Thinking about quitting
Hi all
This is my first time posting - I hope it's in the right place on the site.
I'm currently training for a PPL in the UK. I'm at close to 40 hours and just started navigation - and I really dislike it!
Whilst in the circuit I found myself questioning whether I was really enjoying this anymore, but persevered to first solo. I've now done three nav exercises (all dual), including two land-aways, and I'm close to packing it in. The first was back in September - after this I decided to take a break from flying, and didn't go again until December, and then again early in January. And to be honest, I haven't really missed it much. Since then I've come close to booking more lessons, but the thought of flying again fills me with anxiety.
I enjoyed the earlier lessons - when I could turn up, fly some handling exercises with the instructor for an hour and go home. But I'm finding navigation to be extremely stressful, and I'm asking myself whether I really need a stressful hobby when I've already got a stressful enough job. Coupled with this is the fact that this part of the course is time consuming, particularly when you factor in the pre-flight planning.
I'm now questioning what I'll do with my license if/when I get it. Based on current experience, I can't see myself ever wanting to hire a plan for half a day and go cross-country flying, so will probably just end up punching holes in the sky in the circuit to maintain currency.
So I'm wondering whether I should just cut my losses and stop now. But I also have a desire to "finish what I started", even if nothing comes of it afterwards. Grateful for any advice, particularly other people's experience of navigation/cross-country training. Perhaps I just need to stick with it and it'll all come together eventually? Would love to get to the point where I can look out the window and really appreciate what I'm doing, but this feels like a million miles away at the moment.
All the best,
Dan