a chart with relavent aeronautical information"

Saying that though I am sure there are a few in Scotland that have become airbourne with no chart onboard or the only chart is series 12 or something like that.


Had a student who worked for the hydro electric as a surveyor. Teaching VFR nav was a bit of a challange mainly due to the fact he knew exactly where everything was including all the little things down glens you couldn't see until you were on top of them. I am pretty sure he could have done the PLL test without a chart but we agreed it was better that he just pretended to look at it ocassionally.

[BackPacker]

Is there a legal requirement to have any form of chart at all?

The legal requirement is something along the lines of "have all the information on-board necessary to conduct the flight". There is no specific requirement for the latest chart: You could use a three-year old one as long as you kept it up to date manually. You don't have to have printed weather or NOTAMs with you or anything.

In fact, there is a specific line in the EASA AMCs that says that for private operations, electronic copies of everything is OK, "as long as availability and access is guaranteed" or something along those lines.

I guess if you can convince the inspector that your knowledge of the local area is good enough to conduct the flight, and any reasonable diversion, properly without the aid of a paper or electronic chart, you're fine.

[benjaavpilot]

GPS, is the most important according to me! :ok:

[FleetFlyer]

I fly with a cheapo digital Casio watch because its easy to get to the stopwatch and its also very easy to not misread it in a hurry.

I understand it is a legal requirement to carry a chart( I'm sure someone will be along to give a definitive answer on this shortly) but not a requirement to have a frequency card. The frequencies are all on the chart anyway.

Something else I heartily recommend is an Android smartphone with a GPS in it. Its a great backup for your onboard GPS and the Memory Map app will allow you to download a CAA chart, total cost of around £15. Bloody good deal for the functionality(I'm not affiliated with them by the way) and a great backup for when your normal GPS goes on the fritz or you're navigating the old fashioned way and you just want to double check things.

Another app for Android phones that is very useful is Aviation Tools Free. Its free, and gives you distance, bearing, runway info, contact frequency and telephone number for the tower, and TAFs and METARs in plain English, and I think it gives you NOTAMs as well. Its very useful indeed.

Because of the super accessible information, I can treat my plane a lot more like a car. I can plan a flight in a few minutes and work out the viability of diversions en-route. I'm not stuck on the ground studying synoptic charts and decoding TAFs for an hour before I go somewhere. I realise some people enjoy the planning aspect, but I'm not that person. I'm sure someone will accuse me of being foolhardy, but years of flying and hundreds of hours have taught me what is appropriate. I also fly an aeroplane that can get in and out of 200m which gives me a lot more flexibility and options than someone flying VFR in a Bonanza.

Beyond that, as others have said, spare glasses, and a high vis vest for the fields that have lost their soul to the H&S brigade.

Edited to say I think backpacker has given the definitive answer on the chart requirement.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

I'm with mad_jock - essentially you don't need anything that you didn't need as a student. You needed the watch (and, if required, spare glasses) as a student.

I do carry extra stuff, particularly a flight guide, but one can live without.

The only time I've had an unplanned weather diversion

- I read the frequency needed for the diversion CAS and airfield from the chart

- I was too busy worrying about other things to ask a passenger to get the flight guide out of my bag, so I didn't actually use that for landing (although it was helpful to work out where to taxi when taking off again)

- I didn't have a phone with me and used the handling agent's phone.

A phone would have been a good idea if we'd come down in a field though.

[BroomstickPilot]

Hi Speedbird777,

I think you need first to assess what kind of flying you expect to be doing post PPL.

For example, if all you are going to do for a couple of years is the bare minimum hours per year to keep your licence, then don't buy anything more than what you already have. It will be enough.

If, by contrast, you are going to fly a hundred or more hours per year, perhaps incuding instrument flying or flying over rough terrain or water or at night, then your equipment needs will be vastly greater.

In practice, I suspect probably it will be something in between. Whatever it is, you need to be realistic and only buy what you can identify a clear need for.

Think before spending money perhaps needlessly.

BP.

[A and C]

Giving a student pilot a GPS is like giving a monkey a hand grenade !

Just fine when things are going OK but when it fails the poor tyro pilot has no idea of the basic skills of navigation.

