Flight Training Mans + David Clark H10 13-4 + Extras ** Cheap

[Android]

As a result of my lack of progress, the unpredictability of the UK weather, and being unable to devote the time necessary to complete the course, I have given up on my ambition of learning to fly. Well at least I had a go, but realise I should have commenced my training when I was much younger.

However this does give someone the opportunity to purchase a complete training kit, together with a number of extras you would not get if you were to buy it from one of the mail order companies and at not a lot more than Half Price.
Please go to www.lewton.co.uk (http://www.lewton.co.uk) for full details and photos
:)

Please note that advertising items for sale on PPRuNe is not permitted without permission from PPRuNe HQ. Usually I would just delete this thread and warn the poster - however this thread has taken an interesting turn and so I'll leave it alone for now. Anyone else offering items for sale will have action taken against them.
---PPRuNe Dispatcher

[ 01 November 2001: Message edited by: PPRuNe Dispatcher ]

[FNG]

Android, sorry to hear that you have decided not to continue with the PPL. You have doubtless thought long and hard about your decision , so it may be pointless to try to persuade you otherwise. All I can say is that I did it when I had become too old and stupid, got royally fugged about by the weather, found the learning process hard and slow going, but got there in the end. It took me 11 months, loadsa hours, and loadsa cash, but I regret it not.

[Who has control?]

I'm with FNG on this one. I started in August a few years back, soloed at Xmas, stopped in March, recommenced in September and finally achieved my PPL the folowing May. So it took nearly two years. But it was worth every hour and every penny. Remember, its better to make mistakes with an instructor than when you are solo, as you learn from your mistakes. The worst bit:- looking out of the window right now at the clear blue sky and wishing I was up there loking down rather than down here looking up.

[Vfrpilotpb]

Android,

Age, is something that most people worry about, but is only in your mind, your situation, is much like most others who are trying to fly for pleasure in this rank bad weather that we always seem to have at Playtime, unless you have burnt your bridges think about it, Flying is one of the greatest freedoms you can get, there is nothing to beat it, well almost nothing!! if you've lost the yern, well I feel sorry for you, but dont let age be any barrier, it just takes longer!!
My Regards for your future, whatever you decide!

[Cusco]

Android

You have clearly taken your decision and I'm not about to dissuade you.

You mention age: I've no idea how old you are and clearly the older you get the more difficult it becomes to soak up in a reasonable time frame the masses of gen needed to learn to fly.

I as a teenager seriously wanted to fly for a living (even got an offer from HMG) but it didn't turn out that way).

I spent the next 30 years in an OK ocupation, looking longingly skywards every time an aeroplane flew over head.

It wasn't until over 30 years later when my son got his PPL aged 17 courtesy of HMG flying scholarship and a few extra bob from his dad that my interest was awakened and I realised I had to go for it.

I enrolled and finally got my PPL on my 48th birthday.

It took me time staggering through the sh*t weather of winter UK flying, but this was 8 years ago, and although I still fly pathetically few hours per year, the relaxation (of a sort) I get after the day job, of a summers evening just can't be put into words.

I 've just realised that I'm kind of trying to make you think again, which I have no right to do: you know your abilities, and have made your decision. Sorry

Cusco.

[Android]

Firstly I must apologise to the organisers of this board, as I understand advertising is not allowed without prior authorisation. When I was doing my training a year or so ago I remember seeing ads. for items such as I am advertising and therefore did not know it was not allowed.
The organisers have decided to let the post stay for the while because of the replies you have made.

To say your messages of encouragement overwhelm me is an understatement, and had I placed this ad. immediately I stopped flying a year ago I think I may well have changed my mind and continued flying.
I believe my age (on my way to 53 years of age) is perhaps the biggest factor in my decision, and perhaps also I expected too much from myself. Having run my own business for many years, and being used to answering question and decision-making, was almost a self-conscious process.
Compare that to learning to fly when even the most simple of tasks (ground handling for instance using your feet) required a great deal of concentration whilst I “unlearnt” 35 years of driving.
Once again many thanks for those people who have taken the trouble to reply, thanks to the organisers for letting the post appear, and maybe if others want to add their experiences of learning to fly in later life it may give the boost to others in similar situation to myself who are not quite so far down the decision making road.
:) :o

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

Thanks to PPRuNe for letting this thread stand.

Android has made his descision, but there may be others who are thinking along the same lines, and I'd like to encorage them to 'hang in there'.

