I am learning at East Mids Flying school on a Warrior ('cos I'm too heavy at 15 stone for the 152?!). I chose EMA as much as anything, BECAUSE of it's commercial traffic - it's good to be flying amongst it, in my view, from day one, as is flying in/around controlled airspace.

The ATC are of course of the highest calibre and they do not seem to treat GA as an imposition, always trying to assist in any way they can. Of course, we have to defer to the Easyjets/Ryanairs et al, but realistically it is not a problem except perhaps early or late on if you are trying to do circuits, when the commercial boys are mostly coming or going. Where else can you take off behind a giant Antanov that regularly leaves with RR engines for Toulouse, or hold for a landing EVA 747 (it makes you think very carefully about wake turbulance!!)

Of course there are times when orbiting can be a bit of a pain (like on my recent first solo), but I look on it all as good experience,

They are a good bunch of instructors at E. Mid School, and I would recommend it thoroughly.

By the way, allowing for taxi and ATC, a 60 minute lesson normally means about 45 minutes in the air.

Good luck,

Mike n

Well, just had the lesson today although the weather wasn't too nice. Turned up to the airport 50 mins early so spend some time in the aviation shop in the terminal (a good place!) and had a lift from the school.
Prebriefed, checked the aircraft and took off, didn't wait for any traffic on the ground. The instructor introduced the basics to me and had control for quite a while (turned, climbed, increased throttle etc). It was really fun and I enjoyed it. It lasted 1hr and 1 min, very good timing from the instructor!
The school is nice and people are nice as well!
Now need to think how i fund my training:{
Mike, it was nice to talk to you! The world is small! Hope you will get your PPL soon, and more pleasant solos.
Thanks everyone for your support!

From an instructor point of view...

Monday 4.00pm -

Instructor's Boss:"Ben, you have a student tomorrow who will be posting on pprune on how his trial lesson goes. He has booked in with you at 3.00pm. Come read his posts..."

"Erm, thanks "Instructor's Boss" no pressure then?"

Tuesday: Instructor (after a sleepless night) first circuit session with a student and three other flights meets Daniel....

Instructor: "Daniel, we have a few rain showers in the vicinity, might have to delay departure for a few minutes."

Daniel: "Ok"

Pre-flight briefing goes well, aircraft check goes well, Instructor books out the flight, answers all questions and taxies out.

O.K. so no pressure on the instructor then - knowing that Daniel is going to post his experience here...

Daniel gets airborne, instructor takes over to steer through rain showers then hands back control.

In a 1 hour trial lesson Daniel experienced the following exercises:

4(i), 4(ii), 6, 7, 8, 9, 12 (he got us airborne), 13, 10A (slow flight), 15 (steep turns).

And what gets mentioned on pprune?

I over-ran by 1 minute. (Thanks Daniel my Boss reads this!)


Daniel, you flew well and I am glad you enjoyed it and it was a pleasure to fly with you.


regards

Ben
(Your Instructor)

Haha the world is small isn't it? I though you called Martin...well Ben, it was a wonderful flight, thanks for that!, and i didnt think the landing was bad, so didn't mention it:p
So your boss is the CFI who gave me a lift to terminal after the lesson today?

Daniel - PPrune is meant to be anonymous:)

Looks like I will need a new username, now Mike (aka ChequeredFlag) also knows who I am in the real world...

I will allow my boss to remain anonymous but he didnt give you the lift.

New user name...
 

..."CharltonHeston" perhaps???

I am too short and too fat to even attempt that Mike...

Keep pulling back in the hold off and HWMBO will be happy!

Benhurr,

Don't YOU start as well.....!!

Well we instructor's do tend to stick together...!

Amd for what it is worth I had exactly the same problem when I did my PPL too.

The thing is Benhurr, when I did my solo, my landing was supreme - it was so smooth, I did not even realise I was down!! (no, really, honestly), but HWMBO will not believe me!!

We all have a landing like that during our flying.

Unfortunately it tends to be just the one!!:)

My first solo landing was exactly like that too! :)

TPK:ok:

Landings like that are always when you're on your own, and nobody is watching. :{

Hey I did one like that the other day with another PPruner sat next to me.

Wyvern just turned to me as we rolled out and said "that was a fluke wasn't it".

"Yep".

:O

G

What's going on.....?
 

Fresh from my elation at my first solo success, I was looking to build on that and progress......it seems it's not going that way!!

After two weeks of delays due to bad weather, I finally got back into the circuits on Tuesday (with the instructor, the winds being too high for any solo consolidation). What happened?? Well, after my brilliant solo landing, I regressed into my old habits, and of four landings, one was acceptable, the other three were crap!!! I was tired after a hectic long weekend overseas, but that's the only excuse I can find at present. All was well with the other aspects (practice shortfield/3 stage of flap, flapless and turning onto a very tight final etc), but the landings..........!!!!

To cap it all, I have today managed to fail my metereology exam (70%) today, after making three very basic errors on three relatively easy questions. All the ones I considered the most difficult, I got right!!

Very frustrated!! (I'll take it again next Tuesday, when I'll be sure to read the questions properly)