Suggestions for "First P1 flight" post PPL Pass..

[Scoobster]

So.. I passed my PPL last week and the Paperwork has gone off the CAA for License issue.

It was undoubtedly enjoyable yet challenging but I learned a lot at the same time. Whilst training I didn't give much thought to where I would actually fly to once I had the PPL issued other than to "ENJOY" flying... I may decide that I am content with PPL VFR or that I will go on to CPL.

The aim would be:

1) Build Hours AND "Enjoy" myself as PPL post License issue.
2) Fly in controlled airspace (if I can transit across of LTMA - that would be
a bonus) or other controlled airspace.
3) Fly to interesting destinations - Navigation etc.
4) Above 2000 feet whilst in VMC - Flight levels etc.

I'm sure you get the picture.

So if there are any suggestions on the very first flight after license issue I would like to hear them?

Scenic destinations, challenging approaches etc - not sure if this should be the first priortity after license issue though?

I will of course have a chat with my Instructor at the Flight Centre - SFC for some more ideas.

Look forward to the responses.

[bingofuel]

First flight-
Go aloft by yourself, on a fair weather day, fly in an area you are very familiar with and enjoy the freedom you have worked to achieve.

[Jan Olieslagers]

First of all: congratulations with your PPL!

That said: take it for what it is worth. It is a license to learn, and nothing more. It is a formal declaration that you have learned enough to be allowed into public airspace without necessarily making yourself an unacceptable danger. Your real learning can indeed only begin now.

Do begin your real learning, and enjoy it! Your first step should be to consolidate existing learning. Do again all the exercises you did with your instructor(s) and do them again and again, in various weather, with various amounts and directions of daylight. And do not forget to enjoy all that!

From there on, you can begin to expand your horizons. That will come naturally enough, but probably slower than you now imagine.

[manuaros]

Congrats on your PPL!

My suggestion would be: do whatever you feel more comfortable with.
That could be: fly alone, take your partner/family for an scenic flight...anything that can be special.

If I remember correctly, my first flight after getting my PPL was a small cross country flight with another recent PPL.
Since that I have done loads of cross country, scenic flights for friends/family etc.

Now that you have your licence, you can keep learning and getting yourself challenged (within reasonable limits!)

The key thing: enjoy and keep flying

[Scoobster]

First flight-
Go aloft by yourself, on a fair weather day, fly in an area you are very familiar with and enjoy the freedom you have worked to achieve.

Hello BingofFuel,

Thank You.

I was thinking of planning a flight down to Shoreham from VOR to VOR and combine this with a day out by the Coast. I trained out of Stapleford Flight Centre so am accustomed to Navigation around Kent and if we go North then Cambridge/Clacton etc.

It is an amazing feeling experiencing the freedom..

Not sure how long I can hang around in Shoreham with the School plane and may need to arrange a separate contract hire.

What do you suggest about a Night Rating? Leave that till later...?

First of all: congratulations with your PPL!

That said: take it for what it is worth. It is a license to learn, and nothing more. It is a formal declaration that you have learned enough to be allowed into public airspace without necessarily making yourself an unacceptable danger. Your real learning can indeed only begin now.

Do begin your real learning, and enjoy it! Your first step should be to consolidate existing learning. Do again all the exercises you did with your instructor(s) and do them again and again, in various weather, with various amounts and directions of daylight. And do not forget to enjoy all that!

From there on, you can begin to expand your horizons. That will come naturally enough, but probably slower than you now imagine.

Jan - Excellent advice. I have learned so much from the initial training and sometimes the repeated colourful words from the instructor a couple of times have detracted from the enjoyment factor - necessarily obviously to get you to the standard for test!

So you can never do enough learning and consolidation in my opinion - You never know when you may need to use what you learned in Exercise 16!

I plan to consolidate all my notes and practical skills again and again, x-wind landings, flight minima etc - but obvuiously knowing my own limitations and my own threats also.

Any thoughts on where to go or the "must visit" list?

Congrats on your PPL!

My suggestion would be: do whatever you feel more comfortable with.
That could be: fly alone, take your partner/family for an scenic flight...anything that can be special.

If I remember correctly, my first flight after getting my PPL was a small cross country flight with another recent PPL.
Since that I have done loads of cross country, scenic flights for friends/family etc.

Now that you have your licence, you can keep learning and getting yourself challenged (within reasonable limits!)

The key thing: enjoy and keep flying

Thank You Manuaros.

I will certainly keep learning and enjoying.

Take it slow and steady and build up the knowlege and the key words are certainly: Fulfilment, Enjoyment and Safety.

