When to give up

[mad_bear]

Hi folks

I hope this is the right forum for this sort of question. Apologies if not.

I've recently started learning to fly, probably a bit later in life than most people (40-something). I've read some people's postings about their learning experiences, and I have to say that it's disheartened me a bit -- I'm not making anything like the same kind of progress that most people seem to. I appreciate that I've only flown four hours, but at that stage some people seem to be ready, perhaps with considerable assistance, to attempt takeoffs and landings. I can just about manage to keep the plane in roughly a straight line; anything more seems like a distant dream.

I guess this is partly the result of my age, but the fact that I don't have a lot of skill in the coordination or balance department doesn't help any.

I'm not expecting to be Biggles after a few hours in the air, but at the same time I can't spend an unlimited time learning to fly -- I just don't have the money. I will count it a failure if I spend a great deal of money, and yet never learn to fly well enough even to achieve a PPL. On the other hand, if I pack it in now, well, I've had a good time and I haven't spent a vast sum of money. Naturally my instructors are reassuring, and point out that just about anybody can do it in the end, with sufficient effort. That would be fine if I had a limitless supply of time and money, but I don't.

So my question is this, really: at what point will I be able to determine if my lack of progress is such that becoming competent before backruptcy is unlikely? How long did it take other people to start to feel that they were in control of the plane, and not the other way around? Is there anything one can do on the ground that contributes in any way to better success in the air?

I have no difficulty with the theoretical aspects, or with navigation, or procedures. It just doesn't feel like I will ever be able to master the important stuff -- flying the plane properly.

Any advice gratefully received. Thanks.

[BoeingMEL]

hi mad...

1: Your age should absolutely NOT prevent you from reaching PPL standard within a reasonable period...but your poor co-ordination might.
2: Personally I would have your next couple of hours at a different club or school.... it is just possible that your present instructor is not ideal for your particular needs.
3: Don't give up without a fight......... but IF 2 or more instructors hint or say that you're going to struggle.... keep the remnants of your dignity and £££££££££!

Good Luck anyway, BM

[Lister Noble]

I am 63 and got my licence a few weeks after my birthday this May, I started in August last year.
Took me ages to go solo,ie around 18 hrs but finished PPL in 53 hrs.
Instructors make a hell of a difference,it all depends whether you gel or not,they may be brilliant with other people,you may like them ,but they don't work for you.
As suggested try another instructor or even a different school but don't give up hope yet!
Lister

[mad_bear]

Thanks. As it happens, I have some time booked with a different instructor next week, so I'll see what happens.

But really the problem is that no instructor has even remotely hinted that I won't succeed. I'm just comparing my (unremarkable) progress with that of other student pilots. But I presume that flying schools won't lose a paying customer without a fight, and it's not in their interests to be other than encouraging.

I guess the question I need to answer is impossible to answer: how much is it going to cost me to get to test-passing standard? I decided, on no very exact grounds, that I was prepared to spend 6,000 pounds on training and the equipment that goes with it. But I'm a reasonably successful, middle-aged family man, with absolutely nothing to prove, and I can easily find fun things to do with the 5,500 currently left in the kitty. I wouldn't want to spend all my money, and still not be anywhere in sight of completing the training.

What I'm wondering is if there's some way to predict how long it will take to succeed, based on a measure of progress over the first ten hours or so?

[dublinpilot]

I have to agree. Your age should not be a problem at all.

I too think it may be more of an instructor issue. Some instructors are the nicest people in the world, but aren't very good at getting the necessary information across to their students.

I had a number of instructors in my training. Looking back I think I was very lucky that my principal instructor was excellent at getting the required info across to me, in a way that I easily understood.

I had a number of other instructors, that I didn't learn anything from. My PPL could have taken a very long time if it was done mainly with one of them. Some of these instructors were the nicest of people, and some of the other students really liked their methods......but they just didn't teach in a way that I learnt.