Stopwatch, map & compass it should be untill the PPL is issued.

[Mariner9]

With respect A and C, whether a student should or shouldn't have a GPS would not appear relevant to this thread, where the OP is asking for advice about what kit someone "about to finish their PPL" should get. I take that as for use once qualified. If so, an aviation GPS should be top of the list.

[mikehallam]

If you have, or hope to own your own light a/c steed, there's lots more depending on the detail planned.

e.g. For long trips or to strips without fuel; a folding stand-on thingy, £1 at Pound Shop, filter funnel, cloth to keep splashes off the Leaxn screen, petrol, dip stick. Lock wire - a short strand -snipe nosed pliers, plug & brief selected size spanners, stubby cross & spade screwdrivers. Light ply chocks.

All on top of that, the very best ANR headset with GOOD passive performance. I also bought AWARE with French chart add on. Chart required regardless, as GPS is useless for looking at the whole route.

So really it all depends !

mike hallam.

[mad_jock]

Not if they have been trained properly.

I have survived for 1200 hours flying SEP's without having one.

And know many pilots that have never used one and have managed to not bust airspace run into hills or the multitude of other things which its meant to prevent in a SEP.

[Mariner9]

Sky God ;)

[mad_jock]

Nope tight scotsman that can fly straight and level while looking out the window and occasionally looking at a chart.

Must admit though if I was flying down south I would more than likely get one of these AWARE thingy's.

[tommoutrie]

take a pretty woman.

I've done a fair few flights now and an awful lot of them have fizzled from my memory but I can honestly say that I remember every single one where the other seat had someone I fancied in it.

[tommoutrie]

strictly speaking thats a bit off topic.

I'm not suggesting you stick a woman in a bag. That would be a bit wierd..

[rmcb]

I'm not suggesting you stick a woman in a bag. That would be a bit wierd..

Really? My instructor always asked what the 60 Kg bag in the back seat was all about in the flight planning stage...

[mad_jock]

There is a middle east mod putting seats in the rear hold of some biz jets for wives.

[Steve6443]

strictly speaking thats a bit off topic.

I'm not suggesting you stick a woman in a bag. That would be a bit wierd..

Whereas I have to admit to having stuck a bag on a woman...... in my defence, I was drunk when I picked her up, and had sobered up before we did the dirty.......

[Mariner9]

I carry a pack of 3 condoms for all the babes I'm going to meet at airfields. Still on my 1st pack after 12 years flying. And that's despite using 1 as an emergency pitot cover :*

[Speedbird777]

Thanks for all the replies so far guys. Treated myself to the Bose A20 so put a tick in the headset box.

I expect to be doing around 50-100hrs per year. Given a significant amount of flying will be over water, I may buy some life vests.

I'm undecided on the handheld radio - any commentary on this? Any recommendations?

I have an iPad - is Skydemon worth it?

Thanks again peeps!

[Mariner9]

Given a significant amount of flying will be over water, I may buy some life vests.

Life vests are mandatory for flights over a certain distance from land so a wise purchase. Remember to keep them serviced.

I'm undecided on the handheld radio - any commentary on this?

You have been taught to Aviate Navigate Communicate in that order. You should prioritise your kit in the same fashion. I have never bothered with a spare radio personally, but the thought of flying without a basic service from an FISO or similar seems to terrify many on here :ugh:

As for Skydemon - nothing better for VFR flight planning.

[A and C]

Hand held radios are more or less useless using the antenna supplied from the inside of a metal aircraft I have seen radio TX ranges of less than seven miles.

The same radio will have a range of up to fifty miles with an external antenna fitted. As one time King built a mechanical relay to enable you to connect the handheld to one of the COM antennas while disconnecting the failed panel mounted radio.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

an aviation GPS should be top of the list
Only if you rent planes that are sufficiently crap that they don't have one built in, surely?

[kestrel539]

Most important thing in the flight bag should always be a roll of toilet paper.

[Pilot.Lyons]

Mariner9 "I carry a pack of 3 condoms for all the babes I'm going to meet at airfields. Still on my 1st pack after 12 years flying. And that's despite using 1 as an emergency pitot cover"

Hahahaha tickled me 😃