Newbie - A couple of questions (PPL, Safety)

[vabsie]

Hello ALL!

I hope you are all well! This seems like a great forum for posting a couple of questions ...

I haven't signed up for my PPL (yet) but am considering it very strongly. My girlfriend bought me a trial lesson for my birthday which I really enjoyed this Saturday .. it was a gorgeous sunny day!

I have always been very interested in planes (flying) although my experience stops at flying remote controlled planes - eek :suspect: so this was quite a day out for me - went up in a little 152 Cessna which was cozy but great fun!

I thought the instructor was fantastic ... but here are some of my questions/thoughts before I take that big leap of doing my PPL.


Is it safe? I'm not asking this because I think every 10th flight ends up in some sort of a disaster, and I appreciate that a lot depends on your own judgment and of course being sensible. The plane I flew in this weekend was pretty old looking, most trainer planes at the field were. I know that old looking doesn't mean that they are not safe, but I guess my question is are they? I appreciate these planes need to go through all kinds of maintenance etc. Are many of the issues/accidents perhaps due to pilots becoming "too"/overly confident or often technical? I also understand that as part of training several slightly risky tests need to be performed like a wing-stall .. are these safe?
Is it mostly the "riches" that can afford it, keep it up? I'm aware that it's going to cost a bit of cash .. so far it seems like: £6000 for the complete PPL (excluding exams), + if I manage to save up for a while I could perhaps look at buying a 152 or Tomahawk worth say £12000? I take it that maintenance and storage would be quite a bit too? I guess I'm trying to say that I by no means earn a fortune .. but still keen to take this up as a hobby if it's not going to break the bank. Relative to what you earn I know.
This is still a long way off but could someone who has their own plane (or not) perhaps give me a rough idea how much a typical journey to say France and Back might cost (fuel, landing fees, storage etc) .. and lastly is it common to go abroad in these smaller planes or do you guys in general fly in the UK?As you can probably tell my main concerns are around safety .. as lets face it this weekend was the first time for me in a small plane ... and it was quite high :} ... and also cost etc.

Any questions answered would be fantastic thanks in advance ..!

Off to WHSmiths lunchtime to buy a private pilot mag.

S

[foxmoth]

Hi, welcome to the world of Aviation.
To answer your questions:-
1. Is it safe? I would say yes, modern aircraft (You will find many pilots object to the use of "plane", which is a woodworking tool -aircraft or aeroplane are best)are generally very reliable, even the older ones, for school use they have to be maintained by a proper engineering setup to a laid down maintenance schedule. As far as accidents from pilots becoming overconfident go, yes that can be a problem and is probably the cause of most accidents in light aircraft, the answer to this is to make sure you are aware of this and avoid going that route!
2. Cost. - Flying is not a cheap hobby, but if you search these forums on group flying then you will find you can actually fly relatively cheaply, for example I am in a group of 5 flying a 2 seater (http://forums.flyer.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=23812), this cost about £3,000 for the share and we then pay £85/month & £6 + fuel (we can use motor fuel so about another £21) an hour so 5 hours flying a month costs us £220 - about £45/hour and the more we fly the cheaper it gets. There are groups with up to 20 members in and then the share costs and monthly rates are even lower.
3. This depends on how you do it.
In a club aircraft you would probably pay about £120/hour, depending on where you fly from you could be in France in an hour, so a day trip will be £250ish plus landing fees which range from free to hundreds of pounds (though that is only into major airports), if you said £15-20 for landing and parking at each airport you go to then that would probably be reasonable. so a trip to France would total about £300 and if you want to go further it will be about another £120/hour flying costs.
If I were to do the same trip in my aircraft it would cost me about £30/hour flying (not including the group monthly fee as I pay that anyway and it would also be spread for any other flying I do), plus landing and parking. My trip to France would cost me a total of under £100 and if I wanted to fly further it would just be an extra £30/hour or so.
Another advantage is that I can take my aircraft away with no problem whearas a club aircraft it can be harder to do this and you may have to pay a minimum amount of flying (can be up to 4 hours at weekends):ok:

[Windy Militant]

According to ROSPA (I think) Flying Little Aeroplanes is slightly more risky than driving a car but safer that riding a horse or motorbike.
However as with most endeavours it is the attitude that you approach it with is the major factor that affects how safe it is.
With regards to stalling and spiral dives, there is a slightly higher risk attached to them than straight and level flight. However the risk of not being able to recognise and the ability to take corrective action would be far more dangerous. Most people find these exercises to be quite fun once the initial trepidation wears off and if they were that dangerous do you think the instructors would do them on a regular basis. :}

If you're an aeromodeler then you might feel at home around this type of flying

Light Aircraft Association (http://www.laa.uk.com/)

Just bigger bits in the Kits! :ok:

[vabsie]

thanks for the information so far Windy Militant & foxmoth ... much appreciated!

i live not too far from stapleford airfield which I can see myself visiting a few more times in the weeks to come to ask more questions etc and probably bore the experienced pilots!