I started my PPL when I was 29, and qualified at 30. I thought then I had left it too late (!). And when I'd done it, I wondered if I really wanted to continue. But the amazing thing about flying is - the more you do of it, the more you want to do it. I'm now 51 and enjoying flying more than ever. It still amazes me that despite increasing bureaucracy in all our lives, a PPL can climb into a Chippy or Yak or whatever, and fly it from somewhere like Barton, down through the Manchester Zone (via the LLR), out over Shropshire, down into Herefordshire - almost anywhere really, do some aeros on the way (farms above, villages rotating around a wingtip), and land at a remote farm strip. All without even using a radio if you don't want to.

Most non-flyers are amazed when I tell them that in crowded, controlled, CCTV'd Britain in 2001 an ordinary joe like me can do this. And so can you! There are few areas of modern lfe where you
can still enjoy that sort of personal freedom. Of course, there are responsibilities that go with it - staying out of controlled airspace, keeping a good lookout, not aerobatting over built up areas etc but these are not a problem.

To the ageing PPL wondering if even taxying will ever be fully mastered all this may seem remote. It's not! It may all take longer than it would have done at 20, but if you have even the slightest ability and you want to do it and you stick at it you will be there before you know it.

It's worth a lot of sacrifice and slog. Stick at it if you can - it really is the promised land ;~)

SSD

[ 02 November 2001: Message edited by: Shaggy Sheep Driver ]

[Chilli Monster]

Android

The effects of age are a myth!

I learnt to fly at 34, the same age as getting my ATC Tower licence. I got my Approach and Radar ratings at 39, at what most people thought was way too old. I've just started radar training at a airfield not a million miles from you (the northerly one of the two ;)) and after the first two days of sheer terror dealing with the intensity I spent 4 hours on radar today with a huge grin on my face :)

Enthusiasm can beat age EVERY time :)

CM

[DOC.400]

Android -you should have spoken to us all sooner!

I know plenty of Ancien Aviator at my club, some still learning at your young age!!

I took 2 years to get my PPL, (age 32-34) including a 9 month sabbatical coz I ran out of dosh, and celebrated ten years of flying, since my wife bought my trial lesson, this April.

To quote Sir Norman Foster (architect)on flying: "No matter how many times you do it, there is still a sense of absolute wonderment"

I'm always sorry to hear if somebody gives up.

PS Can I have the DC's?

[TAF Oscar]

I got my PPL for my 40th birthday, one of those life milestone things, go and do something you always wanted to, realise an ambition.

I suspect it's not your age that's the problem. You've already alluded to it in your post: by now I am also used to making decisions, taking responsibility and being in charge of large teams. Even on management or technical training courses that I attend, there is respect from the other attendees for who I am and what I do, and I am far from being a complete novice. How long is it since we were complete novices at anything?

Compare this with learning to fly. It is very difficult to sit in an aircraft for the first time, thinking you know quite a bit about aviation (it's been a hobby for so long), and then realise you can't even steer the thing on the ground. The instructor will be some baby-faced, just out of nappies pre-teen with thousands of flying hours, who may be a little impatient that this old fart (he's used to training bright-as-a-button 17 year olds) seems to take weeks to get the hang of the basics, will he ever get far enough to fly by himself? And how does it reflect on him that you're taking ages? At this age I sometimes felt embarrassed at how long it took me to master these basic skills, and as for remembering all the information, well... truly back to being a novice, for the first time in years.

But that's also part of the attraction, it's a challenge, and let me tell you that the rewards are worth it. Keep going. Do it for yourself, don't worry about what that spotty oik in the right hand seat thinks of you as a person (and anyway, he probably doesn't think any of the things you are feeling: you're most likely not as slow to learn as you think, you're just so used to picking up things quickly). In the end, you'll be able to fly off on your own, into the clear blue yonder, leaving all those earth-bound cares behind. Fantastic. I still feel SO privileged to be one of the ranks of aviators, that I (another ordinary Joe) am allowed to do this, which very few of your colleagues can. It is indeed worth every penny and every hour and every cringe-making cockup.

Stick with it, you are not alone.

TAFO

[18greens]

In the same way you can never be considered an ex smoker I think you can never be considered an ex flyer.

Flying is hard and I've tried to give up plenty times. But after a couple of weeks away the itch comes back and it just has to be scratched.

It took me a year of weather to get the PPL and I'm very glad I stuck it out. One flight in a beautiful summers evening or a crisp cold day is usually enough to compensate for a years worth of weather, technical faults, instructor and flying school issues.

Your situation might change in the future, it might get easier and do you want to have to buy the equipment all over again?

Whatever your decision good luck and as you point out you have got further than a lot of other people.