How to avoid those "Naughty Habbits"

[Warrior Chief]

I see a lot of comments about wannabes worried about developing bad habbits during unsupervised hours building.

Does anybody want to divulge the sort of bad habbits they fell into, the consequences it had on their training and possible ways of avoiding them?

I realise the best way to keep in trim is to fly with an instructor every ten hours or so. I also try and put in an exercise or two every time I fly but it's difficult to be objective about your success in performing precision manoevres, PFL's, etc.

Any hints/tips would be much appreciated.

<img src="eek.gif" border="0">

[Busta Level]

Habbits? A cross between Rabbits and Hobbits?! <img src="wink.gif" border="0">

[Autofly]

I've had my PPL for just over a year and was really conscious of not letting any bad habits creep in. I do the same as you Warrior Chief and do some exercises ...... pax love it!!! Went up the other day and did a couple of steep turns and a glide approach just for the shear fun of it all.

Mind you, I do find myself doing things I shouldn't be like track crawling rather than the nav techniques I was taught <img src="mad.gif" border="0"> . An hour with an instructor soon sorts it out. The trick is knowing when you need a check ride <img src="wink.gif" border="0"> .


Autofly

[FlyingForFun]

You could always try learning new things as part of your hour-building, thus forcing yourself to fly with instructors regularly. I'm hour-building now, and found several bad habits needed to be beaten out of me (literally, by one instructor!) as part of my tail-wheel conversion. So far, the complex aircraft checkout and the night-flying haven't shown too many new bad habits that have come in since the tail-dragger, but there's always the aerobatics that I've got booked for later this month. And of course you could try sea-plane ratings if you live somewhere appropriate, multi-engine ratings, checkouts on new types (the more varied the better, not only because of the range of experience, but also because you'll spend more time with an instructor...) The best part about all this, I'm finding, is that this is much more fun than flying Warriors for 100 or so hours after getting your PPL!

(Oh, for anyone who was following the old thread on solo night flight in the USA - sorry for not replying, been very busy. Seems that if you come to the States without a night qualification, it is not possible to solo at night in the USA unless you get a FAA student license and all the associated hastle. Several people told me this, and several other people told me otherwise, but I found the appropriate FAR which confirms it - can't remember the number now though!)

Have fun!

FFF
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[AeroBatfink]

The one bad habit I was worried about developing was going back to taking my hand off the throttle - something I started doing a few hours into my PPL training. However, looks like she managed to beat that one out of me; so far anyway! Hope so - it cost me enough in chocolate fines at the time...
:)
AB

[Warrior Chief]

Flying for Fun...

I've done quite a few things since my PPL - IMC, night and about to start twin. The one problem with this is that I've spent a bit too long with instructors!!! I need more solo/P1 time and yet at the same time I don't want to do 50 hours on my own only to find I've become a poorer pilot.

The idea of doing some light aerobatics appeals though. We don't get taught full spins during the PPL in the UK anymore and the IMC course left me feeling that a rate one turn is the only way to turn safely!!! <img src="wink.gif" border="0">

Guess the 1 in 10 rule is a good one - one hour with an instructor every ten hours solo.

..... more money <img src="rolleyes.gif" border="0">

[A7E Driver]

I think one of the best ways to improve your flying --- and avoid picking up bad habits --- is to fly with other pilots as much as you can. Rent a plane with a pilot friend -- you fly one leg -- he flies the return.

All through training you are taught to fly solo. You get the occassional demo from the instructor --- but in general --- you don't see other people's technique unless you fly with others. You'll pick up lots of little things by watching others. For example, you may have always firewalled the throttel in 1 second on take-off and no instructor ever said anything about it. Flying with a "smooth" friend --- you might see that smoothly advancing the throttle over 4-5 seconds doesn't cause any appreciable increase in T/O roll --- but is a hell of a lot easier on the engine. There are a hundred little things you can learn by flying with others. Go for it.

[mickey mouse]

Warrior Chief, like most others have already said, try getting in with an instructor every now and then and do something structured....

However, no-one seems to have mentioned it but see if you can get hold of a C152 aerobat and an instructor who kows some stuff bout aerobatics and go and do some spinning and recovery and a few other things. I did when I was doing my PPL and not only does it build hours in a fun way, BUT it teaches you something very useful, like entering and recovering a spin with a height loss 500ft no more which could just save your life!!! (that being said u can spin the standard C152 as well... ) <img src="tongue.gif" border="0">

[no sponsor]

I was thinking about posting something along similar lines.

You see many posts (and even adverts) talking about "structured hour-building". To be honest, I don't know what that means. However, I could guess that it means:

- Practice techniques - glides, PFL, Steep turns, flapless approach, i.e. all the good stuff we did in our PPLs.

- x-country and transversing busy airspace to get RT work, and nav.

Now, I've been good at the first, but I've done very few x-countrys resulting in a landing away. (I've done quite a few x-country's without landing away).

I've have had quite a few instructors hours since qualifying. When I went to the states, the weather was so bad, I had to have an instructor (see I don't have an IR) and we practiced lots of IFR with many a ILS.

I now beleive I've got too many instructor hours, so once I've finished my night rating, I will do some longer x-country to land away solo. My log book is cramed with departures and arrivals indicating the same airfield -which looks pretty bad!

However, the instructor time I have is good - it has made me aware that after qualifying you are still learning. Since I went to a complex single soon after qualifying, I'm pleased I had the extra time.

The one thing I have noticed, is my checks are appalling - so I now spend time practicing on my flight sim before every flight...

There is an interesting snippet in Flyer this month - an incident was reporting where the PIC overshot the runway, because he was not used to not having an instructor, where his judgements where always scrutinised - as a result he couldn't make a good decision.