Fair Weather days in the UK sadly at this time of the year are far and few between compared to Spain or other climates.

[foxmoth]

First post License flight the main thing is that you enjoy it, I would aim for something fairly simple such as along the coast for easy nav and maybe take a non pilot with you like a partner or friend as this is something you have not been able to do so far. Further training I would suggest trying an aeros trip - but make sure it is with someone that wants to show how nice they can be rather than how good they are - get into aeros and you will do more actual handling in a single 20min flight than you will in three 1hour cross country trips!

[Mariner9]

Now you have your licence its time to ditch the whizz wheel and stopwatch and invest in a decent aviation GPS and a subscription to Skydemon.

One those two are mastered, the UK and Europe is your oyster.

[Scoobster]

Further training I would suggest trying an aeros trip - but make sure it is with someone that wants to show how nice they can be rather than how good they are - get into aeros and you will do more actual handling in a single 20min flight than you will in three 1hour cross country trips!


Foxmoth,

Do you mean aerobatics?

[Scoobster]

Now you have your licence its time to ditch the whizz wheel and stopwatch and invest in a decent aviation GPS and a subscription to Skydemon.

One those two are mastered, the UK and Europe is your oyster.

Mariner9,

I have wondered how many pilots use GPS versus Visual Navigation etc - or whether GPS is mainly used as a "backup" to Primary Navigation?

I have read differing arguments both for and against about GPS and wondered what the "real world" practical application scenario is..

Any particular recommendations regarding GPS Unit? or IPAD with Skydemon?

I have taken out a trial to sky demon on my Apple but need to get accustomed to this.

Interested in your thoughts?

Many Thanks.

[Piltdown Man]

Leave the GPS at home and take a trip to Snowdonia or the Lake District. If the latter, fly as low as is legal along the sands by Blackpool & Morecombe. On the way, pass through as much controlled airspace you can. Plan your success as marks out of ten for the view and the flight planning, both in time and fuel burn. The latter will give you confidence for doing something really impressive in the future.

Well done on completing the course.

[Heston]

Congratulations!


Presumably you had a mental picture, before you embarked on the PPL training, of how it would be, how you would look, how you would feel, after you'd got the licence?


Think of that picture. Got it? Now go and do that.


(I'm being facetious, I know. But the serious point I'm making is that we all have different reasons for wanting to fly. And only you can know what works for you. But don't worry - try different things and see what you enjoy. The CAA have seen fit to trust you with an aeroplane so you must have a certain level of decision making skills - just try to fly as safely as you can while following your dream).

[Mariner9]

Blimey Piltdown, expecting a new PPL to undertake a min 400 mile round trip (Stapleford-Lake District) dodging Stansted, Luton, East Midlands (or possibly zone transit) Manchester, then a long leg across pretty featureless countryside from mid Lancs to the Lakes, without GPS, is asking a bit much don't you think?

Scoobster - GPS is a wonderful tool when fully understood and used correctly, and hugely reduces cockpit workload. From a personal viewpoint, I would have no qualms whatsoever undertaking Piltdown's suggested route given 20 minutes planning on Sky Demon and a decent aviation GPS by say Garmin or Bendix King to fly with, but that confidence has been gained from several hundred hours using GPS as primary nav. I would suggest you start with much shorter trips; there are loads of airfields within 30 mins of Stapleford that you probably haven't visited yet. A triangular trip with landings at 2 new airfields would be a great start :ok:

[Whirlybird]

Congratulations!

It's easy after you get your PPL to take on too much at a time, so I used to have a rule: Do something new every flight, but ONE new thing only. So EITHER fly to a new airfield, OR take a passenger, or go through unfamiliar controlled airspace, or fly an unfamiliar route. Don't do them all at once, or if you get something else happen like poor weather, you can easily hit overload and struggle to cope. As to where to go, there are loads of nice airfields/ places within easy reach of Stapleford - and yes Shoreham is one of them. :ok:

[foxmoth]

Do you mean aerobatics?

Yes, take some time to consolidate what you have learnt already by taking pax/ travelling to new airfields and generally enjoying your flying, but you will probably get to a stage in a few (10-20hours) where you say "what now", and as said, aeros will give you a focus and teach you WAY more about actually handling an aircraft near its limits than you have seen up to now.:ok:

[Scoobster]

Thank You ALL for the great advice.

Much appreciated.

Look forward to that license coming through the door!

[Above The Clouds]

Well done passing your PPL.