Try a different instructor/school. Much better than giving up. There is no reason why you shouldn't be able to attain a PPL.

dp

[dublinpilot]

Looking at the costs, and saying I have £6,000 to spend on training is the wrong way of looking at it in my view.

When you get your licence the bills don't stop.....they continue on as before.

A much better way of looking at it, is saying how much am I willing to spend on flying each year. If you can't afford (or don't want to spend) to continue flying regularly after you get your PPL, then I don't see the point in getting the licence.

Set aside in your own mind, how much you are willing to spend each year.....then it becomes a matter not of how much will it cost me to get the licence, but more a question of when will I be able to forget about bringing an instructor, and be able to go by myself wherever I want.

dp

[vulcanpilot]

You've done 4 hours. You really cannot make a judgement that you CANNOT fly after 4 hours. How long did it take you to learn to drive? I seem to recall at 17 I had stacks of lessons.

My philosophy was that after a few trial lessons, I really ENJOYED the experience so I was going to give it a go. I was VERY daunted by the theory (initially) and scared myself to death reading lots of the books and stuff.

After a good few lessons whereby I was handling the aircraft, I began to calm down and feel more comfortable - but I had real problems landing - never consistent - sometimes driving into the runway, sometimes (mostly) flaring much too high. Then one day it just clicked - and its a bit like riding a bike - it will stay with you.

Try not to worry too much about the end result now, unless you are really doing the course on a very tight budget - I didn't complete in the (then) 40 hours as I had decided to stretch the whole thing out and enjoy the learning experience. Some of the 'johnny's' at the club wanted to finish in a week and actually ended up as not so good/safe pilots (IMHO).

In my day (not that long ago), solo was expected at about 10 to 15 hours of dual. Perhaps you need to have a good chat with your instructor (you do only have one instructor & you have hit it off, haven't you?) and tell him your worries. And get a full debrief after each lesson. Then when approaching 10 hours or so, get him to evaluate where you are towards going solo and compared to the average for the club.

I would also urge you to insist on 1-2-1 instruction with the same instructor. Chopping and changing instructors doesn't help as they will each want to revisit what the other has done with you. 2 steps forward, 1 back etc...

Keep at it. If you REALLY want to fly, then you will be able to.

Good luck.

Mark.

[Whirlybird]

Oh, for goodness sake!!!!! And I was going to say something far, far stronger! You have FOUR hours!!!!! That is absolutely nothing!!!!!! I couldn't fly straight and level at four hours. Neither can lots of people. I was about your age, yes, but age has bugger all to do with it, really. People learn at different rates, that's all.

Now, as an instructor - on helicopters, but I started with fixed-wing - if one of my students asked me after they'd done four hours flying how long it would take them to get a PPL, I wouldn't have a clue. What do you think we instructors are, psychic or something? We know that different people learn at amazingly different rates. We know that some people start quickly, and then get stuck later on, and vice-versa. We know it doesn't really matter, and that practically anyone can learn to fly, if they really want to. A huge amount of crap gets discussed on PPRuNe about hours, and hours to solo, and who's doing what at what stage, and I'm a better pilot than you cos I soloed in ten minutes and so on. Most people who can land after four hours are being helped, believe me. It's dead easy to give the controls a little tweak here and there, to give some young lad confidence and make him feel good. Maybe your instructors thought at your age you had more sense and they didn't need to fool you - ever thought of that? Or there was the lad at the flying school today, telling everyone he was in the circuit after four hours; of course he was; with a 600 ft cloudbase we could only do circuits or hover. But it wasn't proving anything except that the weather was crap and he had an instructor with imagination.

However, I agree with dublinpilot - if you only have £6000 to spend on flying, ever, pack it in now. What's the point of getting a PPL and not being able to fly afterwards? What are you doing now? Flying. What will you do when you have your PPL? Fly. There is little difference.

So stop comparing yourself with others, and fly if you want to and can afford to, and stop if you don't.