S

[foxmoth]

Sorry I missed the bit about stalling etc. These exercises are quite safe, its a bit like skidding a car - a skid is dangerous when you do not know how to deal with it, if you go to a skid pan you can learn how to avoid a skid and how to deal with it if you get into one. with flying we look at the dangerous manoeuvre's at height where it is safe and learn how to avoid them low down where they are dangerous.:}

[vabsie]

thanks foxmoth ..

got my "pilot" mag just now and having a bit of a read. i'm initially from south africa and some people advised me to do the PPL Course there as it's a bit cheaper, trouble is i would have to take about 2 to 3 months off to do it full time and work doesn't really allow for that at the moment, and i will probably have to do an Air Law conversion in order to fly in the uk if i get my license from sa. would love to get my license asap tho and it is going to be a bit frustrating having to do 45hours (probably more) in weekends. Perhaps i can get a week off here and there to crunch some more flying hours in too. thinking out load :)

cheers for all the advice so far.

s

[Crash one]

Usual advice, Don't pay huge amounts up front , flying schools do go bust sometimes, Book quite a few hrs well in advance, the weather takes it's share.
Welcome to the land of the impoverished & good luck, you will enjoy it.

[vabsie]

Noted thanks Crash One ... should your username put me off? :)

[Crash one]

The Crash one bit refers to those big red things that, thankfully, are not used very often at airfields.
Hopefully you won't need one either!!

[PompeyPaul]

Flying is excellent, great fun. It's challenging and character building.

In terms of safety, there is a risk in what you are doing. I feel more vulnerable on my motorbike through rush hour traffic though, than I do in the air.

To be clear though, and it's something I think that catches some people out, there are some times when you will be scared doing this. It's unlikely any harm will come to you, but it's just the nature of the beast, and at some point it's going to happen.

[buckels27]

Vabsie, I would also try other schools before deciding on where to train. They are all different. Also try out different instructors. If you are near Stapleford, I would also try Andrewsfield. Great club atmosphere, much smaller than Stapleford and somewhat cheaper too. It's all a matter of taste but it's good to be aware of the choices that are out there.

[vabsie]

Thanks buckels27 I will look into Andrewsfield!

PompeyPaul - thanks also for your advice .. I can imagine that there will be some scary times ahead. The Instructor who took me on the trial flight asked me if i wanted to feel some G-Force, which I believe was a quick pull back on the controls (wheel) followed by a push in to go down a fair bit and quickly .. that in itself was scary ..

will keep you all posted anyway :)

[BackPacker]

i'm initially from south africa and some people advised me to do the PPL Course there as it's a bit cheaper, trouble is i would have to take about 2 to 3 months off to do it full time and work doesn't really allow for that at the moment, and i will probably have to do an Air Law conversion in order to fly in the uk if i get my license from sa. would love to get my license asap tho and it is going to be a bit frustrating having to do 45hours (probably more) in weekends. Perhaps i can get a week off here and there to crunch some more flying hours in too. thinking out load


Did my PPL in Florida. 22 days from start to finish, and a lot cheaper than over here. If you pick the correct school you end up with a CAA-issued JAA PPL, no conversion whatsoever needed. See here:

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=278995

As far as safety is concerned, all aircraft used in flight training are checked every 50 hours by a licensed (and therefore hopefully competent) engineer. Spontaneous defects in the airframe or engine leading to serious accidents are very rare. What's more common is pilot error, such as fuel mismanagement, Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT) - which happens usually in bad visibility situations, and landing mishaps.

Furthermore, aviation is very safety conscious. You won't find much of a "macho" attitude that does surround other high-octane hobbies in aviation. Even on PPRuNe, people will regularly post their own bad experiences and have them analysed by others for what went wrong and how to prevent them next time. It's a cliche, but "Learn from the mistakes of others; you don't have time to make them all yourself."

Your PPL will prepare you mostly for straight-and-level flight (with turns and descends/climbs as appropriate) and will explore some handling at the edge of the flight envelope (stalls, steep turns). You will also receive a little bit of training in flying in low visibility conditions, to the point where you should be able to fly out of them. But your PPL should be considered a license to learn, and there are two obvious ways of continuing flying training after gaining your license: aerobatics (or at least an introduction to it) and an IMC rating (which is unfortunately a UK-only thing). Both will make your flying much safer.

If you're worried about finances, then you can consider doing an NPPL on Microlights, or other forms of flying that are considerably less expensive than a full PPL: Gliding for instance. Bear in mind that once you've got that PPL, you have to keep it current too. Legally to remain current without having to do exams all over again you need to have 12 flight hours, one of which is with an instructor, every two years. That's the bare legal minimum but you'll find that if you don't do 12 hours each year you'll get rusty very quickly. Plus, a lot of clubs have currency rules that require you to fly at least every 28 days or so, otherwise they want you to be checked out again with an instructor. So after you've gotten your PPL, if you can't spend at least something like 1500-2000 UKP each year on this hobby, don't even start. (That number is significantly lower if you go for an NPPL on microlights though.)

[vabsie]

Thanks for the information BackPacker - I actually had a good read through your article last night and was very impressed.

I need to think about this carefully - about how much time i can take off work etc, and of course the time it will take to obtain the required paperwork (visa) .. as Florida might be in Hurricane Season by the time I get everything sorted.

Thanks again,

S

[kms901]

Vabsie, go for it. If you are concerned about safety you will be safe.
And the aeromodelling means you must already know a bit about principles of flight and effects of controls,plus the names of all the bits of the aeroplane.

[vabsie]

thanks kms901 ..!

[Contacttower]

From the general handling point of view, real aircraft are a lot easier to fly than models.