However it is a licence to consolidate and learn, very similar to passing your driving test.
So I am a little worried that already you are thinking about your first cross country to Shoreham, navigating from VOR to VOR, or as suggested ditching all you have learnt and flying A to B using GPS before the ink on your map from your qualifying cross country has dried.
Take some friends on local flights, try extended VFR cross country flights with a couple of land aways, get checked out on a different aircraft, as winter is coming get a night rating, try aerobatics, but for now leave the GPS alone and consolidate the basics.

[Above The Clouds]

Mariner9
Blimey Piltdown, expecting a new PPL to undertake a min 400 mile round trip (Stapleford-Lake District) dodging Stansted, Luton, East Midlands (or possibly zone transit) Manchester, then a long leg across pretty featureless countryside from mid Lancs to the Lakes, without GPS, is asking a bit much don't you think?

So what do they teach during the basic PPL navigation exercises that now eliminates the use of charts and basic navigation skills ? or is all PPL basic training these days focused around the use of VOR and GPS for simple navigation ?

[foxmoth]

He is asking about FIRST trip after PPL, to me this should not involve loads of planning, it should be an easy trip where he can relax a bit after the training, so forget all this "you must plan it on basics with the whizz wheel and map", IMHO it should be a decent trip that is easy to fly, along the coast works really well in this way. Following this I would agree, use the basics a bit until you are really comfortable with them, but take time to enjoy some easy flying!

[rej]

Congratulations from me too. :D

My son and I recently passed our PPLs within 1 day of each other. We now fly whenever we can (afford to). Get out there and explore is my advice; we like to visit various aerodromes for those famous '£150 cups of coffee'. We try to visit a new place each time alternating the inbound and outbound legs. Panshangar was lovely and Wellesbourne does a great bacon butty but visiting new location keeps your nav skills sharp, your airmanship and RT honed and its great to fill the log book with new places that have amazing history behind them.

As for the first flight post-skills test. I suggest a cross-country somewhere a bit further afield but not too taxing airspace-wise. Keep it simple and savour every moment of that first hour It can never be repeated.

Fly safe and enjoy.

[Pirke]

I got checked out in another aircraft in my first hour after PPL. In the second hour I took my wife for a trip to see our home and the city where she worked from above. Fun for both :)

Fly different aircraft, it's a good and fun learning experience!

[Howard Long]

I passed my PPL last year, but to be honest I lacked a lot of confidence.

I suffered a couple of snafus very soon after my test as P1, one was a broken radio where I had to transmit blind to get back in, and the other was a brake failure. It was definitely a baptism of fire, but that is what you're trained for, but it didn't help my confidence.

My PPL training was done over five months, and I wasn't a quick learner, taking 75 hours. That also meant that I felt I needed a few weeks off to recooperate both mentally and financially. The main thing that got me back into the plane was that the club needed 28 days flight currency.

So I did a couple of flights as P1 post PPL, one by myself was a local flight more to keep currency than anything else, and the other was to take the missus up, and I was far more sh!t scared than she was!

But by far most of my immediate post-PPL flying was with an instructor, including difference training onto a new a/c (C152 to PA28) that took about 2 1/2 hours and IMC rating training.

Being Fairoaks based, my immediate goal was to do an SVFR transit through the Heathrow CTR, as well as land at a brand new airport that I'd never been to. It seems a bit basic a year later, but I really did lack confidence at the time, and for many months afterwards. I went out with a new instructor to test myself out on both of those goals but I was very overloaded, flying Fairoaks, SVFR Ascot-Burnham, Luton transit, landing at Sywell, £300 cup of coffee, and back the same way. It was too much, there was no way it was going to sink in.

So I next went out on my own to Sywell but avoiding CAS. After another go SVFR with an instructor, I prepared some flash cards for the radio and went for it. For the first few times doing the Heathrow CTR transit it was hard, with the brain at its limit, but now it's much easier and I feel a lot more comfortable doing it. And be prepared for rejection! Although you do usually get clearance, occasionally you don't or are offered a different route, so be prepared and make sure your radio is snappy, you might get rejected if your patter ain't up to scratch, remember the ATCOs are also often in a relatively high workload situation and the last thing they want is someone fumbling about accidentally busting airspace.

In retrospect, my biggest mistake though was to go almost immediately into further training with an instructor, including both the difference training and the IMC rating. The problem was that I was not confident or experienced enough with the basics of the PPL to embark on the IMC rating where there's a lot of radio to do, something I struggled with. I found myself in extremely high workload situations on IMC approaches, particularly NDB approaches, and almost always found the training wasn't sinking in because of my lack of mental capacity.

