So its gunna take at least a couple of weeks! Im off to New York with the girlfriend on the 14th of May and wanted to have it before then but maybe it will arrive for when I get home????
Its totally a bummer that I cant take people up and im getting the family etc askin when and why I cant take them flying yet
Its still sinking in what I have acheived since my first flight was in August and how people do these courses in 21 dys or somthing I really dont know because I learn so much over a period of time and spenting and getting involved with the flying club. People think its just a course and when I went to the club the first day and was given all the information I honestly thought, im smart, very technical minded, I understand all the aircraft general parts because id been in to planes etc for a while with model aircraft because Ive got a plane and helecopter so I knew a lot of the foundations. Only a month into it I realised how hard I was going to have to work. Im not sure how others feel about it but me personally I had to really work hard and give a lot of time to passing all my exams. The flying side of it really wasnt a problem I did really well. I felt like I was back at school and I studied harder and worked hard than I ever did at school and sixth form! I also struggled with the RT the whole way and I did the RT oral exam the day before the skills test and I came out of there sweating and brain overload and paper with so many notes. I think it was more difficalt because it was all names and places ive never heard of and maybe thats just an excuse
Out of all the exams I found Nav, Met, and Flight planning difficalt and of course the RT Oral
So the skills test, well to be honest I found it really relaxing and I was really confident. The Examiner is the owner of my local flying club so we had met on a few occasions so it wasnt like I was gettin into a plane on just meeting him. We took off on a sort of misty morning and traveled down near southend, then up to Thurock with a diversion to southend which I had all the wind etc planned so all I did was draw the line and work out the Track T then add the wind that I had drawn on my chart and I was off. We did a couple of PFL out in the country and stalling and steap turns etc and then headed back to Manston for some circuits and did some differnet approach's and bad weather approach's and then a PFL to finish with and I had to swing the plane right round and about 400ft to the runway and we had a X Wind and I landed it wing down and greased it on the runway. The Examiner said "You can definatly land an Aircraft" and he was definalty impressed with my landings and flying in general. I really did well on the test which I was really happy about considering all the aircraft ill be flying belong to him
A good tip off the subject to people doing there PPL is to do the instrument and radio nav in say a warrior if your doing your PPL in a Cessna or something because when you get your licence you will already checked out in the 4 seater so you dont need to spend three hours or so doing a change over learning the differnet switches and landing techneques etc etc and save urself some money!
Any way, glad its all done now and cant wait to get my licence back. In the mean time im learning some aerobatics so im checked out for it when my licence arrives. Ill have so much to do when it arrives
TFK, heard you did some fanstops the other day and did quite well considering you hadnt practiced them before. Im Bobs first PPL student to pass
Best of luck with everyone on the way to there PPL, the day does come EVENTUALLY