Oh, and if you really want to know, it took me well over 40 hours to go solo on fixed-wing, and there are people on PPRune who took longer than that. We just tend not to advertise the fact, that's all. Maybe we should, to redress the balance. And you know what? A year or two later, when you're off on your first continental flying trip or whatever, it'll be of no importance whatsoever.

[mad_bear]

Originally Posted by Whirlybird

However, I agree with dublinpilot - if you only have £6000 to spend on flying, ever, pack it in now. What's the point of getting a PPLand not being able to fly afterwards? What are you doing now? Flying. What will you do when you have your PPL? Fly. There is little difference.

So stop comparing yourself with others, and fly if you want to and can afford to, and stop if you don't.

Thank you for the advice, which I appreciate, although it isn't what I wanted to hear

The plain fact is that I want to, but can't really afford to. I'm flying now because I realize that, although I can barely afford to, I'll never be more able to afford to than I currently am. I'm flying because I always wanted to fly, because my earliest memories are of wanting to fly, not because I can afford to do it on a long-term basis. Of course, if I win the Lottery or (hah!) get a big pay rise, that may change.

You're right, of course, in that if I can't afford to fly long-term, it makes little difference whether I can get a PPL or not before the money I can justify spending on this runs out.

As an aside, it was the introduction of the NPPL licence scheme that set me off thinking that flying might be something I could just about afford. If one can get and maintain a licence in 32 hours or so training plus six hours a year, that is something that even I could afford. But I now know that virtually nobody could learn to fly competently in 32 hours; and I suspect that one couldn't maintain competence in six hours a year. So why are these hours stipulated??

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Originally Posted by mad_bear

But really the problem is that no instructor has even remotely hinted that I won't succeed.

After four hours??

(In my case an instructor did start to worry that it was taking him too long to teach me the last few seconds of the landing, but I reassured him that I'd expected that, being sufficiently lacking in stuff like hand-eye coordination that I wasn't any good at ball games and so on. But that was at lots more than four hours and I got there in the end.)

[tiggermoth]

Good luck in your flight training. Keep at it.

It's a good thing that you may feel dissapointed with your progress at times, becasue it will make to want to learn even more. Don't get disheartened. You'll have plenty of good days and bad days.

Don't worry what the other student pilots are up to. Who cares if they go solo after 10 hours? If it takes you 20 hours to go solo, then so be it. The feeling that you've really worked for it will make it the more rewarding!

Happy landings,
Tiggermoth

[fox golf]

Have you considered learning on motor gliders?
You can get a NPPL for about £3,500 that way (about 55 hours).
Then you can simply do a type conversion to group A if you want to.
Forget doing it in 35 hours - you won't get a NPPL licence in any less time than a PPL licence but you can do it in cheap stuff like motor gliders.
Hinton in the hedges is fairly cheap, if you can get there.

[bencoulthard]

I have about 8 hours and I still wander in straighish and levelish.

How many driving lessons did you have? I bet you didn't think about how bad you were 10% of the way through those, you just thought book another lesson and get the test done.

Don't worry about it too much, just enjoy it for what it is, and don't compare yourself to others, some start slow and figure it out in the end, others start fast and never make it.
The likes of me and you start slow and stay slow

[Final 3 Greens]

Mad Bear

You are absolutely right to think the way you do and brave too.

It is too early to worry yet, but if you are still not happy in another 5/6 hours, perhaps you could consider always flying with an instructor and not gaining your PPL.

That way, you could still enjoy flying.

Whichever way it works out, good luck.

[Mike Cross]

Think back to when you were learning to drive.

You could steer or you could change gear, but not both at the same time. Learning to fly is a bit like that. Eventually it will click.