So I shelved the IMC training after about six months. I am glad I did. I now go out once or twice a week in my own time and at my own pace. I also usually try out a new destination a couple of times each month to get over another of my phobias, that of landing away, and I transit the Heathrow CTR about once each week: pushing myself at the difficult things has really helped, and most importantly for me, I am doing it without an instructor to prop me up.

One other thing I learned immediately post-PPL is that planning is everthing. If I'm going somewhere new, it can take me an hour or two to prepare. A route I'm familiar with will take five or ten minutes. While SkyDemon helps a great deal, you still need to do the grunt work of figuring out local nuances at the destination or en route, such as PPR, standard approaches and departures, or specific routings, eg the Manchester low level route. The Notam feature of SkyDemon is also a superb time saver.

So I plan all but the simplest of trips on SkyDemon, and print out the plog, enroute charts, plates, weather, notams etc for reference in case the technology lets me down. I also print out the F214 and F215, and mark the wind on my old school paper chart and copy the SkyDemon route onto the chart too. All that planning relieves the key problem of excessive workload when you're in the air. To be really nerdy, I take the route onto my iPad and iPhone just in case, and also onto a Garmin 495. Hopefully with that and my aerial filing cabinet of paperwork all bases are covered!

So in short, the first flight I'd do little other than something you're completely familiar with, and enjoy it. Then on later flights try adding a bit more stress, maybe one thing at a time, and repeat so you gain confidence. But try to get your P1 experience up and avoid too much instructor time.

[John Farley]

Scoobster.

Well done indeed. Very well done.

Your dream can now be reality. You have a day off, a license, access to an aeroplane, cash to spare and the weather is perfect so there is only one thing to do - get airborne. If the next thing that comes into your mind is “Where shall we go?” please give yourself 0/10 because, if you are serious about your aviation, the question you should be asking is “What do I need to do on this trip?” Furthermore, you will establish just what exercises you need to do by looking at your currency chart which is hanging on the wall in your bedroom.

Most GA pilots have no delusions about their abilities, they have no obsessive ambition to become aces, they just want to fly safely and enjoy flying as a hobby. The problem with that very reasonable stance is that aviation has to be worked at all the time and on every flight for it to remain accident free. To complicate things, the demands of any trip can vary enormously and be outside the control of the pilot. A routine circuit on a nice day is hardly the same as one where a fuel pipe lets go at 300 ft after takeoff and the engine cuts, although for the first 40 seconds they were identical.

There are two ways to deal with such serious emergencies. You can just put your faith in others, from the CAA to the engineer in the hangar, hoping they will protect you from a situation you cannot handle. Alternatively, you can be a little less fatalistic and do more training to reduce the odds stacked against you. Even without emergencies there are plenty of ways for pilots to finish up in charge of a bent aeroplane. If we are honest with ourselves, we also know that such events are avoidable if we plan properly and only operate inside our current levels of skill.

Those last eight words are at the heart of the issue I want to discuss here. If you accept this notion, which is hardly controversial, then we do need to try and be objective about our currency. Such objectivity requires a lot more information than traditionally appears in accident reports where currency is usually expressed simply as hours flown on type in the last 30 or 90 days. I am deeply suspicious of flying hours as a measure of currency or even of experience for that matter. What should matter is what the pilot did when airborne, not how long it all took.

Currency depends on what you do, not how long you take to do it. If you accept this, how should you decide what you need to do on this next trip? You get out your chart and look at where the biggest holes are in your currency. Doubtless you are asking yourself questions like how do you draw up the chart in the first place? Just what should go in it? How should you use the chart to reduce risk?

Let us split flying into pure and applied categories. Pure flying is about handling the aeroplane, making it go up and down, right and left and slower and faster. It is about taking off and landing in good weather conditions from an ample strip or runway. It is also about not stalling when we do this. However, every time we do such pure flying we cannot avoid certain risks that are inherent in being airborne.

On the other hand, applied flying is about what we choose to do with the aeroplane when we are airborne. This might be anything from a simple land away cross country to an instrument approach into Heathrow, from low level display flying to deliberately waiting until it is dark to do some circuits at night. All of this applied flying carries extra risks but my point is that such risks can be totally eliminated at a stroke for the amateur pilot by choosing not to do such stuff. However the pure flying risks remain. They are inevitable and can only be eliminated by not flying, something which by definition pilots find unacceptable. Therefore I want your chart to be the tool whereby you assess whether you are as skilled and current as you can be at pure flying and so as well placed as possible to minimise these risks.

