If its with a competent aeros instructor then yep it will be useful. Not many of them about. Just a load of FI's that have spun a C152. And then there is getting a decent machine to do it in which is on a schools books.

Will it decrease accidents?

Well the statics say no. You actually increase the number of training accidents.

Its not me you need to argue with its the statistics boffins. Which is why I doudt it will ever be back in.

But why is he allowed to do that? Isn't there a CFI around? He wouldn't get off the deck at my place, qualified or not. Apart from anything else ATC would have him in for a no tea and biscuits talk.

I'm reminded of the asymmetric training in the RAF during the 50's on twins like the Meteor and Canberra. The training killed far more pilots (and instructors) than any actual engine loss on final ever did

full down autos are not normally done in PPL training. The insurance stuff mainly, not to mention the suitable experience of instructors for teaching them. Robinsons are also easier to crash/ding in full downs, so again, insurance. But you know all this anyway. Just FYI to other readers.

Getting back onto the original subject of the thread.

YOU should be ready to take loved one with you once you've got your PPL. But, are THEY ready to go out with you, and what about you if they are not?

I'm fairly close to the PPL now, i.e. waiting for the weather and me to click to do my qualifier (with the current weather, if feels like I could wait years!). My wife is a very adventurous and enthusiastic person, but I felt that she was a bit anxious at the idea of going out with me. As she is fairly brainy, I thought it would be a good thing for her to take a (real) trial lesson so that she understood how things work. Now, she was never sick in an airplane, so we both forgot she tends to be sea sick... and she became air sick during the trial lesson and came back all wobbly and gray faced.

Now, I am glad I won't have to discover this on my first flight with her with my fresh PPL, as I have the intuition it would have pushed me above my processing threshold, with the attached risk: in the air dealing with sickness; but imagine a landaway, putting her on the train back home, then getting back to the airfield and flying back with extra fatigue; or worse (a very, very bad idea IMO) shoving her back into the plane to fly back after she was sick on the way out.

Someone said above that examiners are thinking whether their kids will be safe with us... but are they thinking about the same kids sick and crying? I'll have to ask :-). Maybe training should include doing a landaway with our instructor messing around in the cockpit instead of seating nicely still and silent!

Anyway, the conclusion of the story for me is that acertaining the level of readiness of your loved ones can only be a good thing. They can take a trial lesson, or fly as passenger with you and your instructor in the front seats (which I'm sure I'll do). All this should also help decrease your own stress level at showing your newly acquired skills off. Reducing stress is everything that PPL training is about after all, so I'm voting for adding "exercising with loved-ones" to the curriculum!

My wife was adamant that the first passenger I took up who wasn't a pilot was her, and I obliged. Fortunately for me, she is a tough sort who loves turbulence more than I do!

I have also flown my sister, my brother in law, my sister in law, my nephew and my niece without incident. Their parents trusted me with their child(ren) and I had less than 100 hours total time when I took them up for the first time. I really like the eggs analogy, because I have the same attitude. Flying in poor visibility or severe turbulence can cause even the most ardent aviation nut to want to call it a day, so why expose non fliers to that environment? I try to shoot for the best weather possible. Aviation is there to be shared and enjoyed by all, and nothing gives me a greater buzz than seeing non fliers break into a smile and ask me when they can go up again just after I shutdown.

As for the thread drift question:

I would have loved to have done VOR/ADF/DME tracking, and I guess I still could, but where I fly it is not a part of the PPL syllabus. I did however do a lot of other extracurricular flying, and I strongly recommend to all low time pilots to seek out as wide a range of flying experiences as possible, even if it is one where you are not hands on. I learned a heap of useful stuff just sitting in the back watching a lesson in progress (flying in the back seat of a twin IMC asymmetrically and a night VFR trip for someones CPL were the two real eye openers for me).

I don't think any pilot ever stops learning.

I got mine my PPL in 2009 and have completed my night and IMC rating since then but I feel, and I am in reality, still just starting out..


I would never do anything that I considered a bit dodgy or dangerous. I am not in the game to cause injury to myself or anyone else.

I think its a case of getting your PPL and just pushing little bits at a time. I've never had to do a SVFR flight, I've never flown internationally (although I did a few hours in Crete whilst on holiday). But these are things that, even if never actually trained by an instructor to do, you can pick up enough detail and read enough online to get through.

