Great thread, its good to hear different stories, As you all have buckets of experience i wondered if i could grab some opinions.
At 18 years old i chose to join the Royal Navy as a Pilot having achieved ACC at A levels. Sadly after passing militerisation i failed my flight grading. This was a 13 hour couse with an exam at the end where i had to
-Book out
-STTO
-turns acel/decel
-stalls
-spins
-3 piece areo
-2 circuits with glide landing
I could do all of these manouvres by the time my hours were up, however i struggled to put it all in to a smooth routine for the test, i would be forgetting parts of checks or flying at 110kts instead of 100 for example as i was a working to capacity and would make odd mistakes.
Having failed I decided the course was a touch hard and fast and i wasn't a bad pilot, i just needed more hours, so i decided to go it alone, i left the Navy and have just started my PPL at Wycombe with the goal of getting to QFI and later making the jump to airlines.
But life story aside heres where i need some advice. Trying to convince people outside aviation i want to be a pilot when i have just failed a grading makes them stare at me as if im insane. My parents seem subtley upset that i have lost the uniform and think im just flying for the hell of it and am wasting money. Every time i go up im working so hard to get it right i dont get a kick out of it like i think i should, its dam hard work and when i get down im knackered and relieved! The only thing that keeps me going is that as soon as i leave the building i just want to get straight back up there tommorow, and i stop caring about anything else.
In your opinion do you think that sounds like the right motivation to commit myself to this? Has anyone else felt the same way and made it? Or should
I just admit defeat and go to uni like everybody else and get a normal job that pays average and i can just about enjoy?