There are three distinct things to do in constructing your own personal currency chart. Firstly you must make a list of exercises that you feel (know) you should practise. In the early days of your flying careers that list may include most of the PPL syllabus headings. Later, as you become more experienced, some items can be binned, although probably not that many if you are honest with yourself. Another way to look at the list is to ask yourself what things you would want to go and practise today if you were going to re-take your PPL skills test tomorrow. You should certainly include any exercise that you pray would not come up on your skills test!

The next thing is to decide just what maximum period there should be between the practices of all items on the list - 1 month, 2 months or whatever and note that interval in the second column. Then you want a column for each month, where you will fill in the date on which you carry out the actual practice. In no time at all, you will build up a very useful picture of just what you did with your recent time airborne.

The bottom line of all this is that currency training is important. If you don’t make time for such training and plan it in a systematic and thoughtful way, then you are letting yourself down and certainly increasing your chances of bending an aeroplane (or worse) when doing even the most basic pure flying, let alone the complex applied stuff.

Truth has a habit of coming out, however much some people try to hide it. The bit of truth I have in mind here is that today it is the light aircraft category that makes the greatest demands on piloting handling skills. Forget most modern military fast jets or modern airliners because they are all much easier to handle. I expect a lot of professional pilots will see red at that remark so I had better justify myself.

The operative word above is ‘handling’. Handling is about steering the aircraft through the sky which is quite a different thing from operating it. Modern fast jets and airliners are extremely complex devices to operate which is why their pilots have to undergo so much training and are then faced with never ending currency and rating checks throughout their careers. This operation of airliners involves navigating extremely complex air traffic environments, coping day in and day out with weather that would ground any light aircraft pilot and dealing with command pressures from a wide variety of sources. The operation of a modern military fast jet is again very demanding, indeed so demanding that it is beyond the abilities of the majority of the general population.

Despite how demanding the operational work of military and airline pilots may be, that does not mean the aircraft they fly are hard to handle. Indeed the opposite is true because quite properly the civil and military airworthiness authorities will only accept benign handling qualities precisely because they know their pilots will have their hands full operating the aircraft. There are of course exceptions to such generalisations, particularly among the older types still in service. Those aside, I maintain that light aircraft as a breed do call for more stick and rudder handling skills than most modern heavy metal. It bothers me that some GA pilots may underestimate the challenges they face every time they get airborne because they assume they are at the bottom of the aviation ladder. In fact they are at the top when it comes to handling which is another reason why currency is important for GA pilots.

[Fly-by-Wife]

The bit of truth I have in mind here is that today it is the light aircraft category that makes the greatest demands on piloting handling skills.

The report on AF447 would bear out your observation, John. The "handling" abilities of relatively experienced ATPL pilots was called into question.

FBW

[Scoobster]

However it is a licence to consolidate and learn, very similar to passing your driving test.

So I am a little worried that already you are thinking about your first cross country to Shoreham, navigating from VOR to VOR, or as suggested ditching all you have learnt and flying A to B using GPS before the ink on your map from your qualifying cross country has dried.

@AbovetheClouds

Either something has been lost in translation... but I believe this comment is not warranted.. but I will take it as constructive criticism.. I am not planing on ditching what I have learned.. I have merely given MY OPINION.. on what some feasible options may be and used this open forum to obtain suggestions as to what other fellow (and probably more experienced) aviators did after their PPL..

The list is by no means exhaustive that I posted and I can of course take friends and family up to Southend or Earls Cone, but we will end up sitting around and drinking a Coffee..

Why not do a VFR Navigation to Shoreham and have a walk long the coast?? I can fly using features and i know the Kent Area well also so confident I can get to Shoreham...

What am I going to achieve..?

I will still take a friend up and go slightly further afield to shoreham or other afield and a Landaway to Lydd combined or alternate Airfield..

I have not mentioned that I will use GPS.. I merely responded to the OP that I have equally heard good and bad things and asked for THEIR OPINION.

What I am interested in is LEARNING from experiences of other Aviators and also consolidating my own learning with the standards and basic techniques taught in the PPL...

The thread was not intended to be a debate on who likes GPS and who doesn't and I do not believe my OP does either.

Scoobster

[Heston]

Scoobster - posts #13, #14 and #22 offer the advice I'd take if I were you.


And sadly far too many threads descend into arguments about the use or not of gps. You just have to get used to that.

[Scoobster]

Scoobster - posts #13, #14 and #22 offer the advice I'd take if I were you.


And sadly far too many threads descend into arguments about the use or not of gps. You just have to get used to that

Thanks Heston. Certainly will take heed to the post numbers above. Invaluable advice from lots of angles.

Thank You everybody. Much appreciated :)

[John Farley]

Scoobster

Check your PMs