I've made some daft errors but it is about learning from them and making sure they don't happen again, that bag full of luck does not last forever.

If new pilots could afford to fly as much as they wanted they would soon get real good quick IMO.

One of the main reasons I am a good driver is because I do it so much and it does not cost £120 per hour to practice. But recognising that it will take longer to get really good at flying is all you need to do and take small steps at a time.


Liam

I think whether you are a new pilot or old hand there is one rule for all.

That is to fly within your own limits and the aircraft limits and above all to know what those limits are.

As for things going wrong with passengers and giving you distractions use your judgement! If your a new PPL with an untried passenger just do a circuit or two keeping close in.

An instructor friend took up a person who appeared to be relaxed and giving him the controls the guy froze on the controls with an iron grip refusing to let go. He literally had to hit him.
If your a new pilot take things slowly! Some new pilots are excellent some old hands I wouldnt have sent my kids up with.

Pace

Of course one never stops learning.

On most long trips I do I could list half a dozen things I learnt, and this is at 1500hrs.

The real Q is whether you are still learning basic stuff like watching the speed during relevant phases of flight. If yes then you will quite possibly kill yourself before you learn it. But then who the hell was your instructor?

Peter

The old saying " a PPL is NO more than a licence to start learning".

having now lost 7 good friends to aviation most of them good very experienced pilots it makes you realise what a cruel mistress aviation can be even to the best!

Your instructor is probably a young guy with a few 100 hrs your real instructor is YOU!!!

Pace

"The old saying " a PPL is NO more than a licence to start learning"."

Yes, but don't you think that sayings like that are just a good excuse for crap training?

I think that that saying is totally meaningless anyway, because if I had paid say £10,000 for a PPL then I would jolly well expect to be able to plan to fly from A to B and execute it correctly.

The fact that so many people do a PPL just to tick a lifestyle box and then give up is what enables the business to deliver such a crap product.

The RAF wouldn't do that because all of their expensive hardware would end up crashed.

Peter

I think maybe you are expecting too much from training. Its a bit like teaching someone to drive a car. You give them the fundamentals but then they are on their own to start building experience which cannot be taught.
The idea of an instructor conjures up the grey haired pilot passing down his years of experience to those he instructs.
That is very different from the low hours instructor who does not have that experience but teaches the fundamentals by the book. There is no soul in that!
Dark night on your own in IMC , turbulence and icing and there is the scared you and the other guy in your head working it all out! How much do you learn in such experiences more than any instructor could ever do!

Your biggest instructor is YOU!!! Fly with your soul!!!!!!!

Pace ;)

Funnily enough I once met an ex-RAF pilot with several hundred hours who had very rudimentary navigational skills... He'd spent a lot of time instructing in the local area, and was used to following vectors from ATC. I got the impression that he was good at not-crashing though.

Regarding the navigation I can completely understand that. I met a Hawk instructor c. 2005 who said they do dead reckoning only. They also used military ATC support heavily and the uk's extensive 121.50 support is a lot to do with that (not for civilian use primarily, apparently) and same for the LARS network. And anyway it's obvious that GPS has dramatically reduced the use of these facilites for navigational assistance.

I am sure the new RAF hardware has the gizmos ok but ISTM that historically the fighter jet fleet had very poor nav capability compared to what you get in a half equipped IFR tourer today or even 15 years ago.

In 2002 I bought a Skymap 2 GPS which even then was a piece of junk. Skyforce stopped making them officially c. 2006 but around then some bit of the military reportedly bought about 100 of them. I thought... :

It's a good job the Russians never invaded :)

Peter

Please read my post above as I had a think and added to it!!! Forget the Gizmos or at least dont give them such importance fly with your own instructor your soul!!!

Pace

Going back to the original question, if the new PPL is renting the aircraft, it is likely they will have good advice (even restriction) on where they go, regarding weather and runways.
If the new PPL has already bought his own plane, the risk is greater.

That may or may not be so, both ways.

Post PPL, the stuff I was renting was absolute crap, with duff avionics etc. I used to fly with a handheld radio tuned to the current freq in case I got a comms failure, and to back up the VOR receiver.

When I bought my own plane, less than 1year post PPL, that was the best thing ever.