Don't pay a whole lot of attention to those who tell you that the expense is the same after you have your license - it isn't. For a start you don't have to pay for an Instructor to be up with you. Secondly you don't have to fly from a licensed aerodrome in an aircraft maintained to Public Tranport standards. Lots of people do, but it's certainly not mandatory. You don't even have to learn in that environment, you could get a PPL(M) flying from an unlicensed field on a Permit aircraft.

On the other hand, if you're not enjoying the experience don't let your pride get in the way of calling it a day. Do it because you enjoy it, not because you are trying to prove something.

Mike

[J.A.F.O.]

We're supposed to do straight lines?

If you enjoy flying then fly; who cares if it's solo, dual, licensed, SEP, microlight, powered glider thingies?

If you don't enjoy it then that's easy.

Oh, and always, always take Whirly's advice.

[Humaround]

If money is tight, gaining a PPL is not the only way to fly. Gliding is much cheaper in the learning stages, but rather time-consuming. You could do a gliding course for a few hundred pounds, and fly solo at the end of it.

The most expensive flying I did was gaining the PPL. i spent around £6,500 in 18 months. Since then, I have been flying about 75 hours a year for a total cost of about £2,500 a year, with a share in a PFA type, from a farm strip. It's a total blast. I have friends who spend considerably more on their golf and sailing habits.

Oh, and I was 53 when I got the PPL.

If you really want to fly, you will find a way to do it.

Good luck.

[Cusco]

Hang on in there:

I started to learn to fly age 48 with a view to getting my licence by age 50.

I had a sh*te first ten hours, but then it all seemed to come together aided I'm sure by having the same instructor for about 85% of my training (thanks Will)

I (thanks to a particularly mild English winter) got the licence in six months Oct-March.

That was 13 years ago and it just goes on getting better: I'm now retired and can fly all hours God sends instead of being at the mercy of weekends and on-call rotas.

Like everyone else has said four hours ain't nuffink: start to get worried when after 40 hours you're still not doing the take-off.

(only joking)

Safe flying

Cusco

[Genghis the Engineer]

I agree with everything said, above, but thought I'd put my own slant on it.

I've flown more different types of flying machines than most - and every single one was great fun. Microlights, gliders, motorgliders, light aeroplanes, fighters, helicopters - loved them all. But the cost isn't constant, so stick within your means. If you can get twice the flying by going for something cheaper, forget the snob value and do it: particularly if your budget is limited.

Secondly, you are going for hobby flying. I have two hobbies: flying and Jiu Jitsu, both of which I'm reputed to have some skill at. Both of them I enjoyed learning, the latter I teach (and the former people seem to regularly come to me for advice for some strange reason, although I'm not formally an instructor). Yet both, I regularly go and spend time with teachers of all sorts, learning more, improving myself, developing skills. Learning is FUN, as well as regularly frustrating - it also never stops until you do. So, my advice would be not to get hung up on a specific objective - treat learning to fly as your hobby, budget to do it at a rate and in an environment that you can manage, and have FUN.

Do it that way, and you'll probably learn faster anyway - as well as enjoying yourself more. When you get to a licence (of whatever form) you'll be less supervised, but still having fun, and still learning.


Incidentally, I've been flying for 17 years, and practicing Jiu Jitsu for 18 - and have firmly reached the conclusion that I'll never master either. This worries me - because it means that my time to practice both is limited and I wish it wasn't. But not that much.

G

Edited to say, I have a student at the moment - in my Jiu Jitsu club. He is a yellow belt, agonising over the fact that his inability to perform a particular technique (forward rolling Ukemi for those in the know) is stopping him making orange belt - sounding not entirely unlike mad_bear!. In the meantime, he's one of my best students - everything else he's doing is developing brilliantly, and by the time he's cracked that he'll probably leapfrog orange and make green belt! Anybody see anything wrong with that? I don't, he's just an individual, and thus on an individual learning curve.

[JackOffallTrades]

Mad Bear,

Don't worry, I spent the first 4 hours just trying to find a way in to the cockpit.

Good